Quick hard drive check. Programs for checking your hard drive for errors

You are reading this article because your HDD is experiencing problems or you accidentally came across a title that interested you. In any of the two cases, it will be useful to know what checking a hard drive for bad sectors is and how to do it. As usual, let's start with terminology. A disk sector is a unit of information storage, the smallest possible. A damaged sector is one that is unreadable due to the fact that it contains a faulty cluster (cell). By the way, on the Internet you can also come across the terminology – bad sector or block. Speaking about bad sectors, we immediately note that there are two types: physical and logical, they arise for the following reasons.

Physical bad block – cannot be restored:

ingress of moisture/dust – led to clogging;
contact of the HDD head with a moving pancake and, as a result, damage;
With regards to SSDs, wear and/or overheating of the microcircuit, as well as moisture ingress may be the cause;
Factory defects are also possible, especially among inexpensive and little-known manufacturers.

Logical bad sectors - can be fixed, since part of the hard drive does not work correctly:

Incorrect disconnection of the power/power cable while writing data to the hard drive, so the operation cannot be completed and is interrupted;
virus attack;
malicious software.

So, when accessing them, the OS cannot read the information and displays an error code; as a result, Windows will report that the sector is damaged and cannot be further used for storage. The problem of logical bad sectors is solved by low-level formatting, using built-in Windows utilities and third-party software. Below are more details about each possibility.

Built-in tools

Checking an HDD hard drive for bad sectors, as already mentioned, is carried out in a number of ways, starting with the built-in tools of Windows 7.

CHKDSK

Before using check disk, let's use disk check - many have probably already used this service.

If the check indicates errors, it will immediately offer to correct them.

Now let's use a deeper check using the check disk command, which literally translates to disk check:

The chkdsk command has a number of parameters, such as:

“/F” - check for errors and fix them automatically;
“/V” - during disk scanning, display the full paths and names of files stored on the disk, also for disks with NTFS partitions;
“/R” - searches for bad sectors and restores the contents, used with “/F”;
"/X" - dismounts the volume before checking if necessary, used with "/F". As well as a number of other parameters.

Checking the flash drive for bad sectors is also carried out, let’s use the “/F” and “/R” keys:

Third party software

Today there is a lot of software that allows you to check your hard drive for the presence of bad sectors, but we will look at proven software. The program for checking an external hard disk HDD for bad sectors is performed using the same means as a regular disk. All instructions indicated are suitable for all types of memory, both stationary and connected via a USB port.

Victoria HDD

The Victoria HDD program is one of, dare we say, legendary.

Designed to check the disk; shows complete information: model, functions, size and much more. It also performs a surface test to determine the presence/absence of bad sectors. Let's check a hard drive or SSD disk for bad sectors in Windows 7 with Victoria. First, you need to download the installation package from our resource, the fact is that it is not possible to download from the official website, since support for this product is no longer provided.

Use only proven resources; I would like to note that no installation is required and no additional components should be included in the archive. After successfully downloading the software, let's proceed to use.

Wait for the result and look at the performance indicators of the screw, so if “GOOD” is highlighted in green, then there is no point in worrying about the operation of the device, but if “BAD” is indicated, then you should take action, but more on that later.

In addition, pay attention to the “Health” column, translated from English as health, and in general, the number of dots and their color will say a lot. It is also worth paying attention to the “VAL” parameter - the higher the number, the better, then “Wrst” or “Worst” - displays the lowest attribute value for the entire time of operation. The “Tresh” parameter is a threshold value for “Val”, and one of the most important “Raw” - displays a quantitative indicator, as in the example indicated by field ID 5 “RAW” - Reallocated sector count indicates the number of rejected and reassigned from the reserve area disk sectors - in this case 1. If the number were much higher, you would have to start worrying.

Let's go to the “Tests” tab → click “Start” → wait for the result.

HDDScan

Another program for checking bad sectors of an SD card and any media is HDDScan. You can download it from the official website.

No installation is required, and we open the executable file on behalf of the machine Administrator.

By the way, by clicking on the same button with the image of a screw → “Identity Info”, you can get complete identification information about the device.

Next about the tests, select “Butterfly Read”.

Here the data will be read into the internal buffer and transmitted through the interface, saving it in a temporary software buffer. Thus, the total indicators of data transfer time and block recording are measured, and readiness is determined after each write, according to the results. Testing is also sequential, from the minimum to the maximum block.

As for the two remaining tests, they work as follows:

“Read” - measures the total indicators of disk readiness time and information transfer for each block with results. Testing is also sequential, from the minimum to the maximum block.
“Erase” - here the total block record and information transfer time are measured, and displays the readiness for each record with the results. Testing is also sequential, from the minimum to the maximum block.

HDD REGENERATOR

Checking a disk for bad sectors in Windows 7 is also done using HDD REGENERATOR software. I would like to immediately note that it is paid and in English. Free demo version available on the official website

Next, follow the screenshots step by step to install.

Let's start checking:

At the top of the window, click on the long active text “Click here to repair...”, in the program status bar we see information that this copy is not registered and that only 1 sector can be restored.

Further, if a window appears with an important message, translated into Russian it literally sounds like this: “The system has detected a SATA controller operating in AHCI mode. For better performance, it is recommended to change it to IDE compatible mode (in BIOS). Do you need to restart the computer to manually change the controller settings in the system BIOS? It's up to you here.

In order to show the possibility of work, I will connect an external screw and click in the main window again on the active link with the text “Click here to repair...”, having already selected the connected screw:

In the results table we see the following indicators:

“D” delays sectors – shows the sectors where the reading delay occurs or is completely erroneous.
“B” bad - bad sectors.
“R” is turquoise, recovered – restored.
“N” new bad sectors appear – new bad sectors appear.
“R” is burgundy color, bad sectors reappear - bad sectors that reappear during re-scanning.

By pressing the spacebar, we will exit to the main menu, and by pressing any key, we will exit this report.

Now let’s select scanning with the possibility of recovery, step by step in the screenshots.

Recovering bad sectors

So, the hard drive has been checked for bad sectors in Windows 7, and now it is necessary to restore the data. I’ll say right away that in general, complete recovery of bad sectors is possible from MS DOS with a bootable flash drive. But we will show how the full version of Victoria HDD can correct the situation.

As soon as the list of bad sectors is displayed, go to the “Tests” tab:

So we assigned the program an algorithm to force data to be written to the bad sector of the hard drive, and several attempts will be made. As a result, either the bad sector will become healthy, or it will be replaced by a healthy reserve one, by the way, modern models have a sufficient number of them, but if the screw begins to crumble, it’s time to take action.

Long life to your HDD!

Have a great day!

Hello friends. Checking the hard drive or how to check a hard drive for errors and bad sectors, we will talk about this in detail today.

In the previous article I showed. Today you will learn about programs for testing hard drives and other storage media. At the end of the review I posted a short video tutorial.

Checking our disk

It is useful for anyone who has a computer to know about the status of the hard drive or drives, if there are several of them. After all, the hard drive stores information that is important for some, and not so important for others. So, in order not to lose it, I recommend making backup copies at least once a month.

You can purchase a portable disk or flash drive to store important information, or you can use regular CDs and DVDs. If you don’t know how to save information on optical plastic discs, then I recommend reading.

You can test computer disks in different ways and with special programs. In this article we will look at:

Checking the disk using Windows 7
Useful Victoria v4.3
HDDScan program
Ashampoo HDD Control 2

There are, of course, many other useful and worthy programs and utilities, but in this publication we will only talk about these 4 methods.

How to check your hard drive using Windows 7

Any hard drive or flash drive can be checked for functionality using Windows tools. I wrote more about this here. Here is a simple algorithm for the necessary actions.

Go to My Computer, select the desired hard drive or flash drive, right-click on it and go to Properties.

Check the boxes you need or all and click Start.

This procedure can take a long time, everything will depend on the size of the storage medium that you want to check for errors and bad sectors.

Checking the disk with Victoria

Victoria one of the main programs that I personally use to check the hard drive through Windows, or if the operating system does not start at all, then through a boot disk with this utility.

After downloading Victoria version 4.3, you need to go into the archive, unpack it or run the file with a green cross called Victoria43.

Let's launch the program, it's in English, if you don't know this language, don't be alarmed, I'll help you figure it out.

The Standard window describes the main characteristics of the storage medium: its model, serial number, disk size, how many cylinders, sectors it has, and so on.

In the Smart tab you can see the status of the hard drive. Click on the Get Smart button and look at the indicators that appear. Since my hard drive is new, my indicators are normal, SMART status = Good. You may have different meaning and information.

Smart is a technology of analysis, self-control and reporting. Using it, you can view and evaluate the condition of the hard drive, its built-in self-diagnostic equipment, and also predict the possible time of its failure.

To test the storage media, go to the Test tab and click on the Start button. If you have a lot of green, orange, red and blue rectangles (sectors) - this is not good. Ideally, all sectors should be light gray and grey.

If you have damaged sectors marked “Err X”, then after completing the test, check the box next to the word Remap and run the test again. The Victoria program will try to restore these sectors and fix errors on the hard drive.

Checking the hard drive may take a long time, so be patient, it all depends on the amount of information on the media. In the meantime, testing is underway, I recommend reading the article on how to set up your computer yourself or.

Checking the hard drive using HDDScan

HDDScan is a program for diagnosing and testing hard drives in English.

After downloading, you need to run the file called HDDScan.

Select the desired Select Drive device; on the right there will be basic information about it.

Click on the blue round button and select the desired action. Go to Surfase Test - select and run the test.

Check the boxes next to Verify or Read and click the Add Test button. I do not recommend choosing Erase - it erases data.

Once you click add a test, it will start automatically and will appear in the lower Test Manager window.

Double-click on RD-Read, go to the test that has started and look at its process, you can see it on the Graph.

View on Map. At the top there are navigation buttons for controlling the Pause, Stop and Report test process, cluster and testing speed in KB/s, and on the right is the sector scanning time in numbers from< 5 до >500 milliseconds.

In the third column of Report you can see the scanned clusters and sectors of the storage medium, and at the very bottom the progress of the test process is shown as a percentage.

Upon completion of the test, a corresponding message will appear in the task manager window.

If for some reason you did not like the first three methods, then I suggest for your reference a powerful and useful utility for diagnosing hard drives and storage media from Ashampoo.

Cool program Ashampoo HDD Control 2

I have already worked with this utility for diagnosing and monitoring hard drives from Ashampoo. I really liked this program, so I decided to mention it in this article.

After you download and install Ashampoo HDD Control 2. Depending on the language package, the program can be in either Russian or English.

It has a simple and accessible interface that anyone can understand.

Here you can see probably almost all the information about a hard drive or flash drive that you want: model, partitions, size, condition, performance, temperature and much other useful information.

This program has extensive capabilities and many settings; at the top there are seven navigation tabs:

Control
Defragmentation
Testing
Disk Cleanup
Removing Internet Traces
Deleted files
Content Analysis

You can browse through all seven tabs and explore useful information.

We are interested in checking the hard drive, go to the Testing tab, click Scan hard drives, select the one you need and click on the magnifying glass that says Start. This test can measure the speed of your hard drive.

In order to check the surface of the disk, you need to return to the Control tab and click Surface Test.

After this, the Hard Disk Surface Testing window will appear, in which there are symbols: blue square - not yet tested, green - excellent, red (already bad) - at least one bad sector.

The scanning time will again depend on the capacity and speed of the hard drive or flash drive.

In custody

Today we discussed in detail the topic of checking a hard drive or how to check a hard drive for errors and bad sectors. To do this, we used four methods: standard Windows tools, useful Victoria, the HDDScan utility and the cool Ashampoo HDD Control 2 program.

Now let's watch a short video tutorial on how to check your hard drive.

Checking the hard drive | website

You may have questions related to checking your hard drive. You can ask them below in the comments to this article, and also use the form with me.

Thank you for reading me on

If your computer is running slowly, then one of the reasons is the slow speed of the HDD (hard drive). Today we’ll look at two free small but useful programs for testing your computer’s hard drive.

CrystalDiskMark is a program designed to test the performance of computer hard drives.

CrystalDiskInfo– a program that allows you to diagnose HDD/SSD drives, USB-HDD drives.

Both programs are small in size and do not require installation ( Portable- portable software). They are very easy to use.

CrystalDiskMark

To conduct a test in the program CrystalDiskMark you only need to select the hard drive (if you have several), the size of the test file (from 50 to 1000 MB) and the number of runs (from 1 to 9). After a short test, the average speed of reading and writing to the hard disk of the main file, 512 and 4 KB blocks will be given.

CrystalDiskMark is a useful application that allows you to conduct a comparative analysis of the performance characteristics of computer hard drives and storage devices.

CrystalDiskMark measures the speed of reading and writing data. Upon completion of testing, it visually displays the average indicators and saves them for further analysis.

CrystalDiskMark— a free program, available in Russian localization, small in size, supports SSD drives.

After starting the program, a window will open in which you indicate the disk you are going to test, the number of runs and the size of the test file.

After pressing the button All the full test will run.

Button "Seq Q32T1" you can run a random write/read test (block size 512 KB)

Button "4K Q32T1"- Random write/read test (block size 4 KB, queue depth 32) for NCQ and AHCI.

Button "Seq"- Sequential write/read test (block size 1024 KB).

Button "4K"- a similar test, only for blocks of 4 kilobytes.

Below is an example of a window with scan results:

Here the left column is the speed of reading information.

The right column is the recording speed.

CrystalDiskMark is a free program that is designed for comparative analysis of the performance of hard drives and other computer storage devices. Its performance affects the speed of the computer as a whole.

The program works in all versions of Windows operating systems (from 9x to Vista/7 32 and 64).

CrystalDiskMark also allows the ability to change the theme, has a simple user interface with support for the Russian language.

Update: 03-02-2016
Version: 5.1.2
System: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Vista, Windows XP
License: free
Size: 2.9 MB Portable (zip)
Developer: hiyohiyo

CrystalDiskInfo

CrystalDiskInfo– a program that allows you to perform hard drive diagnostics for a PC, monitoring for HDD/SSD drives, USB-HDD drives. The CrystalDiskInfo program is very easy to use; after launch, information appears about the status of the hard drive or other drive that needs diagnostics. You can download the CrystalDiskInfo program in Russian at the bottom of the page.

Update 02/03/2016
Version: 6.7.5
System Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Vista, Windows XP
Interface: Russian/English, etc.
License: free
Size: 4.5 MB Portable (zip)
Developer: hiyohiyo

CrystalDiskInfo— detailed diagnostics, determining the parameters of the disk, external drives and plotting graphs of the characteristics of the disk or drive, the ability to use the function of comparing different graphs.

While using the utility, you can view any necessary information about the disk: model, capacity, firmware version or serial number.

You can also find out the type of interface used, the mode for data transfer, and the rotation speed. The program determines the cache size, the total operating time of the device, and the number of starts.

After launching the CrystalDiskInfo program, it immediately displays the S.M.A.R.T. values, temperature, and general condition of the disk, including values such as “Wear,” “Number of read errors,” “Erase errors,” “Alarm!” and others.

The programs described above were developed by a programmer from Japan Noriyuki Miyazaki (nickname hiyohiyo).

Analogs of programs

You can also consider similar programs for testing, analyzing, and treating HDD:

HDDSpeed - A free utility whose main task is to determine the speed of the hard drive. Displays information about physical characteristics and speed parameters. Can diagnose hardware problems and identify faults that could lead to failure.

HDDScan - A free software product that tests and diagnoses hard drives. Checks them for errors, regulates their operation and displays useful information.

Victoria - A free program that allows you to test your hard drive and check its overall health. It has all the necessary tools for analyzing performance and finding errors.

P.S. HDD– one of the important components of any computer or laptop. It stores very important information, which if the disk fails is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to recover. Now hard drives are replacing solid-state drives (SSDs) - they are faster, but more expensive and not yet as large in size. After purchasing a new hard drive, you need to test it with the above or similar programs.

P O P U L A R N O E:

It's hard to find a good free video editing program for Windows. However, we still found a more or less decent video editor. So this is VSDC Free Video Editor. Read more in the article below..

The data structure on the hard disk may be damaged. This happens for various reasons, but the most common are: program crashes and freezes while writing to disk.

A slightly damaged disk, in general, will not lose its functionality, but over time, if there are more faults, it may lose its functionality.

And it’s also important that the surface of the disk can be susceptible to various defects - some area can no longer be read, and as a result, all the accumulated information can disappear in an instant. If this is the case, it is necessary to act and take measures.

Program for checking your hard drive - HDD Scan

HDD Scan is a very convenient tool that allows you to test your hard drive, as well as make a statistical report on the work done.

Since the application does not require installation, the Windows registry keys remain untouched. You can also place HDD Scan on an external device and directly run it on any computer.

The main advantages of the HDD Scan program:

Control over the noise characteristics of the hard drive;
Stopping and starting the spindle motor;
Information about S.M.A.R.T.;
Three modes for checking the disk surface: Verify, Read, Erase.

On the popular website Softpedia, this utility received 5 out of 5 stars, which is a “bold” plus of the program.

http://www.softportal.com/get-4740-hddscan.html

A few words about the interface HDD Scan programs.

After we unpack the archive with the program and run the HDDScan.exe application, the utility will automatically determine what model our hard drive has, serial number, LBA (number of available physical sectors) and Firmware (firmware version):

In the drop-down menu, which is located in the Select Drive section, select the hard drive with which the program will work.

There are only two buttons in this program: this is the S.M.A.R.T. button. In short and clearly, SMART is a technology for assessing the condition of a hard drive, as well as a mechanism for predicting the likelihood of hard drive failure:

So, when I clicked this button, the utility produced the following:

Let's describe the columns of this table:

Num - attribute number.
Attribute name — attribute name.
Value—attribute value. This value ranges from 1 to 255. The higher the attribute value, the better.
Worst - shows the worst attribute value (low) for the entire existence of the hard drive.
RAW(hex) is a hexadecimal number system (the exception is temperature, since the program indicates it in degrees Celsius).
Treshold—threshold or acceptable value of the attribute. Used to compare with the Value attribute.

Now let's move on to the color scheme, which means green and others:

Green color is an attribute in normal state.
Yellow color (or as in my picture - an exclamation mark) - the attribute is deviated from the norm.
Red color - the attribute is strongly deviated from the normal state.

As you can see, my 199th attribute is deviated from the norm. But what does the attribute name: UltraDMA CRC Errors mean?

On a data recovery website, I found the following information: UltraDMA CRC Errors are an error in transmitting information in a mode such as UDMA.

As it turns out, this problem can be fixed. It’s just that my interface cable may be twisted unsightly, as shown in the picture below:

The program has one more button that will help us carry out a complete test of the hard drive:

For example, you can find out the temperature of your hard drive by simply clicking on Temperature Monitor. Then an entry will appear in the Test Manager tab, clicking on which will display a widget with the temperature of the hard drive. We can even change the intensity of the color scheme by adding or diluting it with transparency:

At any time, any of the tasks can be stopped or deleted. To do this, we right-click on the desired task and select the required item:

Now you can get down to more serious things. Let's check the surface of the disk.

These test options are found in the Surface Tests section.

Start LBA and End LBA are the sectors from which the scan begins and stops. If you need to check the entire hard drive, this parameter does not need to be changed.

Command - a choice similar to checking the hard drive (Verify - verification, Read - reading sectors, and Erase - writing zeros to all sectors). Selecting an option such as Erase results in the complete loss of all recorded data on the disk! So be very careful!

Start and Stop - start and stop the scan.

Block size — number of sectors in one block. At the very beginning - 256 sectors (it is not recommended to change the value).

When checking a disk, the past time (Process time), the current sector, called Current LBA, and the read speed (Kbytes/s) are always indicated.

If we go to Map, we will find a map of our disk. The most important thing is the colors of the blocks. The blue square shows bad sectors. Also on the right side we will find the number of sectors with access time from 500 to 5 milliseconds. The fewer slowing squares found, the better.

By the way, if we turn off the Disable map dynamic update checkbox, then checking the sectors will be available to us in real time:

To summarize, we can say that HDD Scan is a very powerful and at the same time simple program for checking your hard drive.

2. Ashampoo HDD Control 2

This is an excellent utility that will tell you all the intricacies of the hard drive in a simpler user interface. The only significant drawback is that the program is paid.

Main advantages Ashampoo HDD Control 2 programs:

Constant monitoring of the hard drive (or drives);
The user interface has been expanded. Tips and information about the health, performance and temperature of the hard drive;
Support for external USB and solid-state drives (SSD) has been significantly expanded;
Supports SMART;
Adjusts the noise level and manages the energy consumption of the hard drive (however, if this function is supported on the hard drive);
Recovering deleted data;
Fully automated hard drive defragmentation;
Online search for results obtained as a result of testing your hard drive model.

You can download the program here: http://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/dld/0165/Ashampoo-HDD-Control-2/

3.Crystal DiskInfo

Another program for checking your hard drive. The program interface is more user-friendly compared to HDD Scan, but there are no advanced settings or additional testing tools. It is perfect for ordinary users. Because blue and white will tell you about the condition of the hard drive. This will happen immediately after installing and launching the program.

You can download the program here: http://www.softportal.com/get-6420-crystaldiskinfo.html

As you can see, the choice of software for servicing hard drives is very rich. Here I have considered only those that I counted the best programs to check your hard drive to date. Read, test and choose the best one.

All modern homes have a desktop computer or laptop. Some people need it for games, others for work or study. In any case, photographs, some important records, contact details of people, necessary addresses, etc. are stored on the computer. And the place where all this information is stored is a hard drive.

It is not without reason that experienced programmers say that in a situation where a computer has a hard drive error, formatting it is a real disaster. After all, formatting is fraught with the loss of all information. But this is the case if appropriate measures are not taken. But if you notice some errors and malfunctions in the disk in time and correct them, then you can avoid this global catastrophe

The main causes of HDD problems are “bad” sectors – sections of disk space that are somehow damaged.

They are divided into physical and logical. The latter appear due to software errors and can be corrected, while physical ones cannot be corrected. In the latter case, you will have to replace the hard drive.

Such damaged areas can appear on both magnetic and standard SSD drives.

Causes of bad sectors and errors

Hard drive failures depend on the type of damaged areas:

brain teaser“broken” - displayed when there is malware or viruses, as well as when there is a sudden loss of power or power cable during recording;
physical“broken” - found on a completely new product. Then you need to contact the manufacturer with a request to replace the product.

In magnetic drives, “broken” sectors can appear as a result of wear of the moving parts of the device, when foreign bodies get into the disk mechanism, or from a simple fall on the floor. In the latter case, the magnetic head of the disk is scratched, which leads to errors.

SSD drives give errors because they have tried to write any information to them many times.

Checking the hard drive for bad sectors is quite possible. Windows has an application called "chkdsk" (check disks). You need to open the folder on your desktop or in the Start menu "My computer" by clicking on the drive to be scanned. Using the context menu, select “Properties” - “Service”. Under the phrase “Check” there will be a button, by clicking on which you will be able to see the number of “broken” sectors.

During the test, the computer will eliminate errors in logical “broken” sectors, as well as mark areas with physical damage.

Attention! You can run the scan system manually, but if Windows independently detects “bad” sectors, the utility will launch itself when the system starts.

Checking utilities

Some software does not have built-in verification. For such cases, there are special programs that help identify “broken” sectors and errors and, if possible, correct them.

"Victoria"

It is a popular software for searching damaged areas. In addition to various methods of analyzing and reassigning problem areas, it has a function for searching for damaged contacts in a cable, as well as a function for assessing the performance of the hard drive. The only “disadvantage” of the program is the lack of official assemblies. Therefore, experts recommend using it separately from the OS.

"HDD Regenerator"

This utility uses its own methods to restore “bad” sectors (a combination of high and low signals) and supports any drive connection interfaces.

The downside is the high cost of the license ($90).

One of the best and multifunctional utilities for checking a device for damaged areas. Has the following functionality:

restores and reconfigures sectors;
fixes partition tables;
restores files and creates backup copies;
selects files in the table;
copies data from remote partitions;
creates backup copies of data.

This utility uses several methods to identify problems, as well as the ability to monitor SMART attributes and clean up the hard drive.

Important! The program supports all versions of Windows, but it does not scan/test the drive where the OS is installed.

With it you can scan one or several hard drives at the same time.

"Seagate Seatools" for Windows

The application supports all modern Windows systems. It can be used to do both basic and advanced testing. Simpler than "Seagate Seatools" for DOS, but less powerful.