Programs for restoring damaged hard drive clusters. We check and eliminate errors and bad sectors of the hard drive

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For example, let's take a real HDD having bad sectors

Friends, the minimum unit of information on a hard disk is a sector; the volume of user data is 512 bytes; if the information in a sector cannot be read, then the sector is unreadable or, in other words, faulty. All operating system freezes occur when reading information from such a sector.

This hard drive WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (500 GB capacity) is really faulty,

The operating system on it constantly freezes and periodically when loading it starts checking the hard drive for errors. The last straw for the owner of the hard drive was that it was impossible to copy important data to another drive, and even reinstalling the operating system ended with another hang on unpacking Windows files, replacement installation disk nothing happened with the operating system, the freeze was repeated at another stage of the installation.

That's when the question arose about what to do about it. hard drive, because one of the partitions contained important data and needed to be copied.

Launch of Victoria

Launching the Victoria program on behalf of administrator. We agree with all warnings about working on a 64-bit system.

Select the initial tab Standard. If we have several hard drives, in the right part of the window, select the desired hard drive with the left mouse, in our case WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2

and go to the SMART tab,

press the Get SMART button, the GOOD message will light up to the right of the button and S.M.A.R.T. will open. the hard drive we have selected.

5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), indicating the number of reassigned sectors, this means the spare sectors on the backup tracks are running out and soon there will be nothing to reassign bad sectors with.

Go to the Tests tab.

Hard drive surface test in Victoria!

On the right side of the program window, check the Ignor item and the read item, then click Start. A simple hard drive surface test will run without error correction. This test will not bring any good or bad effects on your hard drive, but when the test is finished, we will know what condition our hard drive is in.

The surface of the hard drive begins to be scanned and after a while bad sectors are detected. After 40 minutes, Victoria gives us the following result:

A lot of good sectors with a good read latency of no more than 5 ms - 3815267

There are also sectors with a bad read delay of 200 ms

There are no sectors with unsatisfactory read latency of more than 600 ms (candidates for bad blocks), but...

What’s really bad is that there are full-fledged bad sectors (bad blocks), the information from which could not be read at all - 13!

13 bad sectors(bad blocks), they all start in the area 6630400 and end at 980000000, that is, scattered throughout the hard drive. Bad block numbers must be written down. Friends, it is quite possible that all our problems with the hard drive can be due to these 13 bads and we need to get rid of them, but first we will make a sector-by-sector image of the diseased screw.

The hard drive of the victim WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (capacity 500 GB) was divided into two partitions: drive D: with the operating system, capacity 120 GB, and drive E: with data, capacity 345 GB.

Before working with the Victoria program, let’s protect ourselves and make a full image of the E drive partition: the volume is 345 GB and we will extract the data from the image. We will create the image in another DMDE program and place it on another physical disk SAMSUNG HD403LJ (400 GB capacity). I will show you how to do this.

Managing my computer's disks

Left click to enlarge screenshot

Important data is located on the New volume (E:) with a capacity of 347 GB of the WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive (total volume 500 GB), which means we will create an image of the partition (E:)

We will create a sector-by-sector image of the partition (E:) on a SAMSUNG HD403LJ hard drive (400 GB capacity), there is only one partition without data on it New volume(F:)

The third physical disk in the system is solid state drive SSD (120 GB capacity) disk (C:), it contains our working operating system Windows system 8.1, which is where we are now.

Creating a sector-by-sector image of the entire hard drive or the desired section in the DMDE program

Also DMDE is very good tool to create sector-by-sector copies of a faulty hard drive.

We go to the DMDE program website http://dmde.ru/download.html and download the program, click GUI for Windows.

DMDE is downloaded in an archive, unzip it and run the file dmde.exe.

Then select the language Russian.

We accept the terms License Agreement. IN initial window To create an image, we need to select either a physical device (that is, a full hard drive) or a partition with data to create an image.

We only need volume (E:), so we mark our hard drive WDC WD5000AAKS with the left mouse, then check the item Logical drives

and partition (E:), then click OK.

Menu. Create image/clone...

Place for recording, click Disk.

New volume (F:) and OK. It is necessary that the partition on which the sector-by-sector image of the faulty hard drive (or partition with unreadable data) will be created should be no smaller in volume than this disk.

All data on the new volume (F:) will be deleted, we agree Yes.

The creation of a sector-by-sector copy of the partition (E:) of the diseased hard drive WDC WD5000AAKS begins on a new volume (F:) of another healthy hard drive of the SAMSUNG HD403LJ drive, which continues for 6 hours (the image is removed from particularly “bad” screws for several days) and freezes completely at 83 percent, after waiting a couple of hours, I clicked the Abort button!

Friends, if we interrupt the creation of the image of a sector-by-sector division at the very end (after all, 83%), then two options await us, as Suvorov used to say - “either the chest in the crosses, or the head in the bushes.”

After interrupting the operation, go to the New Volume (F:) and see if there is any data on it and... they are there, all the main things we needed, the DMDE program was able to transfer to disk (F:), almost all the data read without errors. This means our case is not complicated and the problems are mostly software.

But in some cases, not everything will be so rosy, and when we try to enter a partition with a sector-by-sector copy, this error will await us: No access to F:\. The file or folder is damaged. Reading is impossible.

No access to F:\. File system not recognized. Make sure everything required system drivers loaded and the volume is not damaged.

But even in this case, we will not give up and will do so.

What to do if creating a sector-by-sector image fails?

Friends, the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy does not always end successfully even after several hours, but if you stop creating a sector-by-sector copy, the data in it may become unreadable.

Or during the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy, the following error will appear " The request failed due to an I/O error on the device" (see screenshot below) indicating that DMDE was unable to read the information in the bad sector (the sector number is indicated in the error) in this case, click

“Repeat” will make a second attempt to read information from this sector and it may end in success. If this error with the same sector will appear again, then click

"Ignore" and the creation of a sector-by-sector image will continue, but we will lose information in this sector and as a result, one file will not open in a sector-by-sector copy. If the "The request was not completed due to an I/O error on the device" error appears too often, you can select

"Ignore everything" and similar errors will be skipped, or you can press the button

"Options" and adjust the DMDE program accordingly for such a severe case. Click the Options button in this window.

"Reverse move", sometimes it brings results.

And press again "Options".

In this window, check the box "- Always". If you select this option, the operation will continue even

in case of an error due to the device not being ready. If you do not check this option, then on some “poor” hard drives a warning will be displayed with the expected user reaction, that is, the image will not be created automatically.

Number of auto retries on CRC error - 0

Fill bad sectors (hex)

Then OK And OK, the creation of a sector-by-sector image begins.

Left click to enlarge image

This setting option also proved to be workable.

Ignore I/O errors - Always

Don't wait if the device is not ready - Always

Number of retries on CRC error - 0

Number of auto retries if sector not found - 0

In general, I advise you to study the manual for the DMDE program http://dmde.ru/manual.html or http://dmde.ru/docs/DMDE-manual-ru.pdf, you can also wait for our article on creating a sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard drive various programs, in it we will even consider the creation bootable flash drive with the DMDE program.

If DMDE does not help you, then you can try other programs, for example. Of course, there are still ways in which you can make a sector-by-sector image of a faulty screw, for example, booting from some operating system based on Linux, for example Ubuntu, but I will not describe the process itself here and would rather write a separate article. You can also run the safecopy utility under Linux.
What to do if you still cannot make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard drive is up to you to decide. You can contact a good and proven data recovery service and specialists will take a sector-by-sector copy of your hard drive using special expensive equipment, for example using the same PC−3000 complex. If you don’t mind your data, then you can take a risk and run algorithms in the Victoria program that rid the surface of your hard drive of bad sectors (bad blocks), how to do this is written below, the hard drive can come back to life after this operation.
Important: Kazansky(program developer Victoria) promises that the most innovative algorithm for hiding bad blocks BB = Advanced REMAP is NOT destructive for data, but in some cases it can be destructive for your files, since even the most advanced Victoria algorithm Advanced REMAP hides defects (remap), This is, in any case, a change in the translation of the screw, which means the loss of user data (details below. I want to say that sometimes it happened that Victoria would cure a hard drive of bad problems and you would even be able to copy information from such a hard drive, but unfortunately not all the information is readable .

So, in our case, the DMDE program managed to make a sector-by-sector copy of a diseased hard drive, namely a new volume (E:), although in some places DMDE froze a little, but everything ended successfully. A sector-by-sector copy of the new volume (E:) is an exact copy and is located on the volume (F:). All available data is successfully read and copied.

The main problem has been solved and user data has been saved, now we proceed to the hard drive treatment procedure.

How to get rid of bad sectors (bad blocks) using the Victoria program

Friends, let’s now imagine that we were unable to make a sector-by-sector image of a hard drive with bad blocks and we couldn’t come up with anything else and decided to rid our hard drive of bad blocks in the Victoria program, in the hope that after hiding the bad sectors we will be able to read and copy the information to your hard drive.

Note: it is difficult to rid a screw of bad blocks in a running Windows, especially if, for example, you have a laptop with one hard drive and an operating system is installed on the same hard drive and you want to cure the same operating system from bad blocks. In such cases, create a bootable USB flash drive with Victoria, boot the laptop from it and get rid of bad sectors. I propose to create a bootable USB flash drive in the next article, but now we will find out how this is done directly in a working operating system, I will show you everything.

Remap

In the main Victoria window, check the Remap item, which denotes the algorithm for reassigning bad blocks to sectors from backup tracks during the scanning process. Test in reading mode Read, that is, from beginning to end and click on the Start button.

While the scanning is underway, let's talk about this.

1. What happens with this Remap algorithm? An attempt is made (several times) to force information to be written to the bad sector of the hard drive., if the attempt is successful, then the sector becomes healthy and is removed from the list of bad blocks (remap does not occur). If the write attempt is unsuccessful, then the diseased sector is reassigned to a healthy sector from a hard drive backup track specially designed for such cases.

2. Remap is the reassignment (replacement) of a diseased sector, assigning its LBA number to another physically healthy sector from the reserve track. Information from the sector (at the time of reassignment) hangs in the screw's RAM, and as soon as the sector is reassigned, it is written back.

Remap is basically not destructive for information; if your data is lost, it will only be in one bad sector, but you must admit that the data in the bad block was already unreadable. In the second case, the data will simply be transferred to the sector from the backup track.

Result. As I said, it is difficult to fix anything in a running Windows and Victoria cannot perform a Remap. After 20 minutes, the same result, 13 bad blocks, and you and I will have to make a bootable flash drive with Victoria and work in DOS.

How to scan a specific area on your hard drive in Victoria

Most often, you come across software (program) bads that are removed most quickly by resetting them - the Erase algorithm, and even if writing to the zero sector is unsuccessful, Remap may well occur, since the hard drive firmware may consider such a sector to be faulty. If Erase does not help, then you can choose Remap, but as we know, the chances that Remap will be performed in a running Windows are low.
In some cases, software bads can be removed even by simple formatting using Windows itself. Read all the difference between existing bad blocks: physical and software in our article. I’ll explain in a nutshell that physical bads (a physiologically destroyed sector) cannot be restored (only repair, reassignment is possible), but logical ones (software, sector logic errors) can be restored.
Friends, we can, but then our article will be even longer, we will also do this in the next article.

I don’t want to experiment with our WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive, since in the next article I plan to cure it of bad blocks in DOS mode using a bootable flash drive with the Victoria program and still return to the owner the hard drive cured of bad blocks with intact data.

I'll just show you on another hard drive how to run this test in a running Windows.

In the main window of Victoria, select our hard drive and go to the Tests tab and check the Erase item (beware, in some cases your data on your hard drive will be deleted)- when an unreadable sector is detected, it forcibly rewrites the entire block of 256 sectors with zeros; naturally, the information in the entire block of sectors is completely lost, but if rewriting occurs, the block returns to work (becomes healthy).

Test in reading mode Read, that is, from beginning to end and click Start.

Often, when “resetting” in a running Windows, the following errors will appear:

Block (bad sector number) try Erase 256 sectors. It was not possible to rewrite the block of sectors.

Write algorithm

The Write mode does not look for any bad sectors, but simply immediately erases all the information on the hard drive by filling all sectors with zeros, this is what repairmen call “Write all over the clearing”, this algorithm is able to cure a hard drive from bad ones and simply bad sectors with a long read delay, but After such a test, it will be impossible to restore data on the hard drive, so first copy everything important files to a portable hard drive.

Problems with hard drives on your computers always arise spontaneously. Main indicator possible problems with HDD - time! Yes, time is not only a “doctor”, but also an absolute destroyer!

Signs indicating problems with “tin” are very banal.
Firstly, these are strange sounds that occur while your hard drive is running: squeaks, clanks and other sound effects.
Secondly, this is the heating of the surface of the hard drive case: as you know, a normal HDD does not heat up at all (well, at most its surface is slightly warm).
Thirdly, frequent crashes of the operating system: this indicates great amount damaged sectors of your hard drive (clusters).

As you can see, friends, there are quite a few reasons. How to solve a problem? There are two solutions:

buy a new hard drive;
try to “cure” the old one.

Let's consider option number two, that is, let's try to restore damaged sectors of our HDD disk. So!

Recovering damaged hard drive sectors

First, you should know the reasons that are the catalyst for the occurrence of bad sectors on the HDD:

improper shutdown of the computer;
viruses and Trojans;
incorrect removal of programs and games.

These reasons are the most common. Of course, your hard drive will not immediately show its “disease”, because bad sectors accumulate over quite a long time (six months to a year). But the time will definitely come and your “hardness” will give you an unpleasant surprise! And to prevent this from happening, you should check your HDD from time to time for the number of damaged sectors and “heal” these same bad sectors.

How to do it? There is nothing complicated in the procedure, since it is as simple as three pennies. Go to “Start - My Computer”. Place the cursor over any local drive and click right click mice. A menu will appear in which you select the last line “Properties”. By clicking on “Properties”, you open the “Properties” window: system disk(drive letter)". There, in this window, you see several active tabs - click on the “Service” tab. You see: three sections have appeared and in each section there is active buttons? In the “Check the disk (Check volume for errors)” section, click on the “Check the volume” button, and then check the checkboxes in the “Scan and repair damaged sectors” and “Automatically correct system errors” items.

Next, click on “Launch” and wait for the process to complete. Warning: The process of fixing hard drive problems can take a very long time! This directly depends on the condition and “age” of your hard drive. Therefore, do not panic if your disk is being “treated” for several hours in a row: this is normal for old or heavily damaged HDDs. Attention: if your broken disk(eg C) in this moment busy with work, the OS will prompt you to check sectors the next time the system boots. We agree, click “Ok” and restart the system. That's it: now your disk has begun to “heal”. All you have to do is wait for the process to complete. After this, we check the disk for adequacy: we try to launch programs and applications, and monitor the speed and quality of execution. But still, it should be taken into account that the old hard drive will sooner or later be covered with a “copper basin”! Therefore, if your HDD is old, be prepared to replace it. Good luck!

You are reading this article because your HDD is experiencing problems or you accidentally came across a title that interested you. In either of the two cases, it will be useful to know what hard check disk for bad sectors and how to do it. As usual, let's start with terminology. A disk sector is a unit of information storage, the smallest possible. A damaged sector is one that is unreadable due to the fact that it contains a faulty cluster (cell). By the way, on the Internet you can also come across the terminology – bad sector or block. Speaking about bad sectors, we immediately note that there are two types: physical and logical, they arise for the following reasons.

Physical bad block – cannot be restored:

moisture/dust ingress - led to clogging;
contact of the HDD head with a moving pancake and, as a result, damage;
With regards to SSDs, wear and/or overheating of the microcircuit, as well as moisture ingress may be the cause;
Factory defects are also possible, especially among inexpensive and little-known manufacturers.

Logical bad sectors - can be fixed, since some hard drive doesn't work correctly:

incorrect shutdown power supply/power cable while data is being written to the hard drive, so the operation cannot be completed and is interrupted;
virus attack;
malicious software.

So, when accessing them, the OS cannot read the information and displays an error code, in result Windows will report that the sector is damaged and cannot be further used for storage. The problem of logical bad sectors is solved low level formatting, using built-in Windows utilities and third parties software. Below are more details about each possibility.

Built-in tools

Examination HDD hard disk to bad sectors, as already mentioned, is carried out in a number of ways, let's start with the built-in Windows tools 7.

CHKDSK

Before using check disk, let's use disk check - many have probably already used this service.

If the check indicates errors, it will immediately offer to correct them.

Now let's use a deeper check using the check disk command, which literally translates to disk check:

The chkdsk command has a number of parameters, such as:

“/F” - check for errors and fix them automatically;
“/V” - during disk scanning, display the full paths and names of files stored on the disk, also for disks with NTFS partitions;
“/R” - searches for bad sectors and restores the contents, used with “/F”;
"/X" - dismounts the volume before checking if necessary, used with "/F". As well as a number of other parameters.

Checking the flash drive for bad sectors is also carried out, let’s use the “/F” and “/R” keys:

Third party software

Today there is a lot of software that allows you to check your hard drive for the presence of bad sectors, but we will look at proven software. Check program external hard HDD to bad sectors, is performed using the same means as regular disk. All instructions indicated are suitable for all types of memory, both stationary and connected via USB port.

Victoria HDD

The Victoria HDD program is one of, dare we say, legendary.

Designed to check the disk; shows full information: model, functions, size and much more. It also performs a surface test to determine the presence/absence of bad sectors. Let's check the hard drive or SSD drive for bad sectors in Windows 7 with Victoria. First, you need to download the installation package from our resource, the fact is that it is not possible to download from the official website, since support for this product is no longer provided.

Use only proven resources; I would like to note that no installation is required and no additional components should also not be part of the archive. After successfully downloading the software, let's proceed to use.

Wait for the result and look at the performance indicators of the screw, so if “GOOD” is highlighted green, then there is no point in worrying about the operation of the device, but if “BAD” is indicated, then it is worth taking action, but more on that later.

In addition, pay attention to the “Health” column, translated from English as health, and in general, the number of dots and their color will say a lot. It is also worth paying attention to the “VAL” parameter - the higher the number, the better, then “Wrst” or “Worst” - displays the lowest attribute value for the entire time of operation. The “Tresh” parameter is a threshold value for “Val”, and one of the most important “Raw” - displays a quantitative indicator, as in the example indicated by field ID 5 “RAW” - Reallocated sector count indicates the number of rejected and reassigned from the reserve area disk sectors - in in this case 1. If the number were much higher, you would start to worry.

Let's go to the “Tests” tab → click “Start” → wait for the result.

HDDScan

Another program for checking bad sectors of an SD card and any media is HDDScan. You can download it from the official website.

No installation required, but executable file open on behalf of the machine administrator.

By the way, by clicking on the same button with the image of a screw → “Identity Info”, you can get the full identification information about the device.

Next about the tests, select “Butterfly Read”.

Here the data will be read into the internal buffer and transmitted through the interface, saving it in a temporary software buffer. Thus, the total indicators of data transfer time and block recording are measured, and readiness is determined after each write, according to the results. Testing is also sequential, from minimal to maximum block.

As for the two remaining tests, they work as follows:

“Read” - measures the total indicators of disk readiness time and information transfer for each block with results. Testing is also sequential, from the minimum to the maximum block.
“Erase” - here the total block record and information transfer time are measured, and displays the readiness for each record with the results. Testing is also sequential, from the minimum to the maximum block.

HDD REGENERATOR

Checking a disk for bad sectors in Windows 7 is also done using HDD REGENERATOR software. I would like to immediately note that it is paid and on English language. Free demo version available on the official website

Next, follow the screenshots step by step to install.

Let's start checking:

At the top of the window, click on the long active text “Click here to repair...”, in the program status bar we see information that this copy is not registered and that only 1 sector can be restored.

Next, if a window appears with important message, translated into Russian literally sounds like this: “The system has detected SATA controller, working in AHCI mode. For better performance it is recommended to change it to compatible mode IDE (in BIOS). Reboot your computer to manually change the controller settings in system BIOS?. It's up to you here.

In order to show the possibility of work, I will connect an external screw and click in the main window again on the active link with the text “Click here to repair...”, having already selected the connected screw:

In the results table we see the following indicators:

“D” delays sectors – shows the sectors where the reading delay occurs or is completely erroneous.
“B” bad - bad sectors.
“R” is turquoise, recovered – restored.
“N” new bad sectors appear – new bad sectors appear.
“R” is burgundy color, bad sectors reappear - bad sectors that reappear during re-scanning.

By pressing the spacebar, we will exit to the main menu, and by pressing any key, we will exit this report.

Now let’s select scanning with the possibility of recovery, step by step in the screenshots.

Recovering bad sectors

So, the hard drive has been checked for bad sectors in Windows 7, and now it is necessary to restore the data. I’ll say right away that in general, complete recovery of bad sectors is possible from MS DOS with a bootable flash drive. But let us show how full version Victoria HDD can correct the situation.

As soon as the list of bad sectors is displayed, go to the “Tests” tab:

So we assigned the program an algorithm to force data to be written to the bad sector of the hard drive, and several attempts will be made. As a result, either the bad sector will become healthy, or will be replaced by a healthy reserve one, by the way modern models There are enough of them, but if the screw begins to crumble, it’s time to take action.

Long life to your HDD!

Have a great day!

Even on the highest quality and most reliable HDDs, bad sectors begin to appear in the PC some time after installation. When the number of bad blocks becomes large, the hard drive stops working and requires replacement. However, the hard drive can often be restored using third-party software. This article will describe programs for treating a hard drive and provide instructions for working with them.

Bad sectors

HDD records user information on magnetic disks. Their surface is divided into tracks and sectors. If it is not possible to extract data from a sector, it is called faulty or bad. Recovering bad blocks, although difficult, is quite possible.

Remember that after treatment, the information from the HDD should be copied to another drive, and over time the hard drive should be replaced. If bad sectors begin to appear on the hard drive, then their spread will not stop even after repair. Another device failure can happen at any time.

VictoriaHDD

VictoriaHDD is a program for treating hard disk sectors, considered one of the most effective and absolutely free. The application runs in DOS mode, so it requires some preparatory steps. First you should

Download the VictoriaHDD utility image in ISO format.
Also download the WinSetupFromUSB application and run it.
From the drop-down menu, select the USB drive that will later become bootable.
Check the box next to “Autoformat”.
Check the “Linux ISO” box and provide the full path to the VictoriaHDD program image.
Click the “Go” button to begin the file recording process.

BIOS Settings

Since hard drive treatment programs operate in DOS mode, you must run BIOS setup.

Restart your computer.
After turning on, press the “DEL” or “F8” button several times to enter the “Setup BIOS” utility. Some devices have different keys 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 settings changes.
The computer will then restart.

Check and recovery

If all the above steps are performed correctly, after rebooting the PC VictoriaHDD will start automatically. To begin hard drive recovery:

Press the key with English letter"P" on the keyboard.
In the menu that opens, select the port to which the HDD is connected. Today, almost all drives operate via a “SATA” socket, so you need to set the switch to the “Ext PCI ATA/SATA” position.
Press “F9”, information taken from the SMART table will appear on the screen. Special attention look at 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 start scanning in “BB: Erase 256” mode. The utility will try to find all bad blocks and restore them. In this case, the information stored in them will be deleted.
Open the SMART table again and look at the number of bad sectors. If some of them could not be recovered, you should scan the HDD in a different mode.
Press the "F4" button and select "BB: Classic Remap". Now the application when found damaged sector will not restore it, but will mark it as non-working. This approach will stop the spread of bad blocks.
When VictoriaHDD finishes checking, restart your PC.

Treatment programs built into the OS

After scanning the drive with the VictoriaHDD utility, it is worth checking it with the utility installed in the operating system by default.

Open My Computer.
Right-click on the local disk icon.
Go to the "Service" tab.
Select "Run check".
In the window that opens, check the box next to “Automatically correct errors.”
Click on the “Run” button and wait until the program finishes.
Do not turn off the PC under any circumstances until the verification process is completed.

HDD Regenerator

HDD Regenerator - free program for treatment The main advantages of the utility include its user-friendly interface. Many users choose HDD Regenerator for this very reason.

Close all applications and launch HDD Regenerator.
Open the “Recovery” menu and click on “Start processing”.
If a warning window about BIOS settings appears on the screen, click the “No” button.
Select the drive that needs treatment.
After this, the screen will open command line, 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 provide information about bad blocks.
When the scan is completed, enter “2”, now the utility will not only scan the hard drive, but also try to recover bad sectors.

It must be said that the program for the treatment of severe Windows disk 7 is very slow. Sometimes the process takes 2-3 days. However, HDD Regenerator actually tries to restore the blocks' ability to store data, rather than simply marking them as unused, which explains the long scan times.

MHDD

The functionality of MHDD is almost completely similar to VictoriaHDD. The application runs in DOS mode. Using it, you can view the SMART table, diagnose and treat the hard drive. The program is not presented in Russian.

Create a bootable USB flash drive, just like for the VictoriaHDD utility.
Perform BIOS setup and restart your computer.
Press "F2" and select the device you want to work with.
To scan the surface of the hard drive, enter the word "SCAN" or use F4. The screen will display settings in which all destructive functions (erasing, removing bad blocks) are disabled.
Press "F4" again. The scanning will start, and the display will display 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 block is damaged.

If there are bad blocks on the drive:

Copy all information to another HDD.
Enter the ERASE command, which will completely erase 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 Windows programs to treat a hard drive, it will simply mark the bad sectors and they will no longer be used.

The article contains a lot of information not only about the Victoria program, but also about the DMDE program, with which we will create a sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard drive; this also needs to be done correctly so that user data is not lost.

Hard drive test in Victoria and how to fix bad sectors (bad blocks).

Friends, if you are reading these lines, it means you have some kind of problem with hard drive and how to choose a hard drive was discussed earlier in the article.

When do we think that something wrong is happening with our hard drive?

Cannot copy from hard drive necessary information to another drive, when copying, the operating system freezes and only a reboot can save it.
Windows can freeze unexpectedly at any stage of operation.
It is impossible to reinstall the operating system, the installation process freezes while unpacking Windows files, or the installer reports the error “The installation cannot continue...”, or Windows takes a very long time to install, for example several hours.
When you turn on the computer, the Chkdsk utility immediately starts and checks the hard drive partitions for errors.
The hard drive is beeping extraneous sounds(clicks, squeaks) and is periodically not detected in the BIOS.
Download the Victoria program to work directly in the operating system Windows XP, 7, 8, 10
Go to the official website of the program and select the version for Windows. I advise you to download the Victoria 4.3 beta version, since Victoria 4.46 beta does not always work correctly.

Victoria for working from a boot disk

We go to the official website of the program and select.

Victoria on boot disk we also need it, but we will consider working with this version second. If you do not have a disk drive, then we will make a bootable USB flash drive with the Victoria program.

So, let's go, firstly, in the Victoria program we will accurately determine the numbers of bad sectors (bad blocks), then we will make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard drive and thereby save the user data, and then we will hide the bad sectors of the bad blocks (remap) in the Victoria program. We will also learn how to do a “Record across the entire clearing” (Erase test), that is, when a bad sector is detected, rewrite the entire block (256 sectors) of the hard drive with zeros.

For example, let's take a real hard drive with bad sectors:

This hard drive WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (500 GB capacity) is really faulty,

The operating system on it constantly freezes and periodically when loading it starts checking the hard drive for errors. The last straw for the owner of the hard drive was that it was impossible to copy important data to another disk, and even reinstalling the operating system ended with yet another hang on unpacking Windows files. Replacing the installation disk with the operating system did not yield anything, and the hang was repeated at another stage of the installation.

That’s when the question arose about what to do with this hard drive, because one of the partitions contained important data and needed to be copied.

Victoria launch:

Launch the Victoria program as administrator. We agree with all warnings about working on a 64-bit system.

Select the initial tab Standard. If we have several hard drives, in the right part of the window, select the desired hard drive with the left mouse, in our case WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2

and go to the SMART tab,

press the Get SMART button, the GOOD message will light up to the right of the button and S.M.A.R.T. will open. the hard drive we have selected.

S.M.A.R.T. This screw turned out to be not the best. Why? Read our first article in the series about the Victoria program. Here I will only say that as many as four attributes of S.M.A.R.T. burn red, including the most important parameter, attribute

Go to the Tests tab.

Hard drive surface test in Victoria program

The surface of the hard drive begins to be scanned and after a while bad sectors are detected. After 40 minutes, Victoria gives us the following result:

A lot of good sectors with a good read latency of no more than 5 ms - 3815267

There are also sectors with a bad read delay of 200 ms

There are no sectors with unsatisfactory read latency of more than 600 ms (candidates for bad blocks), but...

What’s really bad is that there are full-fledged bad sectors (bad blocks), the information from which could not be read at all - 13

13 bad sectors (bad blocks), they all start in the area 6630400 and end at 980000000, that is, scattered throughout the hard drive. Bad block numbers must be written down. Friends, it is quite possible that all our problems with the hard drive can be due to these 13 bads and we need to get rid of them, but first we will make a sector-by-sector image of the diseased screw.

The hard drive of the victim WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (capacity 500 GB) was divided into two partitions: drive D: with the operating system, capacity 120 GB, and drive E: with data, capacity 345 GB.

Managing my computer's disks

Important data is located on the New volume (E:) with a capacity of 347 GB of the WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive (total volume 500 GB), which means we will create an image of the partition (E:)

We will create a sector-by-sector image of the partition (E:) on a SAMSUNG HD403LJ hard drive (400 GB capacity), there is only one partition without data on it. New volume (F:)

The third physical disk in the system is a solid state SSD drive(volume 120 GB) drive (C:), it contains our running Windows 8.1 operating system, which is where we are now.

Creating a sector-by-sector image of the entire hard drive or the desired partition in the DMDE program

DMDE is also a very good tool for creating sector-by-sector copies of a faulty hard drive.

We go to the DMDE program website http://dmde.ru/download.html and download the program, click GUI for Windows.

DMDE is downloaded in an archive, unzip it and run the file dmde.exe.

Then select the language Russian.

We accept the terms of the License Agreement. In the initial window of the program, we need to select either a Physical device (that is, a full hard drive) or a partition with data to create an image.

We only need volume E:, so left-click on our WDC WD5000AAKS hard drive, then check Logical drives

and partition (E:), then click OK.

Menu. Create image/clone...

Place for recording, click Disk.

New volume F: and OK. It is necessary that the partition on which the sector-by-sector image of the faulty hard drive (or partition with unreadable data) will be created should be no smaller in volume than this disk.

On the new volume F: all data will be deleted, we agree Yes.

After interrupting the operation, we go to the New volume F: and see if there is any data on it and... they are there, the DMDE program managed to transfer everything we needed to the F: volume, almost all the data is read without errors. So our case is not complicated and

the bads are mostly software ones

But in some cases, not everything will be so rosy, and when we try to enter a partition with a sector-by-sector copy, we will be greeted with this error: No access to F:\ . The file or folder is damaged. Reading is impossible.

No access to F:\. The file system is not recognized. Make sure that all required system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not damaged.

But even in this case, we will not give up and will do so.

What to do if creating a sector-by-sector image fails?

Or, in the process of creating a sector-by-sector copy, the following error will appear: “The request was not completed due to an input/output error on the device” (see screenshot below), indicating that DMDE was unable to read the information in the bad sector (the sector number is indicated in the error) in this case click

Repeat, there will be a second attempt to read information from this sector and it may end in success. If this error with the same sector appears again, then click

Ignore and the creation of a sector-by-sector image will continue, but we will lose information in this sector and, as a result, no file will open in the sector-by-sector copy. If the "The request was not completed due to an I/O error on the device" error appears too often, you can select

Ignore all and all such errors will be skipped, or you can press the button

Parameters and configure the DMDE program accordingly for such a severe case. Click the Options button in this window.

You need to be careful in the parameters, as you can configure a lot of things here. For example, force DMDE to create a sector-by-sector image from a hard drive not from the beginning, but from the end, for this you need to check the box

Reverse the move, sometimes it brings results.

And click Options again.

In this window, check the Don't wait if the device is not ready - Always check box. If you select this option, the operation will continue even

Number of auto retries on CRC error - 0

Number of auto retries if sector not found - 0

Fill bad sectors with hex

Then OK and OK, the creation of the sector-by-sector image begins.

Left click to enlarge image

This setting option also proved to be workable.

Ignore I/O errors - Always

Don't wait if device isn't ready - Always

Number of retries on CRC error - 0

In general, I advise you to study the manual for the DMDE program http://dmde.ru/manual.html or http://dmde.ru/docs/DMDE-manual-ru.pdf, you can also wait for our article on creating a sector-by-sector image of a faulty hard drive with various programs, in it we will even look at creating a bootable flash drive with the DMDE program.

If DMDE does not help you, then you can try other programs, for example Acronis True Image. Of course, there are still ways in which you can make a sector-by-sector image of a faulty screw, for example, booting from some operating system based on Linux, for example Ubuntu, but I will not describe the process itself here and would rather write a separate article. You can also run the safecopy utility under Linux.
What to do if you still cannot make a sector-by-sector copy of the hard drive is up to you to decide. You can contact a good and proven data recovery service and specialists will take a sector-by-sector copy of your hard drive using special expensive equipment, for example using the same PC−3000 complex. If you don’t mind your data, then you can take a risk and run algorithms in the Victoria program that rid the surface of your hard drive of bad sectors (bad blocks), how to do this is written below, the hard drive can come back to life after this operation.
Important: Kazansky (developer of the Victoria program) promises that the most innovative algorithm for hiding bad blocks BB = Advanced REMAP is NOT destructive for data, but in some cases it can be destructive for your files, since even the most advanced Victoria algorithm Advanced REMAP hides defects (remap), this is, in any case, a change in the translation of the screw, which means the loss of user data (details below. I want to say that sometimes it happened that Victoria would cure a hard drive from bad problems and you would even be able to copy information from such a hard drive, but unfortunately not All information is readable.

So, in our case, we made a sector-by-sector copy of the diseased hard drive, namely the new volume E: the DMDE program was able to do it, although in some places DMDE froze a little, but everything ended successfully. The sector-by-sector copy of the new volume (E:) is an exact copy and is located on volume F: All existing data is successfully read and copied.

The main problem has been solved and user data has been saved, now we proceed to the hard drive treatment procedure.

How to get rid of bad sectors (bad blocks) using the Victoria program

Note: it is difficult to rid a screw of bad blocks in a running Windows, especially if, for example, you have a laptop with one hard drive and an operating system is installed on the same hard drive and you want to cure the same operating system from bad blocks. In such cases, create a bootable USB flash drive with Victoria, boot the laptop from it and get rid of bad sectors. I propose to create a bootable USB flash drive in the next article, but now we will find out how this is done directly in a running operating system, I will show you everything.

Remap

In the main Victoria window, check the Remap item, which denotes the algorithm for reassigning bad blocks to sectors from backup tracks during the scanning process. Test in Read mode, that is, from beginning to end and click on the Start button.

While the scanning is underway, let's talk about this.

1. What happens with this Remap algorithm? An attempt is made (several times) to force information to be written to the bad sector of the hard drive; if the attempt is successful, then the sector becomes healthy and is removed from the list of bad blocks (remap does not occur). If the write attempt is unsuccessful, then the diseased sector is reassigned to a healthy sector from a hard drive backup track specially designed for such cases.

How to scan a specific area on your hard drive in Victoria

If you know the exact addresses of bad sectors, you can set the exact scanning parameters in the Victoria program. For example, we know that our bad blocks start from sector 770,000,000, then in the Start LBA: item, set this number here and Victoria program It is from sector 770,000,000 that it will begin scanning and correcting the surface of the hard drive, also, if you set the number you need in the End LBA item: then Victoria will finish scanning on the sector you need.

Erase algorithm

Friends, you can ask me, what will happen if we use the Erase test or is there also Write?

When Erase detects an unreadable sector, it forcibly rewrites the entire block of 256 sectors with zeros (be careful, in some cases your data on the hard drive will be deleted).

Most often, you come across software (program) bads that are removed most quickly by resetting them - the Erase algorithm, and even if writing to the zero sector is unsuccessful, Remap may well occur, since the hard drive firmware may consider such a sector to be faulty. If Erase does not help, then you can choose Remap, but as we know, the chances that Remap will be performed in a running Windows are low.
In some cases, software bads can be removed even by simple formatting using Windows itself.

I'll just show you on another hard drive how to run this test in a running Windows.

In the main window of Victoria, select our hard drive and go to the Tests tab, check the Erase item (be careful, in some cases your data on the hard drive will be deleted) - if an unreadable sector is detected, it forcibly rewrites the entire block of 256 sectors with zeros, naturally the information is in the entire block sectors are completely lost, but if an overwrite occurs, the block returns to work (becomes healthy).

Test in Read mode

That is, from beginning to end and click Start.

Often, when “resetting” in a running Windows, the following errors will appear:

Block (bad sector number) try Erase 256 sectors. It was not possible to rewrite the block of sectors.

Write algorithm

The Write mode does not look for any bad sectors, but simply immediately erases all the information on the hard drive by filling all sectors with zeros, this is what repairmen say in the jargon of “Write across the entire clearing”, this algorithm is able to cure a hard drive from bads and simply bad sectors with great read delay, but after such a test it will be impossible to restore data on the hard drive, so first copy all important files to a portable hard drive.

Programs for restoring damaged hard drive clusters. We check and eliminate errors and bad sectors of the hard drive

Recovering damaged hard drive sectors

Built-in tools

CHKDSK

Third party software

Victoria HDD

HDDScan

HDD REGENERATOR

Recovering bad sectors

Bad sectors

VictoriaHDD

BIOS Settings

Check and recovery

Treatment programs built into the OS

HDD Regenerator

MHDD

Hard drive test in Victoria and how to fix bad sectors (bad blocks).

Victoria for working from a boot disk

For example, let's take a real hard drive with bad sectors:

Victoria launch:

Hard drive surface test in Victoria program

Managing my computer's disks

Remap

How to scan a specific area on your hard drive in Victoria

Erase algorithm

Test in Read mode

Write algorithm

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