How to restore bad sectors on a hard drive. Bad sectors on the hard drive: checking and repairing the disk

Hello admin, question! My computer is 5 years old and it began to noticeably freeze when working in various applications. Often, when turned on, the utility for checking the hard drive for errors automatically starts. Reinstalling Windows did not help and I had to turn to a computer technician I knew, he scanned the hard drive with Victoria and I found a lot of sectors with a delay of more than 200 ms and with a delay of 600 ms (candidates for bad blocks). My friend told me what to do« Recording throughout the clearing» in other words, to perform a sector-by-sector erase of information from the hard drive. Hence the question of how to do it yourself, since my friend always has no time.

Hello friends! This article is a continuation of the story about the Victoria hard drive repair program, and of course it would be better if, before reading this article, you.

Let me briefly remind you of what was discussed in the first article.

If your operating system slows down and freezes, and your hard drive sometimes makes strange sounds, then the problem may be bad sectors (bad blocks).

There are two types of bad sectors: physical and logical.

Physical bad blocks- this is a mechanically deformed sector of the hard disk, from which it is impossible to read information, and it is also impossible to write data to it. It is impossible to correct such sectors with any programs. The firmware built into the hard drive must promptly detect the emerging bad sector and reassign it as a normal sector from the backup track. At this moment, the faulty sector is taken out of operation and information about it is entered into a special defect list. But it often happens that bad blocks are present on the hard drive, but they are not hidden. In this case, you need to hint to the firmware built into the hard drive about the presence of bad blocks on the hard drive using special programs for working with hard drives (Victoria, HDDScan, MHDD) and only after that the bad blocks will disappear if the outcome is favorable.

• Note : for those interested, a more detailed article about bad sectors (bad blocks) .

Logical bad blocks- are much more common, this is information incorrectly written to a sector, which the magnetic head of the hard drive cannot read or reads with a significant delay; if there are many such sectors, then because of this our computer can also work slowly.

To diagnose your hard drive, you can use the Victoria program.

To make everything clear to you, I propose to consider this issue using a specific example.

Meeting 10 years later...

The other day, a friend came to me with a system unit under his arm and complained about the strange operation of the computer (freezes, brakes, constant checks of the hard drive for errors when turned on), reinstalling the operating system did not help.

The system unit turned out to be perfectly clean inside, and the temperature of the processor, video card, and hard drive was normal. Of course, my suspicions fell on the hard drive, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a famous veteran WDC WD1200JS-00MHB0: capacity 120 GB SATA-II, the once popular black high-performance hard drive Caviar SE from the manufacturer Western Digital! Friends, I bought this disc for my friend 10 years ago, pay attention to the production date - October 16, 2005!

So, let's see what's going on with our old friend's health and why he started freezing and slowing down!

I launch the CrystalDiskInfo program from the flash drive and look at SMART (hard drive self-diagnosis), there is nothing criminal, the technical condition is Good.

I also launch the Victoria program directly in a running Windows 8.1 and, always as an administrator, begin to test the surface of the hard drive.

In the initial window of the program, select the tab Standard and in the right part of the window, select the WDC WD1200JS-00MHB0 hard drive with the left mouse.

I go to the tab Tests and mark the points Ignore and read , press Start . A simple test of the hard drive surface is run without error correction. This test is not dangerous for the information located on the hard drive. I'm interested to know what the condition of the hard drive is after ten years of use. The most important thing is not to run any programs during the test, otherwise errors are possible; in general, it is ideal to test the HDD in DOS mode using a bootable USB flash drive of the Victoria program, but we will do this a little later.

After 30 minutes we get the test result:

In our case, there are no bad blocks, but there are sectors with large delay of more than 600 ms, look at the screenshot, everything is shown with arrows.

500 sector blocks with a delay of more than 50 ms.

31 blocks sectors with a delay of more than 200 ms.

7 sector blocks with a delay of more than 600 ms (sector blocks with such a delay are dangerous and are most likely candidates for bad blocks).

There is a small chance that these seven sectors are why the computer freezes.

I propose to use the algorithm for the hard drive in the Victoria program Write(Record, erase) in the jargon of repairmen - “Record throughout the clearing.” There will be a sector-by-sector erasure of information from the disk in blocks of 256 sectors and subsequent forced writing of zeros to the sectors. This is how you can get rid of logical bad blocks and, in some cases, physical bad blocks (a remap will occur).

Logical “bads” after such a forced write will simply lose incorrect information in their sectors; it will be overwritten with zeros.

Physical “bads” may disappear because Victoria too clearly shows them to the built-in firmware of the hard drive, and it will simply reassign the bad blocks as backup sectors from spare tracks!

On the tab Tests mark the item Write (Write, erase). Be careful, all information will be deleted from the hard drive!So make sure you select the correct drive to test. You can mark the itemDDD Enable(increased erasure).

I press Start.

Will be lost(all user data on the WD1200JS-00MHB0 hard disk will be lost).

We agree. Yes.

The process of sector-by-sector erasing information from the hard drive begins.

If we run Disk Management at this moment, we will see that all partitions on the tested hard drive have been deleted along with the data.

After erasing is complete, we again perform a simple test of the hard drive surface.

On the tab Tests mark the points Ignore and read , click Start . A simple test of the hard drive surface is run without error correction.

After 30 minutes I get the result, all sectors with long delays are fixed.

A hard drive is a fairly fragile device. Bad sectors are damaged cells for storing information on a hard drive. After using the hard drive for some time, a problem with bad sectors may occur. This is why it is so important to repair bad sectors from time to time.

This can be easily done using various programs, but first you need to determine whether there are bad sectors. Our article is about this, as well as how to restore the boot sector of a hard drive.

How to recover damaged disk sectors

There are many ways to repair bad boot sectors on a disk. Let's look at several of these methods in detail.

How to restore sectors via Windows

If it is possible to enter the OS, then restoring the hard drive will not require much effort. To do this, you need to call the context menu of the hard drive and select “Properties”.

In the new window that opens, select the “Service” tab, where we click on the “Run check” item. Check the boxes next to “Automatically correct system errors” and “check and repair bad sectors.” After this we run the check.

If the disk is a system disk, a reboot will occur and the verification process will begin. If the disk is not a system disk, then the test will pass without rebooting.

The system itself will find all errors and perform recovery. After which it will display statistics of the work done.

But sometimes it happens that the OS does not boot due to bad sectors.

How to recover bad sectors if the OS does not start

If Windows does not start, you can take a disk with a virtual system and load the virtual OS. In it, all steps to restore a hard drive are performed in the same way as in the previous section.

If you do not have a virtual disk with the OS, then the Windows installation disk will help. After downloading it, you need to select “System Restore”. The recovery console will appear, where you need to select the local disk with your OS. Usually this is the “C:” drive.

After the reboot, a console will appear where you need to enter the command “CHKDSK [drive:]”, where:

• /F - this is to check the disk and correct errors,
• /R is a search for and recovery of bad sectors.

After this, press “Enter” and wait for the recovery to begin. Then we exit the console and restart the computer. All is ready.

How to restore sectors using programs

To restore bad sectors on a hard drive, there are many programs that can be easily downloaded from the Internet. Let's look at their operating principle using the HDD Regenerator program as an example.

The program restores bad sectors by remagnetizing them again. This is achieved by creating a virtual flash drive.

After installation, launch the program. In the window that opens, several options will appear in Russian. You can restore bad sectors both in the Operating System itself and using a flash drive or regular disk from the console.

The program will check bad sectors (broken) and restore them. To make the most of the program, it is better to use a bootable USB flash drive or disk, which is created after installing the program.

The process of checking a hard drive for bad sectors is a search for erroneous records and bad sectors located on the drive.

Some of these problems can cause information loss - in most cases, beyond recovery.

Therefore, every user should be aware of their occurrence - both in order to try to correct errors on the disk, and to back up important information to another location.

The principle of formation of bad sectors

Over time, the owner of almost every HDD has to deal with problem sectors.

The principle of their appearance is as follows:

• During the production of disks, sectors are created, with the help of magnetization of which information can be written to the drive.

• Reading and writing information on (especially if the disk is hit or dropped), and sometimes also the influence of computer viruses, lead to a gradual deterioration in the condition of its structure.
• Bad sectors begin to appear on the surface of magnetic disks - areas in which information is stored incorrectly or not recorded at all.

It is possible to eliminate bad sectors, but the system does not automatically perform such actions - the user will have to manually run the scan and repair.

If there are few bad sectors, they are replaced by reserve areas.

When damaged HDD blocks appear, their addresses are reassigned to sectors from the reserve, and no data loss occurs.

Signs of a problem

Among the main signs that problem sectors have appeared on the disk and need to be restored are: The following are worth noting:

• The computer freezes while loading the operating system;
• failure to start the OS - in most cases, the download only reaches a certain point (for example, the Windows logo or the “Welcome” sign) and stops;
• unreasonable and frequent computer reboots;
• errors in the operation of the system, expressed in the inability to launch applications, closing windows and slow response to user actions.

The list of utilities that can be used to solve the problem is quite large.

They are divided into two main groups– those that are already built into the operating system (for example, Windows), and applications from other manufacturers.

The latter can also be divided into paid programs and free versions, which are more popular among domestic users.

Using Windows Tools

To correct errors and bad sectors, Windows OS already contains .

The advantages of using it include the ability to restore areas damaged during operation or as a result of infection of the system with viruses.

Another plus– the ability to start in two ways, in normal mode or.

The utility is capable of checking any physical and logical disks, however, there are slight differences in working with inactive and system areas.

Thus, the stages of checking and restoring a regular partition (which does not contain system control files and the OS itself) will be as follows:

1 Going to the window "My computer".

2 Right-click to open properties of the selected disk.

3 Select a tab "Service".

4 Pressed check disk button.

5 Put checkbox next to check bad sectors.

System volumes on which Windows is installed are scanned differently.

Starting the utility launch coincides with the steps for a regular partition, but when you try to check the disk, a message appears on the screen stating that it is impossible and asking you to do this after a reboot.

After a reboot, the system does not boot - instead, the system HDD partition is checked, the progress of which can be determined by the information displayed on the screen.

And you can run Hitachi Drive Fitness Test not only from Windows, but also in mode if problems with the disk have already made it impossible to boot the system.

Seagate Seatools

The Seatools utility is a free application that whose capabilities include:

• detection of HDD structure violations, including bad sectors and write or read errors;
• fixing bad sectors or overwriting them with zeros, so that in the future the system ignores damaged areas;
• Windows OS problems;
• damage to the system bootloader;

The application works most effectively with Seagate drives.

The average time to fix detected errors (together with the verification process), depending on the size of the partition, can reach 4 hours.

The advantages of the program include its free distribution and the provision of a detailed report.

HDD Health

The free HDD Health program features the ability to receive while checking bad sectors the following information:

• HDD manufacturer and firmware;
• current storage temperature;
• the general condition of the device structure, including whole and damaged sectors;
• a number of other useful attributes.

The utility is distributed free of charge by Panterasoft.

At the same time, the disk health assessment is carried out only using S.M.A.R.T indicators and is less effective than checking the disk with other applications.

Victoria

A good way is the free Victoria program.

During the scanning process, the user can obtain information not only about disk sectors, but also about all partitions (volumes) of the computer and the connectors to which they are connected.

The utility does not require installation, but should only be run as Administrator.

Rice. 9. HDDScan disk troubleshooting program.

Among the additional information– temperature control of all disks that are connected to the PC. In addition, the test results are generated in the form of a report and can be saved in a separate file.

A hard drive contains millions of sectors. Once any of them is damaged, the data cannot be read or written. There are two types of damage: physical and logical. If this is the first option, then the disk cannot be restored and you need to buy a new one. Otherwise, bad sectors can be fixed in two ways.

Broken areas can cause the loss of important information. Therefore, make sure that you back up the data written to the damaged sector before taking steps to restore it and prevent subsequent writes.

Method 1: Repair bad sectors using the built-in Windows tool

• Check "Check disk". An automatic scan will start.

This tool simultaneously analyzes and repairs bad sectors. When the process is completed, the faulty areas will be restored. By the way, if you want to fix file system errors at the same time, then select this option. A situation may arise when the program reminds you that the disk cannot be recovered because it is already in use. This is usually the C: drive where your operating system is installed. The next time you start your computer, you can repair it automatically.

Method 2: Fix Bad Sectors Using Software

In most cases, bad areas can be repaired using the above method. However, it happens that they appear again, especially when you next try to start the system, and you will again have to take up the old one. If you encounter this, then seek the help of a professional software designed to repair bad sectors. Such utilities solve the problem in one go. Wondershare Liveboot 2012 is a good choice.

Using a bootable CD or flash drive, you can fix bad sectors with one click. This is the right choice if the device has problems starting:

After the check and repair are complete, restart your computer. Now you won't have to fix broken areas again.

Moreover, Wondershare LiveBoot 2012 is also capable of booting a broken or severely damaged computer when experiencing black or blue screen, system lagging, etc.

How to recover data from an external hard drive

If you cannot fix the damaged areas and have not backed up your data, but still want to restore it from an external drive, then try using the above-mentioned program. This tool will return data written in bad sectors:

Step 1. To run Partition Recovery, open Wondershare and select the file type.

Step 2. Find the partition with the lost data.

Step 3. All hard drive partitions will then be detected and listed. You can select the one you are going to restore. To scan lost data, click "Start".

Step 4. After scanning, all recoverable files will appear in the window. You just need to select the ones you need and click “Recover” to save them on your computer.

How to use DBAN to clean up your hard drive

Please note that you can only use the keyboard to manage DBAN and continue the disk cleanup process:

Pressing F2 will show information about DBAN, and F3 will show a list of available commands.

Note! Running the command will destroy data on all connected drives simultaneously. And you won't be able to return them.

So if you are trying to clean up your internal drive, make sure to delete the attached storage. When restoring an external drive, ignore this option, otherwise it will also destroy the data on your internal drive.

In addition, the program has an autonuke option, which by default uses the DOD standard. Type autonuke into the command line and press Enter. Then the hard drive cleaning process will begin without any confirmation.

How to use the interactive mode of the DBAN utility to repair your hard drive

Video - How to recover bad sectors on a hard drive

The question that arises among users about how to restore a hard drive can actually be resolved without the help of various computer technicians who offer to return your hard drive to a working state for a fee. Software developers offer several options for restoring bad sectors, which can be used by a person with almost any level of computer literacy.

What are bad sectors?

To understand what bad sectors are, you need to understand the order of operation of the hard drive and the organization of storing information on it.

The hard drive consists of several rotating magnetic disks over which the read heads move. When recording, these heads magnetize certain areas of the disk, recording information on them. The disk itself is divided into tracks, and they, in turn, into sectors.

If information from a disk cannot be read, it is considered broken. The cause of this problem may be a power failure, physical wear of the disk, mechanical stress, or overheating.

Depending on the reason, two types of unreadable sectors can be distinguished:

1. Mismatch between the recorded information and the checksums at the end of the sector. It usually occurs when the power is turned off during an operation. A similar problem is solved by erasing incorrectly stored information and recording the correct checksums.
2. Physical damage to the disk. A more difficult problem to resolve is one that arises as a result of mechanical stress on the hard drive or its overheating. In this case, damaged sectors are transferred to the reserve area of ​​the disk, but if there are too many of them, the data processing speed is significantly reduced.

In any case, it is worth trying to restore unreadable sectors, at least to make sure that the hard drive is completely inoperable and, with a clear conscience, replace it with a new data storage device.

HDD Regenerator

First, let's figure out how to restore a hard drive using a simple but functional HDD Regenerator program. This utility works with hard drives at a low level, that is, it has exclusive access not only to sectors and clusters of the hard drive, but also to its mechanisms and controllers.

HDD Regenerator, unlike other similar utilities, does not block access to bad sectors, but tries to restore them through magnetization reversal.

Other programs simply block access to the sector, which leads not only to the loss of information stored on it, but also to a reduction in the volume of the hard drive. Recovering deleted files after such a procedure is very difficult. Another question is that this approach allows you to quickly deal with a broken disk, but if you have a small number of bad sectors (up to 100), then it is justified to use the HDD Regenerator program.

The latest versions of the utility are distributed for a fee, but you can use the demo version to familiarize yourself with the program's capabilities. In addition, HDD Regenerator belongs to that type of program, the price for which is offset by its functionality and usefulness.

Working with HDD Regenerator

Download the utility to your computer from the official website. Install it on your computer and, if necessary, Russify it (all necessary files can be found in the public domain).

Russification only applies to the program interface. The DOS mode, in which the main work of the utility occurs, will still be presented in English, and this cannot be corrected.

After launching HDD Regenerator, you will see a window like this:

To start testing and subsequent recovery of the hard drive, click on the top menu “Click to fix.” A warning may appear on the screen indicating that you need to reboot and configure the BIOS by setting the SATA controller to IDE mode. If these words don't mean anything to you, click No. This will not affect the performance of the program in any way.

In the next window, the program will display all hard drives connected to the computer. In the “Select disk” field, you need to double-click on the hard drive that you want to restore life to, or select it and click the “Start” button.

The utility will try to start DOS - the working environment through which direct access to the equipment is provided. Since you are working with the program on a running system, a message will appear on the screen stating that HDDR was unable to obtain exclusive access to the hard drive partitions.

To fix this error, close all applications and end processes running as the user through the Task Manager.

Click "Retry"; If the error appears again, restart your computer and try again to complete all running tasks.

Another way is to start the system in safe mode, checking it in the boot type selection menu (F8 key when starting the computer). As a last resort, you can simply click the “Ok” button and ignore the warning. The program will continue to work, but its performance will decrease slightly.

Sector recovery

In the DOS window that opens, you will see several lines, the purpose of which needs to be discussed separately. In total, you will be offered four options for the program:

When starting the program for the first time, it is recommended to select item number 2. To do this, press “2” on the keyboard and then “Enter”. The following window will appear, asking you to select the scan order. You can specify a specific sector span, enter the disk size, or simply start testing from the very beginning.

If you have a rough idea of ​​which partition the bad sector is located in, then you can try to indicate a specific interval. However, it is more convenient to start checking the disk from the beginning so as not to miss anything. Such a scan will take much longer, but the result will be the most complete.

After selecting the test mode, a disk check will start, during which the number of scanned and identified bad sectors will be displayed on the screen. You can stop the scanning process using the Esc key.

The system may freeze during the scan - this means that HDDR has found bad sectors and is trying to determine the extent of their damage.

After testing is completed, the trial version of HDDR will give you a message informing you that you need to purchase a licensed copy of the program to continue disk recovery. You will be shown the number of bad sectors detected, based on which you can decide whether it is better to buy the full version of the utility or immediately go to the store for a new hard drive.

If you purchased the full version of the program, connect a USB drive - it will be needed during the sector recovery process. After starting the program, select “Bootable USB flash drive” and select the connected media.

All data will be erased from the drive. Instead, the program will write its files to the flash drive, making it bootable.

When you boot into DOS, you will see the same windows as when working with the demo version. This time you need to select the first option - scanning and recovering sectors.

The recovery process itself can take a long time, so if you need to pause it, press the Esc key and be sure to wait for the prompt to exit the program. In this case, the program’s stopping point will be recorded on the flash drive, from which scanning will begin the next time it is launched. Why these difficulties? So as not to sit in front of the computer for days, but to check it in several approaches. For example: restoring 100 bad sectors may require several days of continuous HDDR operation.

Victoria

One of the most popular methods among users is hard drive recovery using Victoria. This program, unlike HDDR, is distributed under a free license.

Victoria can work both in Windows and in DOS mode, allowing you to view the SMART table, scan the disk surface for bad sectors, restore them, and also perform low-level formatting.

Preparation

Before you start checking the disk, you need to configure the hard drive controller in the BIOS. On the “Main” tab, set the “SATA Mode” parameter to “IDE”. After this, you can start using the bootable Victoria flash drive.

After booting from the drive in DOS mode, select the IDE channel you are going to work with. To do this, press the P key and check the “Ext. PCI ATA/SATA" (if the drive is connected via the SATA interface). For IDE drives, select the appropriate port.

A list of channels will appear on the screen, numbered in order. To select your hard drive, press the number that corresponds to its number, and then press Enter.

You can identify errors without scanning - just look at the SMART table of the hard drive. You can call it using the F9 key. In the table, pay attention to two points:

The more bad sectors there are, the less likely it is that the disk can be recovered. However, you can try to restore it to functionality by starting the scanning process.

To open the disk scanning menu, press the F4 key. Select "BB: Erase 256 sect" using the arrow keys on your keyboard and press Enter. The scanning process will start, which will take quite a long time. You can interrupt scanning using the Esc key.

When a sector is detected, the program will try to erase it. If it is physically intact, then the attempt will be successful and you will get rid of the broken parts of the disk. The information will be deleted, but you shouldn’t worry too much about this - getting it out would still be problematic.

If the sector is damaged at the physical level, then an attempt to erase it will be unsuccessful. An error message will appear on the screen. However, this does not mean that you need to stop scanning the disk.

If you cannot restore sectors, try moving them to the backup area. Press the F4 key and use the arrows to select “BB: Classic REMAP”. The scanning process will start again. This time, bad sectors will not be restored, but will be transferred to the backup area.

After scanning the disk is completed (provided the sectors are restored), it is advisable to check the file system using the chkdsk utility.