How to restore bad sectors on a hard drive. How to recover a broken hard drive using software? Using the Remap function in Victoria

Bad sectors on the hard drive

What are bad sectors on a disk? First, let's briefly look at the organization of information storage on a hard drive.

A hard drive is actually made up of several magnetic disks. Magnetic reading heads move above the rotating disks. When recording, the heads magnetize certain areas of the disk, thereby recording zeros and ones - that is, information. Information is not written anywhere, but in strictly defined areas of the disk. The disk is divided into tracks, and they, in turn, into sectors. Information is recorded in these sectors.

In some cases, information from a sector on a disk cannot be read. This sector is called broken. The reason for the formation of bad sectors may be a sudden power outage during a write operation by the hard drive, a shock during operation, overheating, or physical wear and tear. Most often, bad sectors on a hard drive are formed as a result of the first two reasons.

Program for checking disk and recovering bad sectors Victoria

Victoria is a free program by Belarusian programmer Sergei Kazansky for restoring bad sectors and checking the hard drive. This program also has a Windows version.

But I strongly recommend using the DOS version for more reliable operation of the hard drive. Below you will find instructions for working with the DOS version of Victoria.

The Victoria program allows you to view the SMART table of the hard drive, scan the disk surface for bad and hard-to-read sectors, restore bad sectors, and completely erase all sectors on the hard drive (low-level formatting). So, let's get down to business!

Checking the disk for bad sectors

Before you start checking and repairing bad sectors of your hard drive, you need to make preparations. It is necessary to properly configure the hard drive controller in the BIOS so that the program can work correctly with the hard drive. It is necessary to set the SATA controller mode in the BIOS to

IDE

First of all, you need to select the IDE channel with which we will work, that is, to which the hard drive being tested is connected.

To do this, press the "P" (Latin) key. In the menu that appears, select a channel and press Enter. If your drive is connected to a SATA port, then most likely you need to select Ext. PCI ATA/SATA

. If your drive has an IDE connector, then select the port to which it is connected.

If there is a SATA controller correctly configured in the BIOS on the motherboard (in IDE mode), the program will display a list of channels. It is necessary to enter from the keyboard the number of the channel to which the drive being tested is connected. In our case it is "3". Enter the number "3" and press Enter. After the channel has been selected, you need to initialize the hard drive in the program. To do this, press the key

F2 . Service information of the hard drive (its model, capacity and other information) will appear on the screen. If this happens, then you did everything correctly and the program was able to connect to the disk. .

Now the first thing you should do is look at the SMART table of the hard drive. In many cases, the information from it can clarify the situation even without scanning the surface. To view a SMART disk in Victoria 3.52 you need to press the key F9 In the table, we are primarily interested in two points: Reallocated sector count And

Current pending sectors

The first parameter shows the number of sectors transferred to the reserve zone (restored or remap), the second parameter shows the number of suspicious sectors, that is, which the hard drive could not read for one reason or another.

Now let's look at the question of how to recover bad sectors on a disk. Fixing bad sectors is actually not that difficult. To begin with, you can simply scan the disk for bad sectors, but we will immediately enable the recovery function.

Now we should say a little about the mechanism for restoring bad sectors or bad blocks. There are two types of unreadable sectors.

In the first case, the sector cannot be read due to a mismatch between the information written in it and the checksum at the end of the sector. This problem can happen if the power is suddenly turned off during the recording process. That is, when the information in the sector has managed to be recorded, but the checksum remains old. Such bad sectors are not inherently defective. They just contain conflicting information that the hard drive cannot recognize. Such bad sectors are treated by erasing the information in them and writing new correct checksums. After this, the sector becomes readable and writable.

In the second case, there is physical damage to the sector (demagnetization, scratch, etc.). Such a defect may occur, for example, due to a shock or overheating of the hard drive during operation. In this case, the process of fixing bad sectors is more complicated. Each disk has a spare unused area. That is, any disk actually has a slightly larger capacity than is actually used. This area is used to redirect unreadable sectors to it.

A new physical address in the spare area for the defective sector is entered into the disk table. The logical address remains the same. That is, the sector seems to remain the same, but in reality it is located in a different place (remap).

This approach, of course, reduces the read and write speed in the area of the disk with the transferred sector, since the magnetic heads have to move to the end of the disk (to the spare area) when accessing the redirected sector. But this approach is justified when the number of forwarded sectors is small and the data processing speed is reduced slightly. Restoring bad sectors using the Victoria 3.52 program Now let's put the theory into practice. To open the disk check menu, press the key F4, as it shown on the picture. Now press Enter and the process of scanning the disk surface for bad blocks will start. The process is quite long. If you want to interrupt the scanning process, press Esc on your keyboard.

If a bad sector is detected, the program will try to erase it. If the sector is physically healthy, then this attempt will be successful. There will be no information left in the sector, but it will be possible to use it in the future. Don't worry too much about the information. If the sector is unreadable, then it will be practically impossible to extract it from there, so by erasing the sector, no additional information is lost. If the sector is unreadable due to a physical defect in the disk, then an attempt to erase the unreadable sector will fail and an error will be reported, as in the figure below.

Even if the process of erasing sectors ends with an error, I recommend not stopping the scan, since the disk may have bad sectors of both the first and second options. And if a bad sector can be restored by erasing, then it is better to do so than to transfer it to the reserve area (which is quite limited).

If it was not possible to restore bad sectors by erasing, then you should try transferring unreadable sectors to the reserve area (remapping). Press the key Restoring bad sectors using the Victoria 3.52 program. This time use the arrows to select BB: Classic REMAP, as it shown on the picture. After that press Enter. The scanning process will begin again. But this time, when a bad sector is detected, the Victoria program will try to perform redirection and move the bad block to the backup area. On some drives, the spare area is very small, so if it runs out of space, the attempt will fail. In our case, everything went well (picture below).

Bad sectors on the hard drive have been successfully restored. Now you need to check the file system for errors (for example, through ERD Commander utility chkdsk

Repairing bad sectors will help extend the life of your hard drive and even recover some previously lost files. However, you should remember that this is a responsible and rather risky business, since by pressing the wrong buttons, you can completely ruin your hard drive. Follow the instructions provided in this article strictly and you will be able to recover some bad sectors. Before starting work, select the software with which you will restore sectors. There are many convenient programs for you to choose from: Victoria, HDAT2, HDDregenerator.

How to recover bad sectors of a hard drive using HDAT2

Working with this utility requires the presence of a boot disk or bootable flash drive. You will learn how to write them down in another article. Daemon Tools or Ultra ISO must be installed on your computer.

Download the HDAT2 program from the official website https://hdat2.com.
You need the “CD/DVD Boot ISO” partition.
Download the latest version, which comes in ISO format, not SFX.

Find your file in the downloads folder and open it using Daemon Tools or other software for mounting images.

Take a blank disk and click on the “Burn image to disk” field.

Please note that all your further work with this utility will take place entirely in the BIOS. Read carefully the fields you click on.

To begin, turn off your computer and enter the BIOS. Each brand of computer has its own login buttons. Try holding F12 or F7, or better yet, read about it on the Internet.
After entering the BIOS, select the system boot method - CD/DVD, and then enter the HDAT2 command, as in the screenshot below.

After this, you will see a menu with hard drives that are connected to your computer. If he is alone, then you should not have any problems with the choice. Click on your hard drive and press Enter.
In the window that appears, select the line “Hidden areas menu”.

Now test your computer for bad sectors. Even if you know their exact number, you will still have to run the test, since the program needs it to further fix the problem. Click “Powerful test READ/WRITE/READ/COMPARE”

That's all. Click on the very first line, as shown in the screenshot, to repair your sectors. Please note that this will take quite a long time, so you can move the laptop aside and go about your business. As soon as the program finishes working with Bad sectors, do not forget to return the system boot not from the CD, but from the hard drive.

How to recover bad sectors of a hard drive using HDD Regenerator

When starting to work with this utility, you can read a lengthy article about its work in order to roughly understand the structure of the program: . The advantage of the utility is that you do not have to create a bootable USB flash drive or disk and log in from the BIOS. Experienced users note that this program actually corrects the problem by degaussing, rather than simply disabling bad sectors.

Download the program on the Internet, keep in mind that only its first use is free. If you want to heal bad sectors again, you will have to buy the software.
Installing the program takes just seconds.

Look carefully at the window interface:

The left button “Bootable USB Flash” will help you create a bootable USB flash drive for working with the program in the BIOS.
The right “Bootable CD/DVD” creates a boot disk for the same purposes.
The top line allows you to work from under the Windows axis, which saves a lot of time.

Click on the top line.

Select your hard drive. The model, amount of memory and all sectors will be written on it. Just double click on it.

Please note that all windows must be closed and all processes stopped. Only then can you start working with sectors - the hard drive should be unloaded as much as possible.

Select the second item in the menu that appears – “Normal Scan (with/without repair)”. This option repairs bad sectors while scanning all sectors of the hard drive. Please note that the mouse does not work in this program. You need to enter the number 2 and then press Enter.

Now you need the “Scan and repair” item to confirm your intention to fix all sectors. Enter number 1.
You can also enter the number 3 to activate the “Regenerate all sectors” item. This option carries out preventive maintenance on absolutely all sectors, even if they are not damaged. This is more suitable for experienced users who can independently cope with possible problems during the regeneration process.

Now you have to select the start of the scan:

Point number 1 “Start sector 0” starts scanning and treatment from the very beginning.
The second option “Start sector ***” continues the previous scan if it was interrupted for one reason or another.
And the third item “Set start /end sectors manually” allows you to enter the range of sectors to check manually.

It's better to start from the very beginning by choosing the first option.

The process will start instantly, all you have to do is wait.

HDD(HDD, HDD, hard drive) is one of the most unreliable components of a computer. It can easily be “killed” by a voltage surge or excessively large voltage ripples on the +12 V line (low-quality power supplies are guilty of this). Vibrations also slowly damage the drive if it is not firmly secured in the case. Flipping the disk during operation can cause the spindle head to move and, as a result, break the disk. This fragility of the hard drive is due to its internal design.

In addition, like any product, a hard drive has a certain service life. Modern models have a service life of 5 years or more (depending on the build quality and components). In case of hardware problems, restoring a hard drive is often impossible, or it is possible, but for a short period of time, which will help to slightly delay the purchase of a new device.

Hard drive software problems also cause inconvenience to the user and can lead to the loss of important data, but they are not so dangerous for the device itself. Restoring the hard drive in this case guarantees its long and stable operation if the hard drive does not have hardware problems. How to recover a hard drive? Through the use of specialized software! This process is quite simple and can be carried out even by a non-specialist at home.

Hard drive recovery programs

Before you start restoring your hard drive, you need to install the following software:

Victoria HDD 4.47. A reliable and time-tested, but already outdated tool that has not received updates for a long time. Suitable primarily for diagnosing a hard drive; recovery is poor and cannot restore some hard drives;
HDD Regenerator. The main working tool for HDD recovery. It helps in most cases, but is paid (however, there are activators for it);
(optional) AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition 7.0. To restore those hard drives that have hardware problems.

The smallest organizational unit of the main memory of a hard drive accessible to the user is a sector. The sector size of modern drives is 4-8 kBytes. Their number is measured in hundreds of millions and even billions. Each hard drive has a certain number of “spare” sectors (~10% of the volume). If the “primary” sectors fail, the hard drive marks one of the “spare” sectors with the number of the sector that is faulty and the hard drive continues normal operation. The hard drive performs all these actions independently, without user intervention. However, various errors may appear in the operation of this system, and then it is necessary to manually restore the hard drive.

Step-by-step hard drive recovery: instructions

Let's figure out how to restore a hard drive. To do this, the following steps are required:

Launch Victoria HDD;
Select the drive you want to check in the list at the top right
Go to the “Tests” tab, then click on “Start”. All parameters should be by default, as in the screenshot:
Wait for the diagnostics to complete. This takes quite a long time, depending on the speed of the hard drive, the number of “bad” and “slow” sectors. Upon completion, the program will show the number of “broken” sectors of the hard drive. If none are found, then your hard drive is “healthy”. You can try to restore “broken” sectors in Victoria by selecting the “Remap” check script (see screenshot), but it is better to immediately go to HDD Regenerator;
Launch HDD Regenerator. After activating the key or hacking the program, the following picture will appear:
Click on the “Recovery” menu and select “Start processing from Windows”:
Select the hard drive that needs to be restored and click “start process”:
Enter “2” and press Enter:
Now enter “1”, selecting scan and recover hard disk sectors, then press Enter:
To check all sectors of the hard drive, enter “1” and press Enter again. If you need to reduce the recovery time, then you need to enter “3”, press Enter, enter the number of the starting sector (usually the number of the first “broken” sector detected by Victoria) and the final sector (the number of the last “broken” sector detected by Victoria). However, it is better to check the entire hard drive to absolutely make sure there are no “bad” sectors:
Wait until the scan is completed and the hard drive is restored. If everything is normal, the program will write about how many “bad” sectors were detected, repaired and replaced:

When HDD recovery fails

In some cases, only the DOS version of HDD Regenerator can restore a hard drive. If you were unable to restore your hard drive using the Windows version of the program, then you should try doing it from DOS.

If the hard drive runs out of spare sectors, and the detected “bad” sectors cannot be cured by software, then it will not be possible to restore the hard drive.

The problem of how to restore a hard drive that has hardware problems and is not amenable to the software recovery described above is relevant for many users. In this case, you will have to “cut” disk space, cutting off “broken” sectors in AOMEI Partition Assistant. You may need several such divisions; areas with “bad” sectors can be hidden in the same program so that files are not written there by mistake. This kind of “recovery” of the hard drive will only help in the short term. As a result, the HDD will be divided into n number of partitions, some of which (with defective clusters) will be marked as hidden.

Bad sectors are found on almost all HDDs. Especially those that are actively used for a long time. Sometimes the problem gets out of control and turns into a real disaster, destroying all data on the HDD in any partitions. To prevent this from happening, find out how to repair bad hard drive sectors at home.

What are bad sectors and why do they appear?

You can imagine a bad block as a book with the last chapter torn out. You can read it up to a certain point. But as soon as there is a gap in the pages, you will not be able to finish reading. HDD works the same way. The magnetic head reads information within the track, but in some area it encounters a damaged surface or an empty bit of information, which makes it impossible to extract the information completely.

Almost all hard drives have broken partitions. There may be one or several, and in most cases it is not scary. But over time, there are more and more of them, and they make it increasingly difficult to operate information on the HDD. Such areas can be identified by scanning the hard drive for bad sectors using special utilities.

There can be many reasons for the appearance of bad sectors:

impact of the disc or use in improper conditions;
interrupting recording by turning off the power;
overheating and temperature surges;
natural wear and tear on the heads and writing disk;
low quality products.

Here you can divide bad sectors into non-recoverable and recoverable sectors. The first are those caused by shock or overheating. They are destroyed once and cannot be restored, and information, as a rule, disappears forever. The second type of bad sectors appears as a result of an interruption in the recording process. They can be restored by simply rewriting the disc.

Over time, write and read speeds may decrease. And after a slight fall of your laptop, the disk may stop working altogether. Everything would be really bad if it weren’t possible to somehow regenerate bad blocks. The fact is that hard drives have a certain reserve area, which means a potentially larger volume than stated on the receipt. You can use the extra space to transfer contents from damaged areas to it. How to recover bad sectors of a hard drive in this way is indicated below.

Danger is near

You can notice the problem not only after a hard drive failure, but also in the initial stages. You should be wary of the following signs:

Disk writing/reading speed has dropped;
unusual noise is heard when accessing the HDD;
began to overheat;
subjected to mechanical stress;
The system often crashes, and at startup chkdsk runs without permission.

As a rule, these reasons indicate the beginning of the end of your HDD. To avoid losing data, the first good solution would be a backup. Transfer all the necessary files to another computer, flash drive, disk, and, if possible, set up synchronization with the cloud.

Most modern hard drives check for bad sectors themselves, without user intervention. This is both good and bad, since you cannot influence the elimination of bad blocks and learn about their appearance on system partitions.

When to scan?

You can scan your hard drive for errors at a certain frequency, which depends on the frequency of use of the computer and is calculated individually. Some people carry out scheduled computer maintenance once a month, others - once every six months.

To do this, you can use system utilities or programs to restore bad sectors of the hard drive. A scan should be performed immediately after detecting the problems listed above.

Scanning using standard tools

Starting with Windows 8, the system itself is capable of scanning disks on a schedule and thereby prolonging the operation of the HDD. You can set up a scanning schedule at: “My Computer” / “Management” (a tab will appear in the main menu when the section is active). In Windows, checking your hard drive for bad sectors can be done with the standard chkdsk program. The utility can be launched in several ways:

The work is not fundamentally different, so let’s consider the first option:

Open Command Prompt as Administrator. Right-click on the Start menu icon or simply in the lower left corner on Windows 8 and select “Command Prompt (Admin)” from the list.
If you want to scan a non-system drive, enter the command with the keys chkdsk /f /r to scan and fix the entire disk at once, and chkdsk D: /f /r to fix only partition D or any other existing one. Additionally, you can enter the /x switch to disable the volume being scanned during the scan. If you diagnose a working disk, the program will prompt you to reboot in order to complete the work without logging in.
If chkdsk finds errors in the partitions in use, it will offer to reboot and fix the sectors before the system starts.

To display all options, type help chkdsk. A list will appear showing all available keys with explanations. You can use any combinations at your discretion, as long as you understand the essence of what is happening and the possible consequences. At the end of the scan, all data about the operation will be displayed in the log.

Third party programs

In addition to the built-in chkdsk, you can use third-party programs to fix bad sectors on your hard drive. There are many software that can recover damaged partitions.

Among the popular free software, I would like to highlight Victoria. This program for recovering bad sectors of a hard drive is well known and at one time was very popular among repairmen. The Victoria program can work in both windowed and DOS mode, which allows it to be used even on dead systems to restore information.

Victoria interface

The program is perfect for recovering bad sectors of a hard drive. Victoria is intended more for experienced users, since it contains virtually no interface and does not even have a localization tool included. But this does not prevent it from working correctly with hardware and file systems.

There are quite a lot of settings, switches and different numbers, and when you open the program for the first time, it can be difficult to navigate. But by following the steps below, let's learn how to repair bad sectors on your hard drive.

Testing and Analysis

In the Smart tab of this program you can quickly assess the general condition of the disk. The score is assigned based on an analysis of the various values given in the table. There you can view the status of each parameter separately.

For simple testing, go to the Tests tab. There are quite a lot of settings in each section, so for the initial analysis you can leave everything at default. Click on the Start button and wait until testing is completed. A complete check of the hard drive for bad sectors takes a long time. Therefore, you can safely leave testing overnight and go to bed.

Additionally, the window contains a speed graph or a color indication of sectors. You can switch the view using the Grid checkbox next to the timer.

Correcting sectors

If you don’t have time to wait for several checks, then after assessing the condition, you can immediately begin treating bad sectors of the hard drive. Victoria uses the Remap method to rewrite blocks. It reassigns bad blocks to normal ones from the spare disk space. To repair bad sectors, do the following:

During the scan, the log will display all errors found and a report on the measures taken. It also indicates in which part of the disk the problems were detected.

How to trim?

Often, bad partitions predominate at the beginning or end of the disk. The thought immediately comes to mind: “What if we don’t use the space with bad sectors?” Yes, it can be cut off and no longer used. You can find out which partition of disk space is best to cut off like this:

You should only work with the system disk in DOS mode until the OS is loaded. While the backup or restored one can be marked directly from Windows. This method is good for large HDDs. But it does not help specifically restore broken partitions on the hard drive, as happens during the remap process.

Prevention

To prevent the hard drive from “dying” in your hands, it is advisable to carry out some preventative measures. Depending on the type of equipment.

If you have a laptop:

try not to hit him;
Do not shake too much, especially during working hours;
Do not expose to vibrations or temperature changes.

If you have a desktop computer:

do not place the system unit in a damp place;
do not allow components to overheat;
although the HDD itself is sealed, the board can be damaged by a layer of dust, so get rid of it;
Install additional cooling on the hard drive if the computer is actively used or the hard drive is unable to cool itself.

Defragmentation is a useful preventive measure for all hard drives. There are a lot of programs, both in-house and third-party, to carry it out.

Now you know how to repair bad sectors on your hard drive and maybe even be able to save valuable information on it if problems arise.

The computer hard drive is a very sensitive component. Errors that appear in its file system, bad sectors on the surface, and mechanical problems sometimes cause a complete failure of the computer system.

The same problems are typical for flash drives, which in essence are practically no different from a hard drive. How to determine the presence of errors and bad sectors and how to correct them if possible?

Just a little bit of theory

Many people simply confuse file system errors and bad sectors. Therefore, we will try to explain the difference between these phenomena and the reason for their occurrence. We will also determine what the symptoms of errors that appear on the surface of the hard drive may be.

File system errors

When people talk about hard drive errors and trying to fix them using the chkdsk utility built into Windows, they most often mean file system errors. Such errors are associated with problems with metadata that describe the file system itself: errors in the $Bitmap, $BadClus files, the main file table, and various indexes.

For example, errors in the $Bitmap file of the NTFS file system can cause the system to incorrectly recognize the amount of free space on a volume. And problems with the $BadClus file can lead to incorrect identification of bad sectors and an attempt to write data to such sectors, which will cause the computer to completely freeze.

Bad sectors

The nature of bad sectors is somewhat different. The hard drive is “cut” into sectors at the factory during production. It is then that its logical structure is created, then it receives magnetic properties for recording data. These structures become faulty as a result of the gradual degradation of areas of the surface of the hard drive, which become so due to careless handling of the hard drive, which was accidentally dropped on the floor or was hit on the case even with an ordinary screwdriver.

Testing programs that fall on parts of a degrading surface detect so-called faulty or damaged sectors - bad sectors. Sectors that have lost their magnetic properties do not allow data to be read or written to them. It is possible to eliminate faulty hard drive structures. For this purpose, manufacturers create special reserve areas of sectors. When a bad sector appears, diagnosed at a specific address, its address is reassigned to a sector from this reserve area.

Symptoms of errors and bad sectors

We have already talked a little about the symptoms of file system errors above. However, the symptoms are sometimes very varied. Here are some manifestations of errors and bad sectors that have arisen in the hard drive.

Noticeable freezing of the operating system when performing read and write operations.
Failure to load the operating system. For example, downloading continues only until the download notification and Windows logo appear.
Frequent occurrence of errors in the operating environment.
Extremely slow and unproductive operating system.

Here is a far from complete list of error manifestations associated with file system problems and the presence of degrading areas of the hard drive. What to do in such cases?

Checking errors using Windows

Checking and correcting file system errors in Windows is carried out by a standard utility of this operating environment called chkdsk. It can also be useful in eliminating programmatically generated bad sectors as a result of viruses. It can be launched both in a graphical environment and from the command line. Let's consider the most accessible option for performing it in a graphical environment.

Checking an inactive volume

Checking an inactive volume is the simplest. It can be done entirely in graphical mode. By inactive volume we mean a partition on which the currently running operating system is not installed. This could be another connected hard drive or, for example, drive D.

Click the "Run check" button.

The utility is launched from the “Service” tab of the volume properties. This tab contains the “Run check” button. If you click it, the chkdsk utility window will open. To check bad sectors that appeared as a result of software errors, you need to check the box next to the corresponding option. Next, just click the “Run” button - the utility will check and correct errors.

The chkdsk utility checks volume D, also diagnosing bad sectors.

Checking the system volume

Checking and correcting errors on the system volume, where the operating environment valid at the time of checking is located, is carried out a little differently. The utility identifies such a volume as mounted, and therefore warns that it cannot perform the check, but offers to perform it during the next reboot.

The chkdsk utility reports that it cannot scan the disk.

After restarting the computer, the user will find that during boot, after the Windows logo appears, a black screen appears. This black screen is gradually filled with lines of text. This is the chkdsk utility that checks the system volume of the hard drive. After checking and making the necessary corrections, it will show the result, and then the operating system will continue loading.

The chkdsk utility checks volume C after a reboot.

Programs for checking hard drives for bad sectors

There are a number of applications on the software market that can test the surface of a hard drive. In this case, not just one volume is tested, but the entire surface of the hard drive. Of course, the user can independently set the boundary sectors and test individual areas. To identify bad sectors, a sector read test is usually performed.

Important: the results of the test for the presence of bad sectors must be considered in conjunction with SMART indicators, such as Reallocation Sector Count, Reallocation Event Count.

Data Lifeguard Diagnostic

This utility was created by Western Digital developers. It is available for download on the company's official website. Lifeguard Diagnostic works great with hard drives from almost any manufacturer, and not just native WD hard drives, as one might think. It offers a number of tests: Quick, Advanced, as well as the ability to fill hard drive sectors with zeros.

Interface of the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic utility.

We are most interested in the extended test. This test allows you to detect bad sectors on the surface of disks. When the program finds a bad sector, it informs the user about it, asking him to choose whether he wants to fix the detected error. If it agrees, then the application writes to sector 0, so the sector data will be lost.

A selection of utility tests. We need Extended Test.

This test takes longer than the quick test. Testing time depends on the size of the drive, since the test is carried out on the entire surface, starting from sector 0 and ending with the maximum LBA value.

Extended Test utilities in operation.

HDDScan

The HDDScan application also seems to be an excellent hard drive surface tester. It can often be seen as part of entire software packages such as LiveCD. This application has a graphical interface and offers a number of tests, among which, in our case, the most interesting is “Surface Tests”.

Select the Surface Test from the drop-down list.

Important: when conducting surface tests under Windows, you must close all running programs to avoid random results during the test caused by the action of these programs.

After selecting a test, an additional window will open, which presents the test parameters. Let's leave the “Read” option enabled, which will only allow us to read data from sectors. Thus, we will define sectors from which information cannot be read within a specified time (bad sectors), frozen sectors and normal cells. We will leave the fields of the initial and final sectors unchanged if we want to check the entire surface.

Let's leave the Read test option enabled.

When testing with this program, a number of sectors are identified:

bad sectors,
stuck sectors, reading data from which takes more than 500 ms,
sectors with reading time from 150 to 500 ms,
sectors with reading time from 50 to 150 ms,
sectors with reading time from 10 to 20 ms,
HDDScan considers sectors whose data is read within 5 ms to be normal.

The program test result is available in the form of a line graph, a sector distribution map, and also as a regular text report.

Checking the hard drive surface.

Ashampoo HDD Control

Unlike the programs discussed above, HDD Control is not a free program. This application is a whole set of tools designed to restore the health of your hard drive. This program also offers the ability to test the surface of the hard drive.

Select the "Surface Test" option.

The test is very simple and accessible to the average HDD Control user. To start it, you just need to click the “Surface Testing” button. It lacks additional options that would allow you to customize the type of test. During testing, only two types of sectors are identified: with excellent reading results and bad sectors.

Victoria HDD

Victoria considers the health of the hard drive being tested to be "GOOD".

This application can collect information about the SMART health of your hard drive. It also allows you to test the disk surface, reassign damaged sectors using the Remap operation, and reset bad sectors. It also divides sectors into groups:

bad sectors (Error),
stuck sectors with a read time of more than 600 ms,
freezing sectors with readout times from 200 to 600 ms,
sectors with reading time from 50 to 200 ms,
sectors with reading time from 20 to 50 ms,
Victoria diagnoses normal sectors within the framework of data reading up to 5 ms.

To test your hard drive, you can run this program in Windows graphical mode. Next, you will need to select the “Tests” tab. This is where the surface tests are located. There are four options available for working with the hard surface:

Ignore,
Remap
erase,
Restore.

First of all, you can perform the Ignore test to determine whether there are bad sectors on the surface of the hard drive. If they are, then you need to start the Remap test. This test will allow you to reassign the addresses of damaged sectors to the reserved area, where normal sectors are located.

Types of tests available and sector categories. Victoria checks the surface.

If, after the Remap test, Victoria continues to diagnose bad sectors, then you can still try to restore their functionality by using the Restore test. The Erase option should be used wisely under Windows, as it writes zeros to sectors - erases sector data. It can only be used within a certain selection of sectors, the data of which is not related to the operating system.

Brief summary

It should be noted that there is a difference between errors eliminated by the chkdsk utility of the Windows operating system and bad sectors eliminated by programs such as Victoria HDD. The former are caused by file system problems, and the latter are often the result of the loss of magnetic properties of sectors of the hard drive surface and its gradual degradation. However, chkdsk can also fix some problems with bad sectors.

To eliminate bad sectors, you can use such applications as: Data Lifeguard Diagnostic, Ashampoo HDD Control, HDDScan, Victoria. We highlight the Victoria HDD application as the best for checking and eliminating bad sectors, as it offers a number of tests: Ignore, Remap, Erase and Restore. It allows you not only to detect faulty hard surface structures, but also to treat the HDD.