Checking Windows 7 for errors. Simple programs for quickly checking HDD. Other ways to check the disk

aass, didn't use it. But I note that Victoria and MHDD are proven tools for serious diagnostics.

And Windows 7 can track SMART information. It will warn you if anything happens.

aass

Vadim Sterkin, Thanks for the answer and for the topic!
With rating Victoria programs and MHDD agree, I myself use Victoria for serious diagnostics, but I try to test other programs, everything is learned by comparison.)

Dmitriy

when checking hard drive The standard program on Windows 7 says that bad clusters have been detected in null.sys... what kind of driver is this?

Dmitriy

Vadim Sterkin,

thanks...can the system slow down because of it?

Sanyok

Hello.
Ran (hypothetically) checking drive C: from GUI with parameters similar to your screen. Clicked the "Schedule disk check" button. Changed my mind. How to cancel this one-time check system disk before rebooting the system?
I myself assume that it may be entered into the Task Scheduler.” But I want to know for sure. I see no point in experimenting. Since, after such a check was completed successfully once (in practical reality), it would be entered into the “Scheduler” even as a one-time check, and should, in theory, be saved. After all, tasks from the “Scheduler” do not have the ability to self-delete (I think so). But I didn’t find any traces in the “Planner”. As you probably know, I didn’t receive an answer on the Internet or on the forum.

Simply put, I want to know where this mythical “Check Schedule” is located and what methods and methods Windows 7 offers for adjusting it. And then it turns out like this - click, and ala-ulu...

Sanyok

Yeah…
There were graphics, but they all came out. This is some kind of graffiti, black and white, with a register. Just like Battleship Potemkin.
(Yes, I Googled, but really for a slightly different request). Thank you.
You can plan this by checking two boxes in the chart, and canceling by going to the register. They got smart here. Well, okay, there’s nothing to do - I’ll post in the forum.

Yes, by the way, does it make sense to check the second (bottom) checkbox if the system is on an SSD? After all, as far as my knowledge is sufficient, the SSD controller itself periodically (when idle) scans the memory for faulty cells.
And this second checkbox, by definition, is intended to check for broken cells on the surface of the HDD.

Sanyok

Sanyok,

You turn on your TV with the remote control and set the wake-up timer. The next morning you wake up to the music of your favorite music channel. And life flows smoothly and measuredly. But at one fine moment it dawns on you - after all, tomorrow is Sunday. No problem, you tell yourself. With a slight movement of your hand and a screwdriver, without disconnecting the TV from the network, you remove back cover, quickly replace a couple of resistors on the board and you’re done. Tomorrow you can sleep peacefully until lunchtime.
Do you feel what I mean?

Vadim Sterkin: Sanya, what do you mean, wise? You don’t have to split hairs by pressing all sorts of strange buttons, and everything will be fine :)

It's really funny, but also of course, of course Truth.
Yes, but it’s not quite out of place. I don’t see anything unpredictable or completely incomprehensible in checking the disk. And the conversation was about the fact that if they had already laid graphical capability schedule such a task, then be kind enough to provide the same opportunity to disable it, and not through one place (the registry). Either remove graphics when planning (do planning only through CMD), or provide the ability to disable this task using the graphical interface. As an engineer, in my technical practice and in the practice of interfaces of various industrial programs and IT, this is the first time I have come across something like this. Yes, and in Windows OS too.
That’s what I wanted to convey when I said, “We’ve been clever.”
When faced with a question, I noticed that this function causes complaints from the user in terms of frequent independent launches. But let's not talk about that. As unrelated to the topic.
And of course, thanks for the comments. Everything is clear to me here.

Regarding the bottom daw:

To perform a thorough disk scan, select the Scan and Repair option. bad sectors" In this mode, the scanning program attempts to find and correct physical errors on the hard drive itself, which may take much longer.

It doesn't say anything about the file system. More about physical disabilities. Some of us are wrong. Or I didn't understand something.
And further in the text:

To check both file and physical errors select both options: Automatically fix system errors and Scan and repair bad sectors.

Please comment. I would like clarity on the issue.
So as not to press “all sorts of strange buttons”, and everything was fine. :-)

Vyacheslav

I am very surprised by the possibilities of checking and restoring a disk under Windows 8. Changing the partition size to increase using Acronis programs Disk Director 11 completed with errors. I wanted to increase the size of the system disk by empty space on an adjacent 200 GB partition. As a result, this program reports that everything is OK, and the disk size in Explorer has not changed. I checked the disk using the OS - it said that there were errors and needed to be rebooted. After the reboot, nothing changed and a request appeared to reboot to fix it. As you can already guess, this also did not help. As a result, we have lost 200 GB, despite the fact that Acronis says everything is ok, but the system is not able to correct the errors found. Sadness. Do I need to format it?

Vyacheslav

Vadim Sterkin,

In fact, under Windows 7, a similar operation was always performed without problems. I always perform the task of expanding/narrowing a partition in 2 stages: first, we cut off a piece of space from the partition being compressed and transfer it to the “unallocated space” status from the required end of the partition, and then we expand another partition using this space (I do everything manually in 2 reboots in case of "jambs", because Acronis performs a group of operations very strangely. There is a sad experience under Windows XP). So, if under Windows 7 after checking the disk, everything returned to normal and free place did not disappear so easily, then under Windows 8 Acronis completed the first stage successfully, but when performing the second it failed with errors, although later it reports that “everything is fine.” The problem was eventually resolved by booting from a Live CD from Acronis. It's a pity that this cannot be done under Windows 8. And I was counting so much on the “improved checking and correction of file system errors” promoted in the media. Of course, it is very difficult to trust that checking and background diagnostics of FS problems is working correctly. It is very confusing that the time to scan one partition under Windows 7 and under Windows 8 differs by orders of magnitude better side for the last one. Are all problems really so easily and quickly fixed? Maybe Windows 8 simply doesn’t notice most of them, or even worse, ignores them?

Vyacheslav

Vadim Sterkin,

Well, what option is there in Windows 8 to expand the partition size? I saw the Disk Management snap-in. Well, I didn’t see how it’s possible there “ standard means» trim the size of the logical volume from the desired end. There's also no way to move a partition within the unallocated space. If there is an analogue that I missed, tell me. Along the way, you did not quite correctly understand what I meant by the phrase “I had a bad experience under Windows XP.” And it was like this: after a reboot, this operation was performed and at that moment the electricity went out. Thus, I lost 2 partitions, although, in theory, there could have been 3 options: the second partition, from which space was taken away due to the incompleteness of the operation of moving NTFS service zones, would have been lost, or only system partition(although this is unlikely), or both partitions would be fine, with some area of ​​unallocated space between them. But I was very “lucky”. Let's skip the topic of sources uninterruptible power supply and it turns out that Acronis is a reputable company, and their products are sometimes dangerous to use in any way in the absence of alternatives from the OS. And then another “surprise” emerged. And even here everything is fine with the power supply. But as I already noted, the last problem was solved by booting from a Live CD from Acronis and classical check disk, and not the super-optimized one from Windows 8, the benefits of which I have not yet felt. It seems to be there, but there seems to be no point. Or maybe I was using the disk check tool wrong. Unfortunately, this “optimization” still raises more questions and mistrust in me than answers.

Vyacheslav

Vadim Sterkin,

Irina

Spent diagnosis of hard Windows disk(chkdsk). There were no messages, but later it turned out that there was no free space. Although before the check, less than 50% of the disk was full. And now it shows 931 GB occupied. Was all the free space wasted? The disc is six months old.

I forgot to say, after that I checked with Victoria and reported that there weren’t even any errors.

Irina

This is not the case for me. It's about not about system disk. And about the external drive. I’ve already found out that the system marked all the free space as bad blocks. Now I’m trying to figure out whether it’s a failure or whether the screw has died.

Sergey

Vadim, I have the following problem: After launching the utility chkdsk checks disk, if both “daws” are installed, it asks to reboot and a check is performed, I don’t know what to call it, but it looks like MS-DOS - lines run quickly on a black background. After the next reboot, I look at the information in Windows logs— Application, text in English, “many letters,” but the meaning can be understood from a single sentence: “Windows has checked the file system and found no problems." At the same time, a few lines above I was kindly informed that, they say, “Cleaning up 31 unused security descriptors.” Sometimes it is not “31 unused security descriptors” that are cleared, but more or, conversely, less. That is, something is still not quite right, and the program corrects it a little. Like, overall everything is fine, but the Bug died. So, no matter how many times I run this chkdsk, it requires a reboot to correct these errors, nothing else is detected. Previously, on another machine in Windows XP this happened rarely, but now it happens time after time.
The SSD drive is about a quarter occupied. The system is legal Windows 7 x64 Professional and is automatically updated. If you don’t run disk check, then there is no reason to worry, everything works fine, doesn’t glitch or crash. So, in connection with this, the question is - maybe there is no need to spoil your mood. On the site Microsoft solutions I didn’t find any problems with these file system errors, and are they really errors?

far_town2 Kulyasov

Are there any methods to check if the power supply is sufficient? And could it be because of him insufficient power Are there freezes/errors in games?

Often unstable work computer is associated with file errors HDD systems. To deal with this problem, error checking on the hard drive is necessary. Among other things, it would be nice to know about the state of the hard drive if it emits strange noises such as clicking or grinding noises. If information about damage to the hard disk will be received in advance, you can save all user data before the device fails.

Victoria

First of all you will need specialized program. Victoria is considered one of the best and most reliable. With its help for any operating system The hard drive can be checked for errors. Whether you have Windows 7, XP or 8 installed, Victoria will work stably under each.

The application is absolutely free and can be downloaded from the developer's website. However, it is distributed in two versions. The first one is standard binary packages to run in the OS. The second is an ISO image to run without having to boot the operating system. This is convenient when Windows refuses to work due to HDD errors.

If the HDD has a capacity of about 700 GB, errors will take at least one or two hours. Windows 7 will perform this procedure much faster using built-in tools. However, the quality of testing and the amount of data obtained using Victoria will be disproportionately higher.

Testing

First download the app. It is supplied in an archive. Extract it to any empty directory and double click on executable file. If the work is carried out in Windows 7 or 8, you need to right-click on the exe file, and then select “run with administrator rights”.

Checking for errors should begin with several preparatory steps. After starting the program, go to the "Standard" tab. On the right side you can see all the drives located in the computer. Select the HDD you want to test. Then click on the "Passport" button. If nothing goes wrong, the name and hard model disk.

After this, go to the tab called “SMART” and click on the inscription “GetSMART”. If the status next to the button changes, it means everything was done correctly. This area usually displays the word "GOOD", but "BAD" may also appear. In both the first and second cases, the sensor data was read correctly.

Possible mistakes

It happens that the HDD controller works in AHCI mode. In this case, consider SMART attributes It won’t work, so the hard drive cannot be checked for errors. The program will send a message to the log " Error reading SMART". Also, next to the button that is responsible for reading data from sensors, “Non ATA” will be displayed, and the area under the text itself will be highlighted in red.

To allow "Victoria" to work with hard drive, you need to change the BIOS settings. To enter them, you should press the “DEL” button several times while the very first messages appear on the screen when the computer boots. How to launch the utility BIOS settings may differ for different models motherboards. If the "DEL" key does not lead to a positive result, you should familiarize yourself with the information that is easily found on the developer's website.

After entering the BIOS, go to the Config path (maybe Advanced) - Serial ATA- Controller Mode, and then change the setting to Compatibility. Remember that after completing the hard drive check, the settings should be returned to their original state.

Continue checking

After correctly reading the SMART information, go to the “Test” tab and click on the “Start” sign. After this, error checking on the hard drive will begin. In the main area of ​​the program, rectangles that were previously monochromatic will now be painted in different colors. On the right will be written the total number of sectors, sorted by access time.

The main attention should be paid to the numbers near the blue and red marks. They mark the dead or bad sectors. That is, those that are impossible to access or require a lot of time to read. Thus, when accessing them, the computer seems to freeze.

Recovery

To try to restore bad sectors, error checking on the hard drive should be run again, but now set the switch located at the bottom right to the “remap” position. The program will mark "bads" as non-working, entering their addresses into a special area on the HDD.

Be carefull! If bad sectors begin to appear on your hard drive, most likely the drive will continue to fail after recovery. It is advisable to replace it or at least make backup copy all important data by copying them outside the HDD.

Built-in tools

The built-in OS tools can also check the hard drive for errors. Windows 8 allows you to launch it in a few clicks.

• First, open File Explorer by clicking on the My Computer icon.
• Then right-click on any section and select "Properties".
• Go to the tab called “Service”, and in it click on the inscription “Run check”.

Checking the hard drive for errors via the command line

The command line is a powerful tool that is used by many system administrators during the decision various problems systems. Its main advantage is that testing can be started even when graphical shell refuses to start. In this case, it is worth using with support command line" by pressing F8 while Windows boot, but before the logo appears on the screen.

If standard mode works fine, to run the test follow these steps:

1. Press "Windows+R" on your computer keyboard.
2. In the input line of the window that opens, type “cmd.exe” and click on the “OK” button.
3. The command line will appear on the screen. To run the scan, write “chkdskX: /f /r” into it. Instead of the letter "X", click the one that the operating system uses to indicate the partition that requires testing.
4. After entering the OS, it may indicate that it is not possible to complete the procedure without necessarily rebooting the PC. When the message appears, simply press the "Y" key and restart your computer. After this, error checking on the hard drive will begin automatically.

Remember: when checking the HDD, you should wait until it is completely finished. Disabling this process should only be done using tools built into the program. If there is no way to stop the procedure, do not try to interrupt it by turning off the computer or pressing “RESET”. These actions can lead to additional errors and data corruption on the hard drive. The most dangerous thing is the impossibility of recovering information after incorrect termination work.

The hard drive, unlike the processor and RAM, has a service life, sometimes an order of magnitude shorter. Its timely checking for errors will prevent the loss of important data. In Windows 7, this can be done using standard built-in tools or third-party programs.

The essence of the problem

The main disadvantage of hard drives and memory cards is the need to properly shut down them. For energy independence electronic memory we pay with her vulnerability to sudden shutdown devices.

The essence of hard drive wear and the formation of bad sectors

It is important for a computer not only to write data to any disk, but also to save it in order to quickly and accurately find it if necessary. Any digital storage device is not a continuous matrix, where the unit of measurement is one byte, but a structured amount of memory divided into equal sectors. The unit of measurement for this volume is a sector equal to 512 bytes (0.5 KB). Each sector has a processing time (ping) from units to hundreds of milliseconds. As information in each of these sectors is rewritten/erased, its ping increases, because all sectors have a certain service life (the maximum possible number of rewrite cycles), and one day reading the data written to the disk sectors will become impossible. A ping of more than 600 ms means that this sector is weakened, and with a ping of 1 s or more, the sector is considered non-viable (“dead”). Files written to a disk area on which poorly responsive sectors have formed are read with errors and slowly, and when they hit bad sectors Windows system will “freeze” tightly.

Reasons for bad sectors

Be it a classic magnetic hard drive (HDD), a more modern flash memory-based one (SSD), a flash drive or a memory card - they all suffer from improper shutdown of the PC or laptop. Several hundred forced shutdown The power supply is enough for the media to “crumble”: a power cut during recording leads to the accelerated appearance of weakened and “dead” sectors. Just one bad sector can ruin a disk. The disks of DVRs at protected sites where the Windows system is not used are especially affected - when disassembling and servicing the recorder, the power to the recorder is turned off immediately.

The second reason for disk failure is interrupted disk formatting as using Windows, as well as third-party utilities that clear data from the disk in several approaches (for example, CCleaner and Auslogics Boost Speed ​​software packages). In a good way, in Windows button“Undo formatting” should have been removed. Several thousand impulsively canceled formatting is enough to soon “drive” the disk until bad sectors appear.

Signs of bad sectors

Attention! You should be wary of the following:

Checking the disk for errors in Windows 7: practical diagnostic methods

In addition to checking the disk for bad sectors, there is a continuation of the solution to the problem - software repair disk, i.e. disable bad sectors that interfere normal operation disk. After turning them off, the disk capacity decreases slightly. Then files affected by bad sectors are restored. Of course, if this home video, taken on an iPhone, it will be “leaky” (damaged frames that fall on bad sectors when stored on disk for years without Reserve copy data to other drives). But software disk repair and data recovery are the tasks of service centers that provide data recovery services; The purpose of the article is to teach the user how to check disks for bad sectors. So, let's get to the point.

Standard check

It is called from the disk properties.

Go to the “Service” tab and click on the “Check” button.
These steps are almost the same for all versions of Windows

You must check the “Scan and repair bad sectors” option and run the scan.
You don't have to check the top checkbox

In fact, checking and restoring damaged sectors is conditional. Real disabling of bad sectors can only be done using third-party utilities or using the services of a computer service center.

Calling CheckDisk from the command line

Checking the disk by running the command typed in the line allows you to check the C: drive with bad sectors, due to which vital sectors for work were damaged Windows system files, in particular files Windows startup and NTFS hard disk partitioning. At the same time, the team Windows string runs from the installation DVD or flash drive. In other cases, the check is called from the command line according to the standard scheme.

The Windows Command Shell will display detailed information- how this happens when checking the disk immediately after startup Windows session.
This may help when Windows cannot start due to BAD sectors on C:

Verification by Victoria program

Did the previous method not work? Is the disk running much more seriously? It's time to move on to third party utilities! One of them is the Victoria application. The application is compatible with everyone Windows versions, the procedure is the same everywhere.

Select your disk that may have problem sectors. First, check its SMART status by clicking the “Get SMART” button.
The disk is initializing

The “good” status indicates the good overall condition of the disk. HDD temperature(if you have an HDD media type) should be no more than 40 degrees - with more high temperature The service life of the disk will be significantly reduced. The “Reallocated sector count” parameter will report the number of reassignments of BAD sectors. If BAD is greater than zero, it means that the disk has transferred bad sectors, replacing them, this warns of the imminent failure of the disk!
After clicking on Get SMART, all the necessary information will be displayed

Proceed to disk testing. The first and last sectors are specified so as not to scan the entire disk (by default this would be the case). Select the testing mode: “verify” (test) and the action “ignore” (skip BAD sectors when detected), because everything else is software repair of the media. Click the "Start" button.
Check if everything is correct and start the process

When checking a disk, its map is displayed, which shows the slow and fast sectors of all categories. Sectors with a ping of more than 600 ms are considered problematic - be careful with them. If there are a lot of them, you should think about replacing the disk with a new one before data loss becomes widespread. Disabling weak or “dead” sectors is a temporary measure, and the disk size will be reduced by their number.
They should not be ignored - this is a reason to replace the media

Alternative programs for checking

The hdd-911.com website offers several other utilities, including worthy alternative Victoria is an HDD Scan application that also allows you to check the surfaces of your hard drive. HDD or the performance of any Flash drive. There are also programs for MS-DOS (for example, HDDSpeed), but their main drawback is the difficulty with large real and logical disks over 32 GB in size, working with file system NTFS.

To restore data after checking the disk, you can use other applications - for example, Paragon Partition Manager recovers accidentally deleted logical drives and data on them, if full formatting The disc has not yet been produced.

What to do if software maintenance does not help

The only “insurmountable” obstacle is the physical wear of the disk. No tricks when trying to repair software are effective here. Even if you used the video course at the end of the article and honestly went through all the stages without incident, but it was not possible to “revive” the disk, you would need to check the printed circuit board (controller) of the hard drive and test the main part (the drive itself with magnetic media). Flash drives, memory cards and SSDs are less repairable (they have printed circuit board there are no drives, and the flash memory and the controller form a single whole) - only software methods, otherwise you will need to simply replace them.

Video: a detailed guide to working with Victoria

Even if you do software repairs with Victoria or HDD Scan, disk wear has not been canceled. No matter how much you dismiss disk replacement, it is still coming. We wish you never to lose important data!

Today we will discuss the topic: How to check HDD for errors and bad sectors in Windows 7

There are several ways to check your hard drive.

Checking the hdd for bad sectors using Windows

First of all, you can check your hard drive for bad sectors using standard diagnostic tools of the operating system itself. To do this, you need to go to the “Computer” tab, select the hard drive and, right-clicking on it, select the “Properties” tab

The Local Disk Properties window will open, where you need to go to the “Service” tab and click on the “Run check” button

The following local disk check window will open in front of you - there you should check the boxes for the actions that you would like to perform, and then click the start button.

If, during the check, you selected the main disk on which the system is installed, a warning from the system will appear on the monitor, where you will have to agree.

The next time you start the computer, the hard drive will be checked for bad sectors and errors.

If another drive was selected, the hard drive check window will appear, after which a notification about the completion of the check will appear.

How to check hdd for errors and bad sectors in windows 7 via cmd?

The next method is slightly different from the first. Go to the Start menu and enter “cmd” in the search field. Right-click on the result found, and then select “Run as administrator” from the drop-down menu

In the console window that opens, you should enter the command: “chkdsk d: /f /r” and press “Enter”

The check for broken parts will begin. hdd sectors, after which the result will be displayed.

A program to check your hard drive for errors and bad sectors

In addition, there are external programs to monitor and fix your computer's hard drives. One of them is HDDScan.

You can download this program from the official website, and in this article we will look at how to check your hard drive for bad sectors using it. So, click on the program icon. The main window will appear where you will see work area programs

Click on the “New task” button, which is located in the middle, and select “Surface test” from the drop-down menu

In the next window, select one of the test options and click the “Add test” button

Let's take a quick look at what each test means:

Verify - Reading is in progress into the internal buffer of the drive without transferring SATA interface, IDE or other. The operation time is being measured.

Read - Data is being read, transmitted, checked and the operation time is measured.

Erase - the program writes blocks of data to disk one by one, measuring the operation time (All data in the blocks will be deleted).

Butterfly Read - just like the Read test, but the order of reading blocks is observed: reading starts simultaneously from the beginning and end of the range, block 0 and the last one are tested, then block 1 and the penultimate one.

For average testing, the Read test is usually suitable: after you check your hard drive, double-click on the test checking window and see the graph and test status

Even the most polished and most secure operating system is by no means guaranteed against failures perceived by the user as errors. Particularly annoying are unknown and unexpectedly occurring errors, sometimes fraught with extremely unpleasant consequences.

It is not difficult to imagine the emotions of a person working on a complex document that is lost as a result of a Windows system crash. To avoid similar problems— it’s better to prepare for them in advance. And to do this, you need to be aware of how Windows 7 OS is checked for errors. Let us consider separately two serious questions related to the stated topic:

• Checking Windows system files and registry.
• Monitoring the status of your computer's hard drive.

Old timers computer world People well remember the utilities of the world-famous Peter Norton, not only the author of excellent books, but also the creator of programs under the “Norton utilities” brand. The first versions of these programs worked before appearance of windows- in the then popular operating system MS DOS. These utilities made it possible to detect the presence of errors on the hard drive and identify the presence of other DOS problems. We will be interested in similar tools for Windows.

Files and Registry

Checking OS files can be done in two ways: either using standard Windows tools, or using a third-party software. The OS has built-in file monitoring tools. To use their capabilities, you need to open a command line window and type in it sfc team with the /scannow parameter, like this:

As a result, system files will be scanned to detect errors in them. The result will be displayed immediately in the command line window.

The information obtained can be analyzed (at least using the Internet), which can be useful for determining the degree of wear and tear of the OS and equipment. During operation, the program will try to correct all detected violations in system files on disk.

Additional service, more high quality scanning and reliable adjustments are provided by third-party software.

For example, the same package “Norton Utilities” (NU) for Windows. Although this remedy and is the most popular and powerful software package to combat OS and computer malfunctions, it still costs a lot of money. Especially in its “professional” configuration. Nowadays you can find a lot on the Internet free analogues this creation.

The Windows registry is the very place where, in addition to the information needed by the OS, a lot of all sorts of rubbish and garbage accumulates. Periodic cleaning of the registry is our direct responsibility. For this purpose, it is worth installing and periodically running a time-tested CCleaner utility(although NU also does a good job of this). Search for it online and download it.

HDD

Errors appearing in file structure on the hard drive is caused by wear on the disk surface, malfunctions of Windows disk services (drivers) and positioning errors of the laser subsystem of the hard drive. You can check and disinfect your hard drive using methods similar to the previous ones. We will look at the easiest way - launch standard program disk error checker that comes with Windows. For this:

• Open the “My Computer” shortcut, select the icon for any of the sections (for example, “ Local disk WITH").
• Open context menu right mouse button.
• Select Properties. A window with tabs will open.
• Go to the "Service" tab
• Click on the “Run check” button.

The program will examine the partition and fix any problems. Perform the same operation with the remaining partitions.