A program for testing a hard drive for bad sectors. Checking and diagnosing the hard drive

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Have you started to hear extraneous creaks in the system unit? Has the system performance somehow dropped completely intolerably, although the processor and memory should not allow this to happen? Well, it's time to check hard drive. Find out how to do this in our article.

This is quite an important matter. In addition to the reduction in performance, although this is also important, we're talking about about your data. You don't want to one day be left without all your data simply because your drive decided to fail? Here. Therefore, it is important to check the condition of the disc and its health level more often.

Correcting errors in a timely manner also helps increase the lifespan of the disk. Be it ordinary HDD or SSD, errors file system wear it out in a forced mode, so it is important to maintain it in good condition. Otherwise, the data will be lost even faster.

If you understand the importance of this event, then let's get started.

Checking using standard Windows tools

This is the simplest method and can give you quite a lot of information about the hard drive and even try to fix some errors.

Read interesting information And reliable advice in the article -

Command line

If the previous use case standard tools Windows is not very efficient, then the command line method can try to supplement it. Its essence is that it is launched from the bootable installation media of the system, that is, the system itself is not running and cannot block some of the requirements of the verification program.

Important! This method has one disadvantage: it requires installation media, and it is desirable that it be with the exact version of Windows that is installed on your computer.

Create bootable media and insert it into the drive or USB port. In your computer's BIOS, select to boot from this media. Wait for the operating environment to load.
When the program reaches the window labeled “Start installation,” press the Windows key combination + F10.
Enter in the console window that opens next command: chkdsk/f. Press Enter.
The scan will start. The program will display the results right there on the command line. She will immediately try to correct all the errors found.

Simple third party software

Let's look at a few programs that will help you identify most problems with your hard drive without going into too much detail about the process.

HDDScan

Using this program, you can understand in which sectors the writing and reading speed is high, and in which - not. The program is completely universal; with its help you can diagnose anything, as long as it is an information storage device.

The principle of working with her is extremely simple: you start scanning and wait for her report on the work done, from which it is quite possible to draw some conclusions.

Crystal Disk Mark

A more narrowly focused utility, although it essentially also monitors speed. More program it can’t do anything, but based on the write and read speeds, you can quite understand what’s happening with the disk and how much longer it will last.

Important! It is strictly forbidden to use this program if you want to check the SSD drive. His death when using this software will be even closer: this program fills the entire space with some data, and although it is weightless and deleted without a trace, for the SSD this is also wear and tear.

More complex software

If no means standard check, neither simple programs you are not satisfied, then you can move on to more complex programs for check. So, let's begin.

Victoria HDD

The most common program for troubleshooting hard drive problems.

Its advantages are that there are both quick and deep scans of the disk, and also that it monitors its temperature. It is too important indicator, but it doesn’t affect wear that much.

HDD Regenerator

Pro tool in our article. Corrects everything it finds in its path. Its huge competitive advantage– Russification. It is therefore very easy to use, despite the impressive range of functions.

The principle of its operation is much more complex than that of other programs, and these differences clearly benefited the program. She manages to restore what others could not. Also, unlike other programs, it does not destroy your files that were in the sectors it corrects, but preserves them culturally. Well, not life, but a fairy tale.

The program has two versions - graphical and console. If you are not very knowledgeable about this topic, use the graphical one with the Russian language, everything is intuitive there. In the console, its capabilities are much wider, because there is less pressure and restrictions from the operating system.

Let's look at the graphical interface.

On a note! However, this program has one significant drawback - it is paid, and the trial only allows for verification. Well, that’s good too.

Programs from hard drive manufacturers

Who, besides the manufacturers themselves, can know better how to work with hard drives? Some of these programs work only with disks of a certain brand, some - with all. Experiment.
Let's begin.

SeaTools

Essentially a simple program:

Data Lifeguard Diagnostics

This is the name of the verification program from the manufacturer WD. The functionality is approximately similar to the previous program, but has a number of advantages.

firstly, it can be used with any disk. This is a huge plus, despite the prevalence of discs of this brand;
secondly, she knows how to destroy information;
thirdly, it can simply cut off dead sectors so that the disk runs longer at the same speed, albeit with a slightly smaller volume. Definitely an extremely useful feature.

All options are in context menus. That is, to start scanning a specific drive, you just need to click on it right click mouse (of course, in the program interface) and select the desired action. That's all the work.

We hope these methods helped you deal with the problems of your machine, repair it, or prevent damage. Good luck!

Video - How to check your hard drive yourself

Or you just want to know what condition it is in - this can be done using various programs to check HDD and SSD.

This article contains a description of the most popular free programs for hard checks disk, briefly about their capabilities and Additional Information, which will be useful if you decide to check your hard drive. If you don't want to install similar programs, then first you can use the instructions - perhaps this method will help solve some problems with HDD errors and damaged sectors.

Despite the fact that when it comes to checking the HDD, people most often remember the free program Victoria HDD, I won’t start with it after all (about Victoria - at the end of the instructions, first about options more suitable for novice users).

Checking your hard drive or SSD in the free HDDScan program

HDDScan - excellent and completely free program for check hard drives. You can use it to check HDD sectors, obtain S.M.A.R.T. information, and perform various hard tests disk.

HDDScan does not correct errors and bad blocks, but only allows you to find out that there are problems with the disk. This can be a minus, but sometimes, when we are talking about a novice user - positive point(it's hard to mess something up).

The program supports not only IDE, SATA and SCSI drives, but also USB flash drives, external hard disk, RAID, SSD.

Details about the program, its use and where to download: .

Seagate SeaTools

Free Seagate program SeaTools (the only one presented in Russian) allows you to check for errors hard disks various brands (not only Seagate) and, if necessary, fix bad sectors (works with external hard drives too). You can download the program from the official website of the developer https://www.seagate.com/ru/ru/support/downloads/seatools/, where it is available in several versions.

SeaTools for Windows- a utility for checking the hard drive in Windows interface.
Seagate for DOS - iso image, from which you can make bootable USB flash drive or disk and, after booting from it, check the hard disk and correct errors.

Usage DOS versions allows you to avoid various problems, which may occur when scanning in Windows (since the operating system itself also constantly accesses the hard drive, and this can affect the scan).

After launching SeaTools, you will see a list of hard drives installed on the system and can perform necessary tests, get SMART information, and also perform automatic recovery bad sectors. You will find all this in the “Basic tests” menu item. In addition, the program includes detailed guide in Russian, which you can find in the “Help” section.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic Hard Drive Tester

This free utility, unlike the previous one, is intended only for hard drives Western Digital. And for many Russian users These are exactly the hard drives.

Just like the previous program, Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic is available in a Windows version and as bootable iso image.

Using the program you can view SMART information, check hard sector disk, overwrite the disk with zeros (erase everything completely), look at the test results.

You can download the program on the Western Digital support website: https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=ru

How to check your hard drive using built-in Windows tools

In Windows 10, 8, 7 and XP, you can perform a hard drive scan, including a surface check, and fix errors without using additional programs, the system itself provides several options for checking the disk for errors.

Checking the hard drive in Windows

The simplest method: open Explorer or “My Computer”, right-click on the hard drive you want to check, select “Properties”. Go to the “Service” tab and click “Check”. After this, all you have to do is wait for the verification to complete. This method not very effective, but it would be nice to know about its availability. Additional methods - .

How to check the health of your hard drive in Victoria

Victoria is perhaps one of the most popular programs for hard drive diagnostic purposes. Using it you can view S.M.A.R.T information. (including for SSD) check the HDD for errors and bad sectors, and also mark bad blocks as not working or try to restore them.

The program can be downloaded in two versions - Victoria 4.66 beta for Windows (and other versions for Windows OS, but 4.66b is the latest, this year's update) and Victoria for DOS, including an ISO for creating a bootable drive. Official page for download - http://hdd.by/victoria.html.

The instructions for using Victoria will take more than one page, and therefore I don’t undertake to write it now. I'll just say that main element programs in the Windows version is the Tests tab. By starting testing, having first selected the hard drive in the first tab, you can get a visual representation of the state of the hard drive sectors. I note that green and orange rectangles with an access time of 200-600 ms are already bad and mean that sectors are failing (only HDDs can be checked in this way; this kind of check is not suitable for SSDs).

Here, on the testing page, you can check the “Remap” checkbox so that during the test, bad sectors are marked as non-working.

And finally, what should you do if bad sectors or bad blocks are found on your hard drive? I believe that the optimal solution is to take care of data safety and as soon as possible replace such a hard drive with a working one. As a rule, any “correction of bad blocks” is temporary and the degradation of the drive progresses.

Additional Information:

Among the recommended programs for testing your hard drive, you can often find Drive Fitness Test for Windows (DFT). It has some limitations (for example, it does not work with Intel chipsets), but reviews of its performance are extremely positive. It might come in handy.
SMART information is not always read correctly for some brands of drives by third-party programs. If you see “red” items in the report, this does not always indicate a problem. Try using a proprietary program from the manufacturer.

To store information on most personal computers and even servers use hard drives. 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 carry out HDD diagnostics to determine whether 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 imminent death of the 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 – 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- usage specialized utilities, which were 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 - F is responsible for automatic error correction, 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 like more use 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 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, all 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 thorough analysis hard drive status.

Storage Diagnostic Utility

The developers of Windows 10 also created an additional utility for checking 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:

verification data from using chkdsk and error information;
registry files containing data about connected drives;
Event Viewer Logs.

To correctly decipher the information presented in the report, it is necessary 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 additional. 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 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 is a classic check without further action.
Remap – replacing unreadable sectors with reserves if available.
Restore – restore damaged sectors programmatically.
Erase – overwriting unreadable sectors. Attention, erases information.

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