One of the biggest troubles for computer owners is the damage to sectors on the hard drive. These sectors are usually called bad, and a hard drive that has damage starts to “crumble”. Such problems often cause rather unpleasant consequences, including: the inability to obtain information and the loss of files; lack of ability to run some programs. Computer operation may be completely paralyzed. That is why it is worth checking periodically bad sectors on the hard drive.
Why look for errors on the hard drive?
Before you talk about how to check bad sectors on your hard drive, you need to consider the technical nuances of this issue. Winchester is a sealed box inside which rotating disks are placed, and it is on them that data is recorded. Information in the process of writing to disk is divided into small memory cells, or sectors. If the read head cannot remove information from a specific area, then the file written to it will not be launched, and the operating system will warn you about this, informing you of an error reading the file.
A working hard drive is characterized by entire sectors, as well as the ability to read any information. In most cases, the appearance of such defective areas indicates the likelihood of an early breakdown of the hard drive. If you trace the appearance of the first bad sectors as quickly as possible, you can save a very significant part of the important information through regular copying to some other hard drive. It is for this reason that it is recommended to check the status of the hard drive.
The essence of the problem
If you consider that the hard drive is the custodian of the most important information on a personal computer, starting from the control system and the necessary software and ending with the family photo archives in recent years, then its failure may well cause a huge amount of trouble. However, in such a situation, do not despair, because there is a way out of it. Here it is important to know how to check bad sectors on the hard drive. Below is an algorithm for performing some actions that can ultimately restore the hard drive.
Bad sectors on the hard disk can be located either in the place where the system files are located, which often causes the computer to not boot after being turned on, or in the location of other files, which allows the user to boot the PC. So, if we talk about how to check bad sectors on the hard drive, it is worth noting that the method depends on the current state of affairs, that is, on whether the control system is launched or not.
If the computer's operating system boots
It is quite simple to fix bad sectors on a hard drive if they did not affect the system’s performance. You must perform these steps to start the scan and then restore the sectors: first go to "My Computer", and then call the context menu of the desired logical drive; select "Service" in the properties dialog, and then give the command to perform the check. Before starting the process, it is necessary to tick “Automatically fix system errors”, then you can click “Start”.
User participation on this completely ends. And the computer itself, using a whole range of built-in programs, will check the hard drive for errors, and then it will fix all the detected problems. If we are talking about how to check bad sectors on the hard drive, then if all of the above actions are completed, the computer will need to be rebooted, since the program needs exclusive access to the HDD without an operating system.
If the computer does not start
To get out of this difficult situation, each owner should have a virtual system drive on hand. You need to insert it into the drive, after which the computer turns on in normal mode. There is a boot from the disk, and after that you can carry out all the manipulations specified in the previous section. If there are no “signs of life" in the operating system, you will need to tinker a bit more to restore the damaged sectors, and for this you need an installation disk with the OS or with a virtual system.
It is possible to identify bad sectors on the hard drive even if there is no removable media with a virtual system, you can use the installation disk for this. When it starts, you need to activate the item "Restore system". In the process of recovery, the HDD surface is checked for bad sectors with the further elimination of damage.
Special programs and features
If we talk about how to check bad sectors on the hard disk, you should know that the recovery console starts if necessary and without a boot disk. This is done like this: when you turn on the PC, press F8, and in the list that appears, select safe mode with command line support. You can check and then restore the hard drive and by running the program through the recovery console. After downloading it, you need to select the partition with the installed operating system. By default, Windows is installed on drive C, so you need to select it, after which “1” is pressed and the administrator password is entered. When a prompt appears on the line, you need to enter the command: CHKDSK ([drive:] [[route] file_name] [/ F] [/ R]. When you press Enter, the recovery process will begin. It turns out that to check the system partition of the hard drive you need to run recovery console, in which the command should be indicated: chkdsk c: / f / r.
Victoria - a program for testing and recovery
One of the methods to determine the possibility of future failure or to save the hard drive altogether is to use software diagnostics and repairs using the Victoria program. It allows you to quickly detect any bad sectors that will immediately be marked as non-working. Further, they will not be read at all, due to which freezes and errors in reading will be excluded. This software package provides excellent diagnostics. After it, it becomes clear how much longer your disk will work and whether it needs treatment with a paid version of the software. In use, this program is quite simple, and a lot of knowledge is not required for this. Even inexperienced beginners are able to conduct many tests that may well give interesting results.
You can consider an example of verification using Victoria and the subsequent recovery of the hard drive. The application itself can be downloaded in the archive, it does not have an installer. The program takes about 600 kilobytes, which is negligible by modern standards. After starting, you will see the application window. It may seem complicated and incomprehensible, but everything is quite simple. Thanks to switching between the tabs, you can get information about the state of the disk, its testing, settings and other parameters and functions.
main parameters
The TEST tab contains the part of the program that we need: testing for errors and the possibility of fixing them. In the workspace of the program are cubes representing sectors. During the test, they will be colored depending on the current state. The gray sectors are good, the green ones require more reading time, but their condition is satisfactory. Orange indicates that reading takes a very long time, it is they that create braking during HDD operation. They are still workers, but will fail soon enough. Reds are damaged or completely unreadable. They cannot be restored. In the presence of such a phenomenon, it is worth thinking about changing the hard drive. Blue with a cross while reading cause a malfunction. Information from them is not restored, and they need to be re-allocated so that no further data is written to them. After starting the scan, the program will begin scanning, which takes quite a while.
conclusions
In order to fully meet such troubles and be able to check the disk for bad sectors, anyone who actively uses the computer must have a boot disk with programs on it, for example, MHDD or Acronis Disk Director suite. Such simple utilities allow you to automatically perform the necessary checks, and then provide a detailed error report.