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Hard drive performance. Checking the performance of the hard drive using special programs. How to check your hard drive using HDDlife

The ability to store data with you and use it at any workplace is possible with small-sized drives connected to a computer via a USB port. Let's consider three main types of such devices.

Hard magnetic disks

Initially, they were exclusively internal, but necessity forced some to get out of the system unit. In another, more compact, adapter block from hard drive format (IDE, SATA) to USB.

Let's look at how to check the functionality of an external hard drive:

  • connect to a switched off computer;
  • launch and wait for loading;
  • in the “My Computer” folder we check for the presence of a new disk.

If the HDD drive is not added, reboot the computer by pressing DEL or ESC to call Setup. If it does not detect the device, then it is most likely faulty. Either HDD, or adapter, or both. To determine more precisely, you can remove the hard drive and connect it to another adapter or directly to the controller hard drives.

Solid State Drives

The first SSDs, like HDDs, were internal and, for external use, an adapter was used. Nowadays this method is rarely used due to large quantity initially external devices.

Let's look at how to check the SSD for functionality:

  • connect to the computer and wait for the operating system to detect new equipment;
  • open the drive in the “My Computer” folder and work with it.

If the system does not respond to the connection, try restarting the computer. You can try formatting the SSD. () If the situation has not changed, then the disk is most likely faulty.

Flash drives

The closest relative, or rather, the ancestor of the SSD. It has a smaller capacity and size, as well as the absence connecting cable. These include memory cards: SD and microSD – connected to USB via a card reader.

Testing external drives with software

An approximate and often sufficient check of devices can be carried out standard programs systems - formatting and copying. The process should proceed stably and evenly, without error messages.
For more deep check, allowing you to identify hidden defects and speed characteristics of drives, there are many programs that perform these functions in whole or in part. They usually have a simple interface where you just select a device and run the test. If there is a fault, it will be indicated.

Letter. A difficult question for the site administrator and please answer in simple language so that it is clear to a simple user.

How to check HDD for performance, 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 normal formatting, but that's not true. It turns out that it is generally impossible to remove physical problems, and logical ones only with the help special programs and only software bad blocks or soft bads (file system errors) can be removed using regular using Windows, 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 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 displayed BOOTMGR is missing on a black screen, this error restored using installation disk seven, 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 for 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 master also showed me the S.M.A.R.T of my hard drive and found it not very good, since the most important parameter Reallocated Sector Count - indicating the number of reassigned sectors (when the disk detects a read/write error, the sector is marked “reassigned”, and data from the damaged sector or in other words from the physical bad block is transferred to the backup area), is almost critical, it is responsible for physical defects hard drive that can no longer be fixed.

Another parameter Current Pending Errors Count - responsible for the number of sectors, reading which is difficult and very different from reading a normal sector, was also marked yellow, which indicated his 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 the sector also became within the normal range, but the most, according to him important indicator Reallocated Sector Count has not changed and remains 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 corrected and are physical bads really incorrigible at all? Many forums on the Internet say that they are proprietary utilities 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’ll explain why below). Reinstallation Windows case did not help 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 will test the surface of the hard drive, we will find no less than 63 bad sectors and our program will fix them all, another question is how long it will last (read further).

  • But first 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 corrected.

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 is it possible to carry out low-level formatting using operating system, the answer will be - no, you can’t. 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 main boot record MBR), 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 and inaccessible to OS and BIOS tools service area, which is a mini-operating system, along with 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 backup tracks; naturally, because of this, performance will drop somewhat, since the magnetic head of the hard drive will have to do a lot additional movements, searching for information on remapped sectors from spare 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 the 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 falls on the required sector tracks; such markings are applied by low level formatting at the factory during the manufacture of the hard drive. This information It is almost impossible to remove since it is highly magnetized, but under certain circumstances, similar to the reasons for the appearance of physical bad blocks (impact, 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 user information to a sector, a piece of service information is additionally written, the so-called ECC sector checksum (Error Correction Code), 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 of simple examples Why this happens can be explained by a sudden shutdown of the computer due to electrical failures, because of this, information was written to the hard disk sector, but there was no checksum. 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, and then he will read what was written down and compare checksum, after which the sector will return to work.

For example, the HDDScan program has the Erase function - Test in mode linear recording(sector-by-sector data erase) 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 bootable disks with MHDD or Victoria programs, boot from them and run these programs from Advanced function remap , 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.

To store information on most personal computers and even servers, hard disks. They are quite reliable, but over time magnetic storage fall into disrepair. In most cases, the service life of the disk is 5-10 years. Each user must be able to diagnose the HDD in order to determine the need to replace the part and perform a data backup. You will learn everything about verification from this article.

Symptoms of hard drive problems

Malfunctions or early death hard drive may be accompanied by typical symptoms. We recommend paying attention to the following symptoms:

  • The appearance of uncharacteristic sounds during operation. There may be clicks, crackles, or metallic clanging. In such cases, the problem is usually mechanical in nature.
  • “Brakes” in the operation of the system. Windows loads too slowly, some files do not open, and errors occur when installing programs.
  • The appearance of blue “screens of death”. In such cases, an error code is always written, which can be used to determine the source of the problem.
  • Spontaneous shutdown or reboot of the computer. As a rule, in such situations it is damaged boot sector HDD.

Please note that computer freezes can also occur due to insufficient RAM.

Ways to check the hard drive

HDD diagnostics is an important task. There are several ways to do this. Operating system tools allow you to analyze your hard drive, but they are not always effective. Optimal solution– use of specialized utilities that are created specifically for this task.

Via command line

Windows operating systems have a standard utility that can analyze the status of the hard drive. To do this you will have to run command line:

In the command parameters, specify the drive letter and two specifiers. The first one – F is responsible for automatic correction errors, and R performs information recovery. Be prepared that the verification may take several hours. If you are using a laptop, be sure to charge it. At the end you will get statistics on how many sectors are damaged.

Using Windows Explorer

If you prefer using familiar windows, you can run the scan through Explorer. To do this, users should follow a number of steps:

During this operation, the system will perform the following checks:

  • basic file system structure;
  • security descriptors;
  • file name associations;
  • USN magazine.

To find out the scan results, you need to go to the "Event Viewer" menu, and then to Windows log find the verification log.

Via Windows PowerShell

The latest Windows operating systems have an additional utility similar to the command line, which was created for convenient system administration. You can also use it to test your hard drive. To start, you need to perform several steps:


The system will scan and automatically fix if possible. If there are no errors, the message NoErrorsFound will appear.

Using Windows 10 Tools

The latest operating system from Microsoft has advanced functionality, so it can independently diagnose a wide range of problems. Using the built-in security center, you can check the status of the HDD. Additionally, go to storage diagnostics. How to use these functions will be described below.

Security and Service Center

This is a special section in the “ten”, which is responsible for maintaining the operating system. As a rule, everything necessary checks are performed automatically after a certain period of time. You can access this section through the control panel. Next, if necessary, open the “Maintenance” tab and find the “Disk Status” line. Opposite it should be the “OK” option. If it is not there, then we recommend conducting a thorough analysis of the condition of the hard drive.

Storage Diagnostic Utility

Windows 10 developers also created additional utility to check the hard drive - storage diagnostics. It is launched via the command line (how to open it was described in the sections earlier). Next, enter the command and press Enter.

The procedure may take 2-5 hours (depending on the HDD capacity). At some points the process will appear to be stuck, but it is strongly recommended that you do not interrupt the scan. Once the process is complete, navigate to the path to save the report and open it (the file will have evtx permission). It will provide the following information:

  • chkdsk check data and error information;
  • registry files containing data about connected drives;
  • Event Viewer Logs.

For correct decoding The information presented in the report requires experienced specialists. The report will be uninformative for ordinary users.

Third party programs

For professionals and ordinary users third party developers have created many useful, functional and easy-to-use utilities for checking hard state disk. With their help, you can get comprehensive information about the status of your HDD. The most popular of them will be described below.

Victoria

This is the most popular free software from qualified specialists. Its wide functionality allows you to get almost any information about the hard drive. The parameters are displayed in a form convenient for the average user, so to make a conclusion about HDD condition you don't have to study anything extra. The utility is distributed on a Freeware basis, i.e. absolutely free.

Download the software to your computer and follow the instructions:


All sectors will be marked in different colors depending on the response speed. Gray sectors are not dangerous. Green sectors are allowed in quantities of several hundred (up to 2-3 thousand). For example, on a completely new 1TV hard drive their number is about 1 thousand. Orange sectors are at their limit. No more than 100 pieces are allowed. Red and blue cannot be restored. They need to be “closed”, limiting reading from them.

When scanning, you can set the operating modes:

  • Ignore - classic check without further action.
  • Remap – replacing unreadable sectors with reserves if available.
  • Restore - restoration bad sectors programmatically.
  • Erase – overwriting unreadable sectors. Attention, erases information.

As you can see, the utility is informative and easy to use even for beginners.

HDDScan

Another useful software to scan the hard drive. It has less functionality, but a more friendly interface compared to the previous version. The utility is completely free, but allows you to get SMART parameters and detailed information about the state of the sectors.

To start the verification procedure, follow these steps:


The colors for the sectors are identical to those described above. The scanning menu does not provide functions for correcting sectors.

DiskCheckup

The software supports work with almost all types of hard drives (SATA, USB, FireWire). It has small but sufficient functionality. You can check it through the app SMART parameters, and also carry out full testing on the Disk Self-Test tab. The main disadvantage of the program is the complexity of the results for the average user. The status is indicated by the “OK” line and numerical parameters. Considering that they are all in English, it will be difficult to understand.

MHDD

This is highly specialized software for advanced users. It is used if the system does not start and the OS does not load to the desktop. To run MHDD software, you must burn it to a CD or flash drive as an image. You can even run the utility with the entire operating system. To do this, you need to select a flash drive or CD as the boot drive when using a floppy drive.

After the menu appears, you just need to select the desired hard drive and enter the command to check. The software is controlled in the same way through commands as on the console, or using function buttons keyboards. Not recommended for use ordinary users without the appropriate skills.

Crystal Disk Mark

This utility allows you to evaluate the speed of writing and reading information from your hard drive. In its interface, the user can select the write/read type, local disk and the size of the file that will be read and written. After finishing the test you will receive information at speed.

You will not be able to evaluate these results yourself. We recommend finding a similar HDD model online to compare its testing with your test data. If the results with identical settings are almost the same, then there is no need to worry. If there are strong differences, we recommend analyzing the hard drive through Victoria.

HDD Regenerator

Functional utility for HDD scanning and recovery. A special magnetization reversal algorithm allows you to eliminate quite serious problems with the hard drive. To launch the software you should:


The advantage of this utility is the ability to quickly correct errors and close bad sectors.

Seagate SeaTools

Specialized software from Seagate product developers. Allows you to obtain basic information about the disk, perform preliminary and full scan. We recommend using this utility in cases where the above for some reason does not work, and you own a hard drive from Seagate.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic

Special software for English language to check company disks Western Digital. It is more suitable for advanced users, but ordinary users can also perform quick diagnostics. For example, you can check the status of SMART parameters.

The utility also allows you to conduct simple and advanced tests, but the information content of the results for typical users leaves much to be desired.

Disk Utility on macOS

Operating room users MacOS systems also have standard utility for working with a hard drive. Its functionality includes:

  • creation and transformation of images;
  • mounting and unmounting disks and other media.
  • activation and deactivation of logging mode;
  • HDD integrity testing and file recovery;
  • erasing, formatting and partitioning disks;
  • cleaning up debris;
  • adding a partition table;
  • checking the S.M.A.R.T status of the hard drive and much more.

To start you need in the utilities on system disk find the application and then launch it.

Prevention measures

To maximize life is tough disk, users can perform various actions, including:

  • Defragmentation. This procedure arranges all file blocks in order, making access to them as fast as possible, accordingly, the head travels less distance to open the file and wears out more slowly.
  • Install a quality power supply. Power surges have a detrimental effect on any equipment. If important data is stored on the HDD, take care of a high-quality power supply to prevent damage to the hard drive due to power surges.
  • Avoid vibrations and shocks. Winchesters are extremely vulnerable to impacts. When transporting your computer, make sure that the hard drive will not be subject to vibration.
  • Clean the system. Freezes due to unstable software or viruses can cause increased load on the disk; accordingly, it will use its resource faster.
  • Eliminate external magnetic fields. Many install system unit with other powerful equipment that has magnetic field. If you want to ensure maximum data safety, do not place the system unit next to equipment that emits a powerful magnetic field.

Never forget to do backups. Any hard drive will eventually become unusable, and it is not always possible to recover data. Regular checks will allow you to determine the future demise of the HDD in advance and take action, for example, purchasing a new one.

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    Hard disk (HDD) is the most important element of a computer on which everything is stored. necessary information, programs and user files. Like any other component, over time the hard drive wears out, its normal operation is disrupted, and failures begin to occur. Along with physical wear and tear, leading to the appearance of so-called bad sectors(bad blocks), logical errors often occur related to the file system, indexes and the main file table.

    For the time being, you may not observe problems in work hard disk, but this does not guarantee that one fine day the hard drive will not die for long. Therefore, it is important to periodically (once or twice a year) check your hard drive for errors and bad sectors that require repair. Regular monitoring will allow you to track the condition of the media and respond in a timely manner to changes in its condition. Of course, you should not neglect such a proven method of protecting information as backup. The most valuable data must be duplicated on a backup storage device.

    Symptoms of a failing hard drive

    In most cases, HDDs operate uninterruptedly for several years without requiring any special attention. However, in case of improper use ( physical impact, lack of proper cooling) the resource of the storage medium is significantly reduced. In rare situations, there may be a manufacturing defect or sudden failure.

    Hard disk failure may be indicated by too many long loading operating system, unreasonable disappearance of files and folders, slow application launch. Obvious symptoms of a hard drive losing its functionality are slowdowns in programs and long periods of copying files. If the computer constantly hangs, and nothing but restarting helps, then in the process of identifying the causes, checking the hard drive should be the first point.

    Using standard Windows 7/10 tools

    You can test the media standard means Windows. The easiest way is to select in Explorer required hard disk, click on it right key mouse and go to the “Service” tab.

    Next, click the “Run scan” button and set the scan parameters in the window that opens. If both checkboxes are checked, Windows will automatically correct all system errors and restore damaged sectors during diagnostics.

    The results of the audit can be found in the report.

    Command line

    You can also audit your hard drive using the utility chkdsk called from the command line. In fact, such a check will not differ much from the above option.

    So, launch the command line by selecting the required Start menu item. Then enter the command in the window: chkdsk G: /f /r

    • G – name of the hard drive being tested (select the drive you will check);
    • f – error checking and correction;
    • r – detection and recovery of bad sectors.

    All information about found errors and bad sectors will be displayed as the diagnostics are carried out.

    Third-party programs for checking your hard drive

    There are many programs and utilities for finding bad sectors and fixing them. HDD errors. We will list only the most famous ones.

    Victoria

    Perhaps the most popular hard drive checking tool. The program can be launched both in Windows and in DOS mode from a bootable USB flash drive.

    The interface provides five tabs: Standard, SMART, Tests, Advanced and Setup. First of all, go to the section Standard, where in the list of devices we select the hard drive we are interested in. IN Drive areas passport will display basic information about the HDD.

    Next, select the tab SMART and press the “Get SMART” button. SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analisys and Reporting Technology) is a hard drive self-monitoring technology. Those. The hard drive monitors its operation during operation, recording information on a set of parameters that allows one to assess the condition of the media. It is this service information that we are trying to obtain.

    After clicking “Get SMART”, either the inscription GOOD on a green background or the inscription BAD! will appear to the right of the button. on red. The second option will indicate that the media is in unsatisfactory condition and will most likely have to be replaced. For more detailed study SMART statistics, pay attention to the list of parameters on the left. Here we are primarily interested in the attribute 5 Reallocated sector count, indicating the number of sectors remapped. If there are too many of them, then the disk has begun to “crumble,” that is, its surface is rapidly degrading and it is urgent to make a copy of all data. In this case, there is no point in restoring the hard drive.

    Chapter Tests makes it possible to check the hard drive for bad sectors, as well as try to “cure” or reassign unreadable blocks. For simple testing hard drive, set the switch to Ignore and start the test with the Start button. Sector health is assessed by measuring response time. The smaller it is, the better. Each response time range has its own color code. The slowest blocks are marked in green, orange and red. Sectors that could not be read at all are marked in blue. If there are a large number of “slow” and unreadable blocks, the hard drive should be replaced.

    The Victoria program allows you to restore bad sectors, but we will not consider all the nuances of the procedure. Moreover, “treatment” often contributes only to a slight extension of the service life of the storage medium. To reassign bad blocks, perform a check with the mode enabled Remap. If the restoration was successful, do not rush to rejoice. Re-diagnostics the disk after certain period operation. The appearance of new bad blocks will indicate that the degradation of the hard drive is irreversible, and it’s time to find a replacement.

    HDDScan

    This is another one convenient program to identify problems with hard drives. After launching the application, select Select list Drive drive that needs checking.

    Below we click on the “S.M.A.R.T.” button and get acquainted with the provided report.

    Now let's diagnose the disk surface. Click on the round button to the right of the drop-down list of media and select Surface Tests in the menu that opens.

    Click on the Add Test button, thereby adding a test to the list and starting its execution.

    You can receive information about the testing progress in Graph, Map, and Report modes. All blocks are also distributed into groups with appropriate color marking depending on access time.

    At the end, a final report is generated.

    Perhaps this is all we wanted to tell you about the methods of checking a computer’s hard drive for functionality. We hope the information provided will be useful to you and help you save important data.

    Good afternoon.

    In today’s article I want to touch on the heart of the computer - the hard drive (by the way, many people call the processor the heart, but I personally don’t think so. If the processor burns out, buy a new one and there are no problems; if the hard drive burns out, then the information cannot be recovered in 99% of cases).

    When do you need to check your hard drive for performance and bad sectors? This is done firstly when they buy new hard disk, and secondly, when unstable work computer: you have strange noises (); when accessing a file, the computer freezes; long copying of information from one hard section disk to another; missing files and folders, etc.

    In this article I would like to talk about in simple language, how to check a hard drive for problems, to assess its performance in the future, disassemble it as you go typical questions users.

    So, let's begin…

    Updated 07/12/2015. Not long ago, an article appeared on the blog about restoring bad sectors (treating bad blocks) with the HDAT2 program - (I think the link will be relevant for this article). Its main difference from MHDD and Victoria is its support for almost any drive with interfaces: ATA/ATAPI/SATA, SSD, SCSI and USB.

    1. What do we need?

    Before starting the testing operation, in cases where the hard drive is not stable, I recommend copying everything important files from disk to other media: flash drives, external HDDs etc. ().

    1) You need a special program to test and restore the hard drive. Similar programs quite a lot, I recommend using one of the most popular - Victoria. Below are the download links

    2) Next, a multi-colored program window will appear in front of us: go to the “Standard” tab. The upper right part shows the hard drives and CD-Roms that are installed in the system. Select your hard drive that you want to test. Then press the “Passport” button. If everything goes well, you will see how your hard drive model is determined. See picture below.

    If the hard disk controller is operating in AHCI (Native SATA) mode, SMART attributes may not be received, with the message “Get S.M.A.R.T. command… Error reading S.M.A.R.T!” The impossibility of receiving SMART data is also indicated by the “Non ATA” highlighted in red when initializing a medium whose controller does not allow the use of ATA interface commands, including requesting SMART attributes.

    In this case, you need to go into the BIOS and in the Config tab->>Serial ATA (SATA)->>SATA Controller Mode Option->>change from AHCI to Compatibility. After finishing testing with the Victoria program, change the setting as it was before.

    You can read more about how to change ACHI to IDE (Compatibility) in my other article:

    4) Now go to the “Test” tab and click the “Start” button. In the main window, on the left, rectangles colored in different colors will begin to appear. It's best if they are all gray.

    You need to focus your attention on the red and blue rectangles (the so-called bad sectors, more about them at the very bottom). It’s especially bad if there are a lot of blue rectangles on the disk; in this case, it is recommended to run the disk scan again, only with the “Remap” checkbox turned on. In this case Victoria program will hide detected bad sectors. This is how they produce restoration of hard disks that have begun to behave unstable.

    By the way, after such a restoration, the hard drive will not always work for a long time. If it has already begun to crumble, then I personally would not rely on the program. If there are a large number of blue and red rectangles, it’s time to think about a new hard drive. By the way, blue blocks on the new hard drive are not allowed at all! experienced users They are called bad sectors (meaning bad, unreadable). Such unreadable sectors can occur both during the manufacture of the hard drive and during its operation. After all, a hard drive is a mechanical device.

    During operation, the magnetic disks in the hard drive case rotate quickly, and the read heads move above them. If the device is pushed, hit, or software error, it may happen that the heads hit or fall onto the surface. Thus, it is almost certain that a bad sector will appear.

    In general, this is not a problem and many disks have such sectors. The disk file system is capable of isolating such sectors from file copying/reading operations. Over time, the number of bad sectors may increase. But, as a rule, a hard drive often becomes unusable for other reasons before bad sectors “kill” it. Bad sectors can also be isolated using special programs, one of which we used in this article. After such a procedure, usually the hard drive begins to work more stable and better, however, how long this stability will last is unknown...

    Best…