Even on the most high-quality and reliable HDDs, some time after installation in the PC, bad sectors begin to appear. When the number of bad blocks becomes large, the hard drive stops working and needs to be replaced. However, often the hard drive can be restored using third-party software. In this article, programs for treating a hard disk will be described and instructions for working with them will be given.
Bad sectors
HDD writes user information to magnetic disks. Their surface is divided into tracks and sectors. If you cannot retrieve data from any sector, then it is called bad or bad. Restoring bad blocks is difficult, but realistically.
Remember that after treatment, the information from the HDD should be transferred to another drive, and over time, replace the hard drive. If bad sectors began to appear on the hard drive, then after the repair their distribution will not stop. Another failure of the device can happen at any time.
VictoriaHDD
VictoriaHDD - a program for the treatment of hard disk sectors, is considered one of the most effective and absolutely free. The application runs in DOS mode, so it requires some preparatory steps. First you need to create a bootable USB flash drive.
- Download the VictoriaHDD utility image in ISO format.
- Also download the WinSetupFromUSB application and run it.
- In the drop-down menu, select the USB drive, which will subsequently become bootable.
- Check the box next to Autoformat.
- Check “Linux ISO” and see the full path to the VictoriaHDD program image.
- Click on the “Go” button to start the process of recording files.
BIOS settings
Since the programs for treating the hard disk work in DOS mode, you need to configure the BIOS.
- Reboot the computer.
- After turning on, press the “DEL” or “F8” button several times to enter the “Setup BIOS” utility. On some devices, other keys are set to launch BIOS settings. To find out which one is responsible for entering the “Setup BIOS” on your computer, read the information at the bottom of the screen immediately after turning on the machine.
- Go to the “Main” section and find the “SATA Mode” item. Press “ENTER” and select “IDE”.
- In the “First Boot Device” field, set the value to “USB”.
- Press the F10 key to save the setting changes.
- The computer will then restart.
Verification and Recovery
If all of the above actions are performed correctly, after rebooting the PC VictoriaHDD will start automatically. To start hard drive recovery:
- Press the key with the English letter “P” on the keyboard.
- In the menu that opens, select the port to which the HDD is connected. Today, almost all drives work through the SATA socket, so you need to set the switch to the “Ext PCI ATA / SATA” position.
- Press “F9”, the information taken from the SMART table will appear on the screen. Pay special attention to the column "Current pending sectors". This is where the number of sectors from which data is not read is indicated. Remember or write down this number.
- Press the F4 key and run the scan in BB: Erase 256 mode. The utility will try to find all the bad blocks and restore them. In this case, the information stored in them will be deleted.
- Reopen the SMART table and see the number of bad sectors. If some of them could not be restored, it is worth scanning the HDD in a different mode.
- Press the F4 button and select BB: Classic Remap. Now the application, when it finds a damaged sector, will not repair it, but will mark it inoperative. This approach will stop the spread of bad blocks.
- When VictoriaHDD finishes checking, restart your PC.
Programs for treating a hard drive: tools built into the OS
After scanning the drive with the VictoriaHDD utility, it is worth checking the utility installed in the operating system by default.
- Open My Computer.
- Right-click on the local drive icon.
- Go to the "Service" tab.
- Select the option “Run check”.
- In the window that opens, check the box next to "Automatically fix errors."
- Click on the “Run” button and wait for the program to finish working.
- Never turn off the PC until the verification process is complete.
HDD Regenerator
HDD Regenerator is a free program for treating a hard drive. The main advantages of the utility include a user-friendly interface. Many users choose HDD Regenerator for this very reason.
- Close all applications and start HDD Regenerator.
- Open the "Recovery" menu and click on the inscription "Start processing".
- If a window appears warning about BIOS settings, click on the "No" button.
- Select the drive that needs treatment.
- After that, the command line will open on the screen, where you will need to enter a number from 1 to 4.
- Enter “2” and press “ENTER”.
- The utility will ask you to indicate where to start scanning. Just click on the Enter button.
- The application will scan the HDD and give out information about the bad blocks.
- When the scan is completed, enter “2”, now the utility will not only scan the hard drive, but also try to restore the bad sectors.
I must say that the program for treating the hard drive of Windows 7 is very slow. Sometimes the process drags on for 2-3 days. However, HDD Regenerator is really trying to restore the ability of the blocks to store data, and not just mark them as unused, which explains the long scan time.
Mhdd
Functionality MHDD is almost completely similar to VictoriaHDD. The application works in DOS mode. With it, you can view the SMART table, perform diagnostics and treatment of the hard disk. The program is not presented in Russian.
- Create a bootable USB flash drive, just like the VictoriaHDD utility.
- Complete the BIOS setup and restart the computer.
- Press “F2” and select the device with which to work.
- To scan the surface of the hard drive, enter the word “SCAN” or use F4. The screen will display the settings in which all destructive functions are disabled (erasing, deleting bad blocks).
- Press "F4" again. Scanning will start, and the display will show a table in which the colors of the cells will change during the scan: white, gray, green - the sector is operational; yellow - there is a risk of damage; red - the unit is damaged.
If there are bad blocks on the drive:
- Copy all the information to another HDD.
- Enter the ERASE command, which will completely erase the data from each sector. This will get rid of soft-bad blocks.
- If this does not solve the problem, press the F4 key and enable the REMAP option. Now the utility, like the built-in programs for treating a hard disk in Windows, simply marks bad sectors and they will no longer be used.