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How to check a hard drive for serviceability and performance: instructions, recommendations and reviews. How to find out the condition and health of a hard drive, how to look at SMART readings (HDD, SSD) and estimate how long the drive will last

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Buying a HDD is not a complicated process, but it is a responsible one. Any PC component is responsible for its performance, and the hard drive is one of the leading links in the system, since the operating system is often installed on it. If the hard drive does not work correctly, then there can be no talk of any sane use of the system.

Another thing is that it is not possible to test the device before purchasing. There are only 2 factors that save you here:

  • confidence in the manufacturer;
  • official product warranty.

Remember that you have 2 weeks to test the hard drive for bad sectors and errors and identify manufacturing defects. In the future, you can operate with the official guarantee period, but the return procedure will take much longer, and it is often not enough.

Manufacturer selection

Practice shows that products are in greatest demand Western Digital And Seagate. As a catch-up we can note Toshiba. This company strengthened its influence in the market thanks to the purchase of a bankrupt HDD manufacturer Fujitsu.

The comparison shows that all 3 manufacturers are on equal terms and it is almost impossible to determine a clear leader for the title of “best hard drive”. The percentage of defects is the same, as are the production technologies. The only differences are model lines, storage capacity, Cache memory size and product name.

Try to buy CDs as new as possible. This is indicated by the HDD marking. This way there is less chance of running into a defective batch with problematic firmware. Considering that almost every component in a PC is “hardwired”, insufficient attention is paid to correcting the performance of the hard drive, promptly eliminating only critical damage to performance.

Preliminary inspection

The purchase has taken place, the goods are in hand. It is worth checking it externally for scratches, abrasions, and especially dents. Mechanical damage They will tell a lot about the conditions under which they were stored in the warehouse and moved from place to place. HDD is a mechanical device based on magnetic plates. Information is read from them by a special head. The surface of the plates reacts very strongly to vibrations, shocks, shaking and other aspects, since the head can simply scratch the disk and this sector will automatically become unreadable.

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The threads on the sides will tell you whether the hard drive was previously installed in the system unit. There is indicator paint on the holes for the screws. If someone has previously used the product, the paint layer will probably be scratched or completely erased. Return the HDD immediately and demand a replacement for a new one, or better yet, take the money.

Installation in the case and testing

If you are satisfied with everything, then proceed with installation. Remember that nothing in the case should interfere with the device. Be sure to leave free space at the top and bottom for ventilation and cooling. Secure the HDD with 4 screws or latches. If there are anti-vibration rubber bands, great, they will prevent resonance from the operation of active components like coolers.

If the SATA cable connects without problems, then pay special attention to the power supply. The voltage supplied to the disk is 5 V. Underestimation leads to “stop-starts”, overestimation leads to overheating and increased operating temperatures. Both will definitely not increase the service life.

Test run

This check applies to those hard drives on which important data or backups will be stored. It is important to know here that bad sectors are completely absent. First, let's run the S.M.A.R.T. check. in BIOS. After this, you can evaluate the status of the device through special software like HD Tune, MHDD or Victoria.

Start the test with linear data reading speed. Compare the result obtained with the one indicated in the specifications. If the error does not exceed 10%, then everything is in order. A higher variation is suspicious, and a difference of 50% forces you to replace the drive.

Next stage - magnetic surface check within 24 hours using Victoria or MHDD. Set the reading mode to random and wait for the result. Yes, the disk may crack, but this is quite normal. After completion, repeat the procedure in mode Butterfly.

The last step is to launch the program IOMeter. You need to configure the block size, enter the random search range, write/read ratio, and only then run the scan for 24 hours. Your reference point is the S.M.A.R.T table. If the HDD works correctly for these days, then it is in perfect order and ready for further use.

Letter. A difficult question for the site administrator and please answer in simple language, so that a simple user can understand.

How to check your hard drive for functionality, and most importantly, is it possible to remove bad sectors from a hard drive, or what are they also called, bad blocks, which, as it turns out, come in several types:
– physical (crumbling magnetic layer of working plates, chips, etc.),
– logical (sector logic errors), logical bad blocks, can also be classified as software bads, that is, soft bads (file system errors).
Before writing to you, I spent quite some time understanding this issue and realized that the average user knows superficial and inaccurate information, namely: many people believe that all bad sectors or bad blocks are removed by normal formatting, but this is not so. It turns out that it is generally impossible to remove physical bads, but logical ones only with the help of special programs, and only software bad blocks or soft bads (file system errors) can be removed using ordinary Windows tools, for example, using or regular formatting. What am I talking about?


Recently I had to contact a service center about strange behavior of my computer. Firstly, there were periodic freezes, lasting several seconds, and sometimes permanently; I had to restart the computer with the Reset button. Occasionally, strange clicks and creaks were heard from the hard drive. Strange folders with no names were found in the system. The simple process of copying a file from one hard drive partition to another took an terribly long time. Also, the operating system often checked the hard drive for errors when turning on the computer, and the last time it showed BOOTMGR is missing on a black screen, I recovered this error using the seven installation disk, but a day later when loading the computer it just showed a black screen, I thought enough was enough and contacted the service center.

At the service center, a technician checked my hard drive using the free HDDScan program.

Unfortunately, the master checking did not explain anything, he showed me only after checking the presence of 12 bad blocks (English: bad sector, bad block, bad sectors - damaged), marked by the program in blue. Another 90 sectors were marked in red; they were not yet bad blocks, but their response time was not good, more than 500 ms.

The wizard also showed me the S.M.A.R.T of my hard drive and recognized it as not very good, since the most important parameter is Reallocated Sector Count - indicating the number of reassigned sectors (when the disk detects a read/write error, the sector is marked “reassigned”, and the data from the damaged sector or in other words, the physical bad block is transferred to the backup area), is almost critical, it is responsible for physical defects of the hard drive that cannot be corrected.

Another parameter, Current Pending Errors Count, which is responsible for the number of sectors that are difficult to read and very different from reading a normal sector, was also marked in yellow, which indicated its poor condition. The expert’s advice was: Transfer all important data from the hard drive and “fix” it in this HDDScan program, but since there are a lot of bad blocks, most likely it will not be possible to fix all of them and it will no longer be possible to install the operating system on it, in In the future, you need to use this hard drive as a file storage or, as they also say, a file trash bin, this is the only way it will survive for some time.

I listened to the technician and left the hard drive at the service center for “treatment” until the evening, and in the evening I was shown the result.

Not a single bad sector (bad block), but there were 12. The number of sectors with a response time of more than 500 ms has become smaller (it was 90, but now 23),

one of the critical S.M.A.R.T indicators is 197 Current Pending Errors Count-responsible, as I already said, for the number of sectors that are difficult to read, has become normal, the parameter 198 Uncorrectable Errors Count-the number of uncorrected errors when accessing a sector also became within the normal range, but the most important indicator, according to him, Reallocated Sector Count, did not change and remained unsatisfactory, so the conclusion is this: the operating system cannot be installed on this hard drive.

And now I have a question for you, please explain in detail, how to check hard drive for professional suitability on my own, how to determine how many bad sectors I have and what they are? How to use programs like HDDScan, and most importantly, how to get rid of bad blocks using it. What exactly does the program do with the hard drive, ridding it of bad blocks, and how long will such treatment of the hard drive help? Is it still possible to install an operating system on this hard drive or not? And the last question, the incorrigible parameter S.M.A.R.T - Reallocated Sector Count can still be fixed and are physical bads really incorrigible at all? Many forums on the Internet say that there are proprietary utilities from hard drive manufacturers that can perform low-level formatting at home. Alexander Anatolyevich. Tomsk.

Friends, let's keep it short - sister of talent, one of my friends, having read this question, answered it like this:- “You can’t cover up a scratch with anything, but a software problem can’t be cured.”

The topic is not simple, but relevant, the article is long, but I tried to make it understandable to the average user. To make everything easier to understand, I suggest, along the way, step by step, using the free HDDScan program, to check the MAXTOR STM3250310AS hard drive installed in the computer that was brought to our service center for repair. The operating system installed on the hard drive freezes from time to time, refuses to boot, displays various errors or just a black screen. The hard drive creaks and clicks (I will explain why below). Reinstalling Windows did not help the matter and the owners of the computer do not know what to do.

So how to check the status of a hard drive? This can be done using various tests in the HDDScan program. First, let’s check the S.M.A.R.T indicators of this hard drive, then we’ll test the surface of the hard drive, we’ll find no less than 63 bad sectors and our program will fix them all, how long will last is another question (read on).

  • But first, a very brief information about how a hard drive works, if this digression is not made, you simply will not understand the principle of operation of the HDDScan program and other similar programs, much less you will not understand what S.M.A.R.T is, as well as bad sectors (bad blocks) and why some of them cannot be fixed.

The hard drive is made of aluminum or glass plates coated with a layer of ferromagnetic material. A hard drive is primarily a device that operates on the principle of magnetic recording. Magnetic heads that read, write or erase information from a hard disk hover above its surface at a height of 10-12 nm and never touch the surface of the magnetic disk, which is easily damaged.

  • At the final stage of hard drive production, low level formatting, that is, tracks are applied to the working plates of the hard drive, each track is divided into sectors. Also, special magnetic servo marks are applied to the magnetic surface of the hard drive; they are needed to accurately place the magnetic head of the hard drive on the tracks of the hard drive. The minimum unit of information on a hard disk is a sector; the volume available to the user is 512 bytes of data. Low-level formatting in the life of a hard drive occurs only once, friends, and only on special and very expensive factory equipment - called Servowriter. Information recorded using this formatting will never be overwritten. Friends, such formatting cannot be done in any service. Therefore, my answer to the question whether it is possible to carry out low-level formatting using the operating system is the answer - no, it is not possible. Low-level formatting can only be done at the factory; it even destroys tracks, sectors and magnetic servo marks. For example, in the program Victoria erases all the information on the hard drive by filling all sectors with zeros, this cannot be called low-level formatting, but it cannot be called formatting either, it is something in between. After Write mode, all sectors of the hard disk are filled with zeros and do not contain any errors, and it can be formatted into a file system using Windows.
  • At the factory, only service information is recorded in sectors ( servo information servo service, for example, the physical address of the sector and the address marker that determines the beginning of the sector), this information can be called markings, it is needed for the normal operation of the hard drive, this is information about the numbers of tracks and sectors, necessary for the heads to accurately hit these tracks and sectors when reading information written in them.
    After purchasing a hard drive, user data will also later be written to this area (for example, the first sector of the hard drive will contain the MBR master boot record), but User data can be recorded and erased, in contrast to service information, which has much greater magnetization, which is why the read-write heads of the drive can't erase it.

All service information about track and sector numbers will be stored in a special table located in a closed service area, inaccessible to OS and BIOS tools, which is a mini-operating system; together with the Firmware, they control the operation of the hard drive. Sometimes they ask the question - Is it sometimes necessary to update the firmware of a hard drive, the answer is negative, modern hard drives do not need updating. Also in this service area the disk passport, SMART attribute values, as well as a defect table with information about unrecoverable or reassigned bad sectors (bad blocks) will be stored.
So we got to the physical, logical and software bad sectors.

The fact is, friends, that if the operating system has problems reading data from a sector, then the hard drive controller makes several additional attempts to read the data, if they are also unsuccessful, this sector is recognized as faulty, and then the information is written to the normal sector , located on the backup track, and the problematic sector is recognized as faulty and removed from circulation, this is called (Remapping, in common parlance remap).

  • Friends, whether to perform a remap or not is decided only by the hard drive controller during operation, and not by any programs for working with the hard drive (Victoria, MHDD). These programs can only hint with their tests (for example, Advanced REMAP in the Victoria program - an improved algorithm for hiding bad blocks) to the hard drive controller that a remap needs to be done.

The fact that a sector is recognized as faulty is entered into the defect table with information about unrecoverable or reassigned faulty sectors, located in the service area.

By the way, there are two tables of defects, one is the initial P-list (Primary-list), created after the final factory tests; any hard drive, friends, already has several reassigned bad blocks when it leaves the factory. Well, the growing table of defects G-list (Grown-list) is filled in by us as we use the hard drive.

What are bad sectors and how to fix them?

  • Physical bad sectors are mechanical defects in the magnetic coating of the hard drive surface (crumbling magnetic layer of working plates, chips, etc.). That is, the sector structure itself is physically faulty; undoubtedly, such a bad block must be reassigned as a normal sector from the backup track. Very often this happens due to an impact caused, for example, by dropping a hard drive on the floor, mechanical damage occurs to the magnetic coating of the hard drive, damage to the magnetic heads, the same can happen due to overheating. Vibration of a hard drive is also dangerous if it is not securely fastened. A dusty room, smoking, despite the filter installed in the hard drive, also play a huge role in the formation of bad blocks; tobacco tar and dust stick to the surface of the hard drive and interfere with reading information.
  • Physical bad blocks are not possible cannot be corrected by any formatting, you can only reassign them as spare sectors from the reserve tracks; naturally, because of this, the performance will drop somewhat, since the magnetic head of the hard drive will have to make many additional movements, looking for information on the reassigned sectors from the reserve tracks.

Why does the hard drive squeak? and sometimes clicks when working

When the operating system encounters a bad sector, the hard drive controller makes several attempts to read information from it, while clicks and squeaks may be produced by the hard drive head positioner.

The following reason may also be the cause of clicks and squeaks of the hard drive. When reassigning a bad sector to a normal one from a backup track (which is not always nearby), the magnetic head naturally has to change direction, as many say jump from side to side.

The third reason is that, as I said above, during the manufacture of a hard drive, special markings are made on the magnetic surface of hard drives with special servo marks; these servo marks are used to accurately position the magnetic head on the tracks of the hard drive; it is with the help of servo marks that the magnetic head of the hard drive moves correctly. Sometimes servo tags are destroyed for the same reasons that physical bad blocks are formed and the magnetic head cannot take and hold the position it needs, and clicks and creaks are heard from the hard drive.

  • Logical bad blocks(sector logic errors), in turn divided into correctable and incorrigible. In which case logical bad block cannot be fixed? As I said above, each sector, in addition to user information, also contains service information (servo information, for example, the physical address of the sector and an address marker that determines the beginning of the sector), in simple words, markings with the help of which the magnetic head of the hard drive gets to the necessary tracks of the sectors, such markings applied by low-level formatting at the factory during the manufacture of the hard drive. This information is almost impossible to delete since it is highly magnetized, but under certain circumstances, similar to the reasons for the appearance of physical bad blocks (shock, vibration, bearing play, etc.), this information is violated and can only be restored in the factory. Yes, there are special proprietary utilities that overwrite service information, but due to the complexity of their use, this issue is difficult even for specialized specialists and we will not consider it.
  • Logical bad blocksthat can be fixed. When writing to the user information sector, a piece of service information is additionally written, the so-called ECC (Error Correction Code) sector checksum; this code allows you to restore data if it was read with an error. But sometimes this code is not written, and accordingly the sum of user data in the sector does not match the ECC checksum. One simple example of why this happens is a sudden shutdown of the computer due to an electrical failure, because of this, information was written to the hard disk sector, but the checksum was not. The next time the operating system accesses this sector and tries to read data from it, but it will not match the ECC checksum, an attempt will be made to read the data again and again without success (so you get freezes and a bad block).
  • Software bad blocks(file system errors - for example, an incorrectly marked sector belonging to two files) can be removed using the operating system - more reliably by regular formatting.

You will say that all this is good and understandable, but how can you get rid of bad blocks, transfer data from the hard drive and format it in the operating system installation program?

When formatting using all the methods available to the operating system, the same attempt will occur to read information from the bad sector, then compare them with the ECC checksum, but it does not match, which means that the incorrect information will not be overwritten and the bad sector will remain bad even after formatting. So it turns out that you need a special program, for example МHDD or HDDScan, which will not read anything, but will simply force a rewrite, usually filling the bad sector with zeros, but then it will read what was written down and compare the checksum, after which the sector will return to work.

For example, the HDDScan program has an Erase function - Test in linear recording mode (sector-by-sector erasing of data), carefully all your data will be deleted. Unfortunately, nothing will work without deleting the data, so before this test it must be transferred to another storage medium.

The best thing is to completely remove your hard drive and connect it to another computer that has the HDDScan program, then run the Erase test and check your entire hard drive. You don’t have to remove anything, burn boot disks with MHDD or Victoria programs, boot from them and run these programs with the Advanced remap function, but we will do this in other articles.

Now, friends, let's move on directly to working with the HDDScan program. With the help of this program, we will see the full picture of what is happening with our hard drive, namely, we will find out the S.M.A.R.T of our hard drive and decrypt it, we will also set the number of bad sectors and of course we will try to fix them.
Read on to the article.

Or removable USB HDD devices are almost the most common. That is why comprehensive measures for checking the hard drive should be given priority attention. Now we will try to briefly consider what HDD checking is in several main areas, and we will give an understanding of the basics of the methodology for correcting errors of various types.

Why do errors occur on the hard drive?

There are many reasons for failures, both in software and in physical terms. First of all, this includes a sudden power outage, which is accompanied by a short-term increase in voltage. And if you consider that at that moment, say, data was being copied, then it becomes clear that errors cannot be avoided.

Something similar is observed in the event of an incorrect shutdown of the operating system, when a computer terminal or laptop is forcibly turned off by long pressing the power button.

It’s good that the next time you turn it on, the standard program for checking the HDD, which is initially present in any Windows OS, starts automatically. True, not everything is so simple here either. The fact is that the HDD check can start again and again during subsequent system boots. This is due to the fact that the “native” application simply cannot fix system errors on the hard drive automatically. How to get rid of the constant launch of this process will be discussed a little later.

HDD check: main directions

Before we begin to consider the operation of numerous hard drive testing and error correction tools, let’s consider the main directions that are provided for the comprehensive verification system.

For example, the simplest method is considered to be viewing detailed information about the device. Today there are quite a lot of different utilities like Everest, CPU-Z or CPUID Hardware Monitor. It must be said that such programs provide the most detailed characteristics of the device, and at startup they even check the speed of the HDD (or rather, the spindle speed).

Another direction is testing the hard drive for system errors with a view to subsequently correcting them. In this case, the HDD is checked for bad sectors.

This process is somewhat reminiscent of defragmentation, only in the case of defragmentation of the hard drive, frequently used files and applications are moved to the fastest areas of the HDD (with a change in the physical rather than logical address). Checking the HDD for bad sectors works in a similar way. The program itself reads the current address from the damaged sector, and then rewrites it into a normally functioning one. As is already clear, in this case the logical address remains unchanged.

The third priority is to check the surface of the disk, because hard drives have a limited service life, and physical damage simply cannot be avoided. It is clear that by the end of its service life the hard drive may simply crumble, and in most cases it will have to be thrown away. Although, if the damage is not too serious, you can restore the hard drive, for example, by using special recovery utilities. We will consider them separately.

It goes without saying that you cannot ignore data recovery on inoperative hard drives. Actually, this is often done by various federal services when investigating computer crimes committed by hackers and seizing the corresponding equipment from them. But let's not get into the weeds. HDD sectors can also be checked by an ordinary user. The main thing is the presence of a set of special utilities.

Checking HDD and fixing errors using Windows

Now a few words about the built-in tools of Windows operating systems. They also include HDD checking. Windows 7, for example, is no different from its predecessors and successors (XP, Vista, 8, 10).

This tool is called from the usual “Explorer” by right-clicking the manipulator (computer mouse) on the corresponding disk or logical partition. Properties are selected in the menu, after which you go to the appropriate tabs, where you can carry out maintenance.

When calling such a service, it is strongly recommended to set parameters that, when activated, will scan the HDD. Windows will also be able to automatically fix system errors. True, this approach may not always help. It happens that the system issues a warning that it is not possible to automatically correct errors.

In this case, it is better to use the command line or the “Run” menu, where a variety of commands are written depending on what exactly needs to be done. The simplest command of this type is “chkdisk c: /f” (testing with automatic correction of system errors). For NTFS file systems, you can use "chkntfs /x c:". By the way, it is manipulations of this type that allow you to get rid of the annoying check of the hard drive when rebooting the computer terminal.

In general, it is better to read reference information about using this or that command, because checking the HDD can be done in completely different ways, depending on what letters will be entered after entering the main command.

Informer programs

As for information applications, you can find quite a lot of them. As mentioned above, the most well-known are utilities like CPU-Z or Everest. But these are, so to speak, general purpose programs.

CrystalDiscInfo is considered to be the most acceptable and most powerful utility that combines the functions of an informer and a scanner. By the way, it is capable of not only displaying information on the device, but also even controlling some basic parameters, say, changing the spindle speed.

Programs for checking HDDs for bad sectors

Speaking about what a program is for checking HDDs for bad sectors, it is worth mentioning such a powerful utility as Victoria, created by a Belarusian developer.

The application can work both in standard mode in Windows environment and in DOS emulation. What is most interesting is that it is in DOS that the utility shows its maximum capabilities.

Checking the disc surface

Testing the surface of the hard drive (Surface Test mode) can be used in standard tools of the Windows OS itself, or you can turn to specialized utilities such as HDDScan.

It is noteworthy that the software package itself is available in the form of a portable version and does not require installation on a hard drive. It goes without saying that you can start the scanning process even from a regular flash drive, using the default settings or applying your own (they are located in the Process section).

Of course, the program will be able to identify problems with the integrity of the HDD surface, but it will not be able to revive a damaged hard drive. But there is a way out here too.

Reanimation programs

Even a damaged hard drive or removable USB HDD can be resuscitated thanks to a unique development called HDD Regenerator, which, when it first appeared, caused quite a stir in the field of modern computer technology.

According to the developers themselves, this application is capable of restoring physically damaged sectors of the HDD surface using magnetization reversal technology. There is no point for the average user to delve into all the intricacies of the technological process. The main thing is that the program works perfectly. From the outside, this may seem strange: how can you remagnetize a hard drive using software? However, in combination with the use of physical methods, this process has become possible for use in stationary computer systems. The hard drive doesn't even need to be dismantled.

Data recovery

With data recovery, the situation is somewhat worse. This is understandable, because not every utility is capable of working like HDD Regenerator.

Of course, we can recommend using some software packages such as Acronis True Image. But such a utility works on the principle of creating a backup copy. In case of damage to the hard drive or accidental deletion of information, it is better to use tools like Recuva, PC Inspector File Recovery or Recover My Files. But they cannot provide a complete guarantee of data recovery, for example, in case of physical damage to the HDD.

By and large, if the hard drive is large enough, it is recommended to create backup copies of data in advance. Then you won’t have to look for specialized utilities or rack your brains over how to recover lost information.

Comprehensive solutions for HDD testing

In order to carry out a comprehensive check, including promptly obtaining information on the device, actions that include a complete check and correction of HDD failures and damage, data recovery, etc., it is better to use several software packages together. For example, in the worst case scenario, the combination might look like this:

  • information stage - CrystalDiscInfo;
  • full HDD check - Victoria;
  • surface test - HDD Scan;
  • recovery of a damaged hard drive - HDD Regenerator.

Which program is better?

It is not possible to say which program for checking HDD or removable media is the best, since almost all utilities have their own specific direction.

In principle, among the main applications for checking and automatically correcting errors, the Victoria package (high-quality HDD error checking) can be especially highlighted, and in terms of disk recovery, the championship undoubtedly belongs to HDD Regenerator.

Conclusion

We briefly talked about what HDD checking is and what some types of software products are designed for. However, in conclusion, it is worth noting that it is not recommended to bring your hard drive to an extreme state; you need to check it at least once a month. This approach will avoid many problems in the future.

In principle, you can set up an automatic scan of the hard drive on a schedule, even using the standard Windows Task Scheduler, so as not to call the process manually every time. You can simply choose the right time, but here you need to take into account the fact that when the testing process is running, it will be extremely difficult to work with the system.

By the way, even installing a conventional uninterruptible power supply or stabilizer will protect the hard drive from the harmful effects associated with power surges or power outages.

– the most unreliable component of a modern computer. As a rule, modern models last up to 3 years, after which they have to be replaced. The worst thing about this situation is that it is very difficult to predict exactly when the hard drive will fail. Because of this, inexperienced users often lose important data. In this material we will talk about how to check a hard drive for serviceability and correctly assess its condition.

Serviceability check based on data from “S.M.A.R.T.”

If you want to check your hard drive for serviceability, then the first thing you need to do is install the program. This free program collects all available information about the drive and, based on it, provides an assessment of its technical condition. If the drive is fully operational, then its “technical condition” will be indicated as “Good”. If there are any problems with it, then you will receive an “Alarm” rating, but in cases where the HDD is on the verge of death, the program gives a “Bad” rating.

Also in the CrystalDiskInfo program you can view the source data of the “S.M.A.R.T.” system. (the program uses them to assess those conditions). To figure out what a particular parameter means, you can use . There is a table with a detailed description of all the parameters of the S.M.A.R.T. system. In addition, in the CrystalDiskInfo program you can see the number of starts, the number of hours worked, the exact model name and even the serial number of the drive.

Checking the health of the hard drive under load

If the S.M.A.R.T. system does not show any problems, then the hard drive can be checked for serviceability by creating a large load. To do this, simply try to write a large number of small files (a couple of megabytes in size) to the drive. For example, you might try to copy a large folder of photos onto it.

  • If the disk is good, then the copying process should proceed without any incidents. In this case, the copying speed should be more or less stable throughout the entire copying process (with the exception of a slight drop in speed immediately after the start of copying).
  • If the hard drive is faulty, the copy speed will fluctuate greatly (from normal to very slow). In some cases, the copying process may freeze or be interrupted. Some files may not be copied, and the system will report errors. In particularly advanced cases, a cracking or grinding sound may be heard, and the drive may turn off ().

If the file writing test went well, then try testing how data reading works. To do this, try copying data from the disk you are testing.

Checking for errors in HD Tune

The next step is to check the health of the hard drive using specialized programs. Such programs allow you to check your hard drive for errors and identify existing problems, even if they do not appear during normal use. Let's start checking with the free program (or its paid version HD Tune Pro).

To check your hard drive for errors, run the HD Tune program, go to the tab and click on the “Start” button.

After this, the HD Tune program will begin checking the hard drive for serviceability. During the verification, you will be able to observe this process. Normal areas of the hard drive will be marked in green, and damaged areas in red.

On a fully functional hard drive, there should be no damaged (red) blocks at all; the entire surface should be marked green.

Checking for errors using Victoria 3.5

To get the most accurate check, you need to use the program, you can download it as an iso file, for example, (here is version 3.5, which is best suited for checking outside the operating system). The downloaded iso file must be written to a CD (or flash drive) and the computer booted from it. After booting your computer from this CD, you will need to select one of the versions of the Victoria program. For desktop computers you need to select the version “Victoria for Desktop”, and for laptops, respectively, “Victoria for Notebook”. Other options in this menu launch the DOS operating system and Volkov Commander.

To start checking the entire surface of the hard drive, press the F4 key. After this, a menu with settings should appear. Here you need to select “Ignore Bad Blocks” and "Linear Reading". It should be noted that you need to use the Victoria program very carefully, since using some of its functions can delete data on the drive. For example, this can happen when you enable the options “Write (erase)”, “Write from file”, and also “BB = Erase 256 sect”.

To start scanning, you need to press the F4 key again. After this, all you have to do is wait until the verification is completed. At the end, if the hard drive is fully functional, you should see a screen like this.

If the hard drive has any problem areas, orange and red blocks will appear on the scanning screen. The more such blocks, the worse the condition of the HDD surface. If the number of red blocks is large, this means that the hard drive is faulty and it is time to replace it. Detailed information about the problems found can be viewed on the right side of the screen, in the “Defects” window.

Error checking in Victoria 4.46

If you do not want to burn an iso image and boot from a disk from a computer, then you can use the Victoria 4.46 program, which runs from the Windows operating system. You can download this version of the program, for example, .

After downloading, you will receive an archive that will need to be unpacked into any folder. To run the Victoria 4.46 program, open the folder with the contents of the archive and run the program vcr446f.exe. After launch, you will see the main Victoria window, it will look something like the picture below.

You should start studying the program from the “Standard” tab. Here on the right side of the screen there is a list of hard drives that Victoria was able to identify, information about the currently selected drive is displayed at the top left (if you wish, you can select another), and at the bottom there is a log of events, errors and other information.

To check your hard drive for errors, you need to open the “Tests” tab. Here you must first click on the “ Passp” button (to get information about the drive), and then on the “ Start” button (to start the check).

After this, you just need to wait until the program finishes checking your hard drive.

During the scanning process, the Victoria program will find faulty and problematic drive blocks, the number of which will be displayed in the column on the right, as well as at the bottom of the screen.

Results of checking the health of the hard drive

A fully functional hard drive should pass all the tests described above without any problems. CrystalDiskInfo should be rated Good, manual read and write tests should pass without difficulty, and HD Tune and Victoria should not detect any problems. If everything is exactly like this for you, then most likely your hard drive is fully functional and will work for a long time.

But, naturally, there are no guarantees here and cannot be. Therefore, the only way to reliably protect your data is backup. The most important data (personal photos, videos, documents) should always be stored on multiple drives.

Now you will learn about a small but very useful program HDD Scan. As the name suggests, this program is designed to scan the hard drive on a computer.

But, in addition, the program is capable of carrying out a COMPLETE diagnosis of the hard drive, assessing the condition of any data drive (it supports IDE / SATA / SCSI hard drives, RAID arrays, external USB/Firewire drives and even flash cards)!

HDDScan will allow you to find out the number and even the firmware version of the hard drive installed on your computer and find damaged sectors of any scanned hard drive.

The program will show how exhausted the hard drive's resource is, what problems the hard drive being tested has, and more! This utility will allow you to fix hard drive surface errors.

It has a very nice modern interface design

Here: you can download the program for checking hard drives (gcontent) download HDDScan (/gcontent)

And below on the page you will see a video tutorial on working with this hdd (hard drive) scanning and recovery program.

Checking hard drive sectors

This is no longer a problem even for beginners. In general, HDDScan is an almost irreplaceable program! In terms of quality of work and functionality, at the moment there are almost no analogues to it.

Since the good old and time-tested programs for checking hard drives, such as MHDD and Victoria (read more in the article: How to fix bad sectors on a disk in Windows) are no longer able to recognize modern hard drives, much less perform their comprehensive diagnostics...

After you download this program to your computer, unzip it.... enter the folder with the program and run the executable file, which is mentioned at the beginning of the video lesson.

You don't have to install the program (that's another plus!), and it takes up negligible space on your hard drive. But despite this, it is so functional that one can only wonder how we managed without it before :-)))

How to check your computer's hard drive for functionality

The interface of the HDD Scan program is made in English. However, the program is so easy to use and will be understandable even for novice users.

Well, after watching this video tutorial on working with this utility to check hard drives that are currently connected to the computer, there will be no questions left :-)))

Turn on the speakers and press play....

Checking hard disk sectors for errors

Quite often, many computer users experience deterioration in the performance of hard drives during use.

Even in the best scenario, this leads to a decrease in performance and the appearance of faulty areas on the surface of hard drives, but this can also cause the loss of all information located on the hard drive!

Specialized programs and utilities for diagnosing and recovering data on hard drives, like the free HDDScan program presented here, are designed to help in such cases.

Checking the external hard drive

Using the HDD Scan program, you can easily scan not only internal, but also external hard drives that are connected to your computer.

It is designed to check hard drives under Windows. The utility works from the Windows operating system - this means that you do not need to bother creating any boot floppy disks.

Very comfortably! It is simply advisable to disable the antivirus and programs running in the background and occupying resources, for example, download managers, while the program is starting and running.

HDD hard drive recovery

As you probably noticed when watching the video, starting from the 14th minute it is shown how you can try to fix it, that is, simply remove the bad sector of the hard drive if you do not want to replace the hard drive completely (buy a new one).

We start testing the surface with the “full erase” parameter. This usually helps to get rid of these types of bad blocks on the surface of the hard drive.

Attention! Before doing this, copy all important data from the HDD you want to test. In general, if you want to try to recover bad sectors on the disk, then watch the video tutorial again from the 14th minute.

Conclusion: the best way to fully diagnose a hard drive today is the HDDScan program, which works from the Windows environment and at the same time allows you to perform a comprehensive assessment of the reliability and surface condition of any hard drive, including even external USB drives.