Diagnosis and elimination of errors on the hard drive. Checking and fixing hard drive errors

Every user knows and has definitely found himself in such situations when something on the computer broke, was incorrect or did not work well. There is nothing more annoying than a slow-witted piece of technology that keeps freezing or crashing. for unknown reasons manages itself. Of course, all parts can break, but the mechanical parts still preserved in modern computers are especially susceptible to destruction. These include the hard drive.

This review will cover more than just theory. The authors had a faulty disk on hand, the operating system of which took about 20 minutes to load. It was decided to fix this and quite successfully!

What could go wrong

In order to prevent breakdown and repair the hard drive in time or at least save necessary information, you need to regularly monitor the condition. To do this, it is recommended to carefully monitor the “health” of your computer. Here are the points to pay close attention to:

watch for errors. Technology, like humans, tends to make mistakes. There was one incident with the hard drive - nothing to worry about, but if errors appear constantly, you need to urgently contact a technician.
friction or beating. Since reading occurs using the head, there is a chance that it will move and begin to damage the main disk with information. If you hear a suspicious knocking sound in the system unit, this may well mean that there is a problem with the hard drive.
analyze the work. If your computer did not save the file or a recently saved document suddenly disappeared, you need to go to the wizard. If the computer's long-term memory does not work well, the hard drive is to blame.
recognition. The computer didn't see the disk? The bad thing is, most likely, this is a problem with the disk, and not with the software, although this can also happen. Try placing the part in another system unit. If it works, everything is fine.
failures. Are you trying to upload a document, but the technology stubbornly refuses to do it? Problems downloading files long term memory taken from breakdowns of the same part.
long loading time. If you open each photo for half an hour and cannot delete a text document that weighs little, then this is also a hard drive problem.

It is not necessary to sit at the system unit all the time the computer is running and listen to how the problematic part is “doing” there. It’s enough just to periodically listen and carefully monitor the state of the entire computer, then everything will be fine.

How to check your hard drive for table of contents errors

In general, if your hard drive is fine and doesn't need emergency assistance, you can perform a preventive check for errors. This will speed up your computer and save your nerves. Let's look at the algorithm of this useful procedure under the Windows 7 operating system.

In order for the computer to not only find problems, but also fix them, you need to tick the “Automatically fix system errors” box.
if you want to try to restore the physical structure of the disk itself, you need to select the “Scan and repair bad sectors” function. Please note that this procedure will take a lot of time.
Any doubts? Select both options and perform prevention.

Another little tip. If you decide to “treat” a disk that is a system drive for your computer, do it immediately before shutting it down.

In order for any equipment to work well, and for you to easily operate it, you need to monitor and care for it. Moreover, when it comes to a device that is much more complex than a stove and it is sometimes quite difficult to figure it out on your own. Carry out preventative maintenance, and if necessary, call a technician, and then everything will be fine with your computer, and, therefore, with your data.

HDD Regenerator

This program is best downloaded from the portal (softportal.com). Let's launch the installer.

If you leave a checkmark in the last window, the program will start immediately. Let's not delay and get started.

What is this Full Version menu? It turns out that the program is paid, and our compatriot demands $90 for the key. In addition, when removed, it behaves worse than a virus. Requires a reboot of the operating system and takes a long time to think about.

R.tester

Right-click on any logical drive that needs to be checked.
In the menu that opens, click on the "Properties" line.
At the top of the properties window, click LMB on the “Service” tab.
Click the "Run check" button.
Here, check both checkboxes and click on “Launch”.

If the selected partition is not a system partition, checking the disk for errors will start immediately. If you want to check the C: drive, the OS will display a notification that the operation cannot be performed at this time. Do not consider this behavior of the OS to be a failure. Since the partition contains all system data, it cannot be disabled while Windows is running.

Just click on the "schedule scan" button and restart your computer. After turning on the PC, checking the disk for errors will begin even before loading the operating system.

Command line

To run the chkdsk utility from the command line, follow these steps.

Right-click on the desktop and select “Create shortcut” in the context menu.
In the window that appears, you will be prompted to select executable file, but the easiest way is to simply enter “cmd” in the input line and click “OK”.
Now right-click on the newly created shortcut and select the line “run as Administrator”. A command prompt will open.
Type: chkdsk [partition letter]: /f /r.

As when starting from graphical shell, checking the disk for errors will notify you that the program cannot be executed if you specify the system partition. At the same time, the question will appear on the screen: “Should I perform the task after restarting the PC?” Press the Y key to answer yes, or N if you do not want to check the HDD.

If the OS does not boot

If, due to problems with the file system, Windows refuses to start, checking the hard drive for errors can be started from the recovery console. Open the BIOS by pressing the DEL key on the computer's initial boot screen. Set as boot device (First Boot Device) laser disc drive. Insert the Windows Installer disc.

After booting from the DVD, a selection window will open language settings. At the bottom of it there will be a “System Restore” item. Remember that if errors occur on the HDD, it is pointless to roll back to earlier recovery points; overwriting data can lead to even bigger problems.

In the window that offers a choice of recovery options, click on the "Command Prompt" button. The command syntax remains the same - chkdsk [drive letter]: /f /r. In this case, the disk check will begin immediately without rebooting.

Third party software

If the chkdsk utility did not lead to a positive result, and critical errors due to the HDD continue to occur, you should perform a more thorough check using special programs. Hard drive manufacturers themselves produce special means to test your equipment. Besides this software you can use the Victoria and MHDD applications.

Be careful! Checking the disk for errors with a third-party application should be performed only after creating backups of all important data. Moreover, you need to save copies of the data in external storage.

Let's make an explanation. “Bad sectors” are areas of the disk from which data cannot be read. Their very appearance is a bad sign, but acceptable, but a constant increase in their number indicates that the disk is most likely no longer alive. We need to think about replacing it, and not delay the decision for too long.

So, the chkdsk program will check the disk; the scanning time depends on the size of the disk and the number of files on it. The system disk will be checked only after a reboot. You will have to be patient and wait for the work to finish. Upon completion, a report will be displayed.

If you cannot log into the system, you will need to use recovery tools and run the program from there.

Windows Standard Scan

Another way to check the disk is to use the scan built into the OS. To do this you need:

If the selected hard drive is being used by any program, then to check it you need to stop its operation. Click the “Disable” button and the scan will continue. The scan time depends on the disk size and how full it is.

To check the system partition in this way, the system will display a message that testing will continue after a reboot. Agree with this, after restarting the computer, wait until the scan finishes.

With all due respect to Microsoft, detailed information Only third-party programs can tell you about disk health. If you need laptop repair, in Lyubertsy there is a good workshop where they can check your hard drive. Moreover, they will do this using third-party programs, which we will discuss further.

Ashampoo HDD Control 2

This program is paid, but a free trial period will give you the opportunity to test your drive. The program is multifunctional, with its help you can perform many actions with the disk, including defragmentation, disk cleaning, etc. Now we are interested in the “Test” and surface check modes.

To run the scan you must:

To determine the condition of the disk surface, go to the “Control” tab and click on the “Surface Testing” section.

The progress of testing can be monitored in the window that opens. Color coding is used to indicate the condition of the disk surface:

Blue – the sector has not been verified.
Green – no errors.
Red – bad sector.

If the disk is large, the scan may take a long time.

HDDScan

A popular program for obtaining information about a disk, checking it and correcting errors. To start testing you need:

To view the status of the disk, go to the “Map” tab, where all the information about the disk surface will be located. Sectors are marked with squares of different colors. They mean:

Victoria

Perhaps the most popular utility for determining the health of a hard drive. It can be launched both from Windows and from bootable media, if it is not possible to start the operating system. Let's consider working with the program launched from Windows.

After launching, you will see several tabs in the main program window, the most important of which are:

In order to start the test, you need to click the “Start” button and wait until the work is completed. First of all, you need to pay attention to the column of multi-colored rectangles with numbers next to them. Using color coding, information about the speed of reading from disk sectors is displayed. Ideally, the values should be near rectangles with different shades of gray.

The numbers next to the green or orange rectangles indicate the number of sectors that require more time to read. The red rectangle shows that there are sectors on the disk, information from which can be read, but this requires a lot of time.

Most likely, these “red” sectors are candidates for failure. You should remember their number and re-scan after some time. An increase in their number indicates degradation of the disk surface. Moreover, areas that are marked in blue may soon appear.

You can try to restore these “broken” sectors. To do this, you need to set the “Remap” mode and start the scan again. If possible, the program will restore these areas of the disk. If the “blue” blocks remain, you should think about replacing the hard drive.

Windows malfunctions, emergency shutdown of the computer, experiments with disk space management software, the consequences of viruses - these and other problems can lead to automatic startup standard utility Windows Chkdsk, designed to fix file system errors hard drives. Incorrectly completed operation of the operating system with files leads to file system errors, and sometimes even damage to the file system. In emergency cases, the Chkdsk utility turns on itself before Windows starts, scans disk partitions and corrects errors. However, the fact that there are problems with the file system may not make itself felt during normal use of the computer and only become apparent when trying to manage disk space. So, for example, trying to shrink a disk partition regular means Windows, we may receive the following notification: “The volume selected for compression may be damaged. Use Chkdsk to troubleshoot the problem, and then try shrinking the volume again."

In this case, disk check will not start automatically. How to run Chkdsk manually in Windows 7, 8.1 and 10? How can I use Chkdsk to fix disk errors if this problem is the reason the operating system is unable to boot?

Inside Windows, the Chkdsk utility can be launched in several ways.

1. Run Chkdsk using Windows GUI

To run Chkdsk, in the system explorer on drive C, right-click and open “Properties”.

In the disk partition properties window that opens, go to the “Services” tab, and in it click the “Check” button (or “Run check” for Windows 7).

In versions of Windows 8.1 and 10, if everything is in order with the disk file system, in the window that appears next, we will see a notification that checking is not required. But if desired, check the disk Chkdsk utility can be launched by clicking "Check Disk".

If the system suspects file system errors, this window will contain a button to start scanning and repairing the disk.

For Chkdsk to work relative to drive C, you must restart the computer. You can do this immediately or delay running the scan until the next reboot.

After restarting the computer, we will be able to observe the operation of Chkdsk.

In Windows 7, launching Chkdsk is slightly different: to the preinstalled option of automatic error correction, you can add another possible option - checking and repairing bad sectors of the hard drive. When activating this option, it is worth considering that in this case Chkdsk may take longer to run.

As with Windows 8.1 and 10, version 7 system disk C cannot be verified within a running operating system. To start the scan, the computer must be restarted. Click “Schedule disk check”.

When checking system partition disk, if it is used by some programs, the situation is simpler than with the system partition. In a window with a notification that the disk is in at the moment is used, you just need to click the “Disable” button to, accordingly, disable this section for the duration of the test.

2. Run Chkdsk using the command line

To run Chkdsk using the command line, first, accordingly, launch the latter.

In the command line enter a command like this:

In this command, instead of drive C, each time we substitute the letter of the desired partition on which the scan is required. If Chkdsk needs to check the system partition C, as with the GUI, you will need to restart the computer. After the message appears in command line To indicate that the specified drive cannot be locked, you must enter “Y”, then restart the computer.

In addition to the /f parameter, which is responsible for correcting disk errors, Chkdsk can be run with the /r parameter, designed to search for bad sectors and restore data. As a result of Chkdsk running with this parameter, hard disk clusters with unreadable sectors will be listed as damaged (bad blocks) and their functions will be transferred to a new cluster. Therefore, it is recommended to run Chkdsk with the /r parameter only when the usual error correction - running the utility with the /f parameter - does not bring the necessary results. Using the same drive C as an example, the command would look like this:

3. Running Chkdsk on a non-booting Windows

If Windows freezes at a certain point in the boot process, one of the possible causes of this problem is file system errors. In this case, you need to run Chkdsk by booting from the rescue media. As such, you can use regular installation media with versions of Windows 7, 8.1 or 10. With its help, we will launch the Chkdsk utility inside the command line. At the first stage of starting the system installation process, press the command line launch keys – Shift+F10.

In the command line that opens, before running the Chkdsk command, you need to clarify which letters define the disk partitions. This is easy to do with a notepad. We launch it with the command:

Click the notepad menu “File”, then “Open”.

In the Explorer that opens, remember the new drive designations. As a rule, in Windows 8.1 and 10, the C drive partition (as it exists inside the running operating system) is listed as D, since the letter C is assigned to the first technical partition of the system. And all other sections are shifted by one letter of the alphabet.

Having decided on the letters of the disk partitions, close Notepad, then, returning to the command line, enter a command like this:

As with Chkdsk inside Windows, you must first try to fix disk errors by running the utility with the /f parameter. And only if the problem is not solved, only then run the command with the /r parameter, as indicated in the previous paragraph of the article.

If Windows is unable to boot, you can pre-burn an emergency Live disk with a selection of various tools to restore the operating system. Among these, for example, is AdminPE based on WinPE. Its image for recording on a disk or flash drive can be downloaded from the official website of the project Adminpe.Ru. Using AdminPE, you can launch a command prompt and enter the Chkdsk launch commands discussed above. But in this Live disk, the Chkdsk utility has its own interface and is launched using a script. The shortcut to launch the utility is placed directly on the desktop.

In the drop-down list to check the disk, select the desired disk partition. Next, activate the checkboxes for restoring bad sectors and forced shutdown section (volume). Let's check the launches.

Regardless of your operating system (Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8), go to Computer (My Computer, This Computer), right-click on the drive you want to check, select " Properties".

In the properties window, go to the " tab Service" and click the " button Run check".

Check both boxes

Automatically fix system errors.

Scan and repair system sectors.

and press " Launch".

If you check the system volume (the disk on which the operating system is installed, usually drive C), you will see the message " Windows cannot verify the hard drive that is currently in use", click " Disk check schedule".

Then restart your computer/laptop; during boot, the process of checking and correcting errors on the disk will begin. It will last from several minutes to an hour (depending on the size of the partition and the physical characteristics of the hard drive). When finished, the operating system will boot.

Checking the hard drive using the chkdsk utility.

CHKDSK (short for check disk - disk check) - standard application in operating rooms DOS systems And Microsoft Windows, which checks a hard drive or floppy disk for file system errors (for example, the same sector is marked as belonging to two different files). CHKDSK can also fix file system errors it finds. (from Wikipedia)

In order to run the chkdsk utility, you need to run a command prompt with administrator rights, to do this:

IN Windows XP click - "Command line"

IN Windows 7 click "Start" - "All Programs" - "Accessories" "Command line" and select "Run as administrator".

IN Windows 8.1 right click on "Start" - "Command Prompt (Administrator)".

As a result, a command line console will open.

First of all, let's find out the syntax of the chkdsk utility:

CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]] ]

Volume Specifies the mount point, volume name, or drive letter of the drive being checked, followed by a colon.
file name Files checked for fragmentation (FAT/FAT32 only).
/F Correcting disk errors.
/V For FAT/FAT32: output the full path and name of each file on the disk. For NTFS: display cleanup messages (if any).
/R Search for bad sectors and restore surviving contents (requires /F).
/L:size For NTFS only: Set the log file size (in KB). If a size is not specified, the current size value is displayed.
/X Pre-dismount the volume (if necessary). All open handles to this volume will be invalidated (requires /F).
/I NTFS only: Less strict checking of index entries.
/C NTFS only: skip checking for loops within folder structures.
/B NTFS only: Re-evaluate bad clusters on disk (requires /R)
The /I or /C options reduce Chkdsk execution time by skipping some volume checks.

Of all the command attributes, the two most often used to check a disk for errors are /f and /r. The final command looks like this:

chkdsk C:/F/R

With this command we will check partition C, correct errors on the disk and restore information from damaged sectors (if any).

After entering this command, you will be prompted to check the volume the next time the system reboots, click Y and a key Enter.

Now you need to reboot the system, when loading you will see a window prompting a check, do not click anything, just wait 10 seconds.

Checking for hard drive errors using Victoria.

The Victoria program is designed to check for errors on hard drives with IDE and Serial ATA interfaces. The program is completely ready-made solution for a comprehensive, deep, and at the same time the fastest possible assessment of the real technical condition of the HDD.

First of all, download ISO image programs with official website . Unzip the downloaded archive and burn it to CD/ DVD disc how to do this is described in the article How to burn to CD/DVD . After this, boot from the burned disk, how to do this is described step by step in the article How to boot from a CD/DVD disk or USB flash drive .

After booting from the disk within 10 seconds, select the program for your device (Victoria for the computer will load by default).

The program interface will launch. Press the F2 key so that the program itself finds the disk; if this does not happen, you must do it manually. To do this, press the "P" key. The same will have to be done if the system has several hard drives and you need to select one of them. If you have hard drives With SATA interface, then in the menu that appears Select HDD port, select - " Ext. PCI ATA/SATA". Move using the cursor keys "up", "down", and select using the "Enter" key.

Next, to check the disk surface, press the F4 key. In the HDD scan menu window: select the necessary scan parameters. By default, it is proposed to scan the entire disk from the beginning of "Start LBA: 0" to the end of "End LBA: 20971520". I recommend leaving these default values. The next menu item - I recommend leaving " Linear reading", since it is designed for the fastest and most accurate diagnosis of surface condition. In the fourth point, I recommend selecting the mode BB = Advanced REMAP since this mode checks the disk most efficiently and corrects errors on it without deleting information.

After this, a check for hard disk errors will start and bad areas will be corrected. This procedure can take from several tens of minutes to several hours. Depends on the volume and spindle speed.

When finished, remove the disc from the drive and restart the computer.

Video of checking a hard drive using the Victoria utility. Error elimination - DRSC+DRDY is missing or the screw does not remove BUSY

As you know, all computer data is stored on a small, but often very capacious storage device - a hard drive, or hard drive, HDD ( Hard Disk Drive). So, like any device, the hard drive gradually wears out, which affects its performance and performance. You can notice this: if your PC (laptop, netbook) is a “seasoned” friend who has been working for several years, it may begin to freeze, “think” for a long time when accessing certain folders, etc. These are sure signs of the appearance of “bad” sectors on the hard drive. In this case, he simply needs your help in the form of checking and, if possible, correcting errors in his work. This can be done in several ways, I’ll tell you about everything in order. If you decide to figure out how to check your hard drive for errors, then my recommendation is to read this article to the end, and only then start following the steps described in this article.

In order to properly maintain your hard drive and extend its life for many years, you need to understand some basics of how the drive works. Therefore, first I will try to tell you in as simple a language as possible what is happening inside the hard drive, and because of what it loses its “former grip” over time, and after that I will mention what programs will help you in maintaining and fixing your hard drive. If you do not have the desire to delve into the problem literally from the inside, but plan to simply go through instructions like “click here - click here” - move to the second part of the article with a description of methods and programs hard checks disk. The first section of the material will be devoted to theory, and I will try to make it as interesting and understandable as possible. Let's go!

How the hard drive works and formatting

A hard drive is a device consisting of several glass/aluminum plates coated with a ferromagnetic material. Above the surface of each platter (disk), at a distance of about ten nm, there are magnetic heads that read and write information to the disk.

During the production of hard drives, the final stage involves applying tracks, sectors and marks to the magnetic surface of the disk. This process is called low-level formatting. Thus, service information is written to the disk. In simple terms, the “magnetization” of service information is higher than that with which we will subsequently fill the disk. That is why user data and files can be written and erased many times, but service information cannot.

IMPORTANT: if you read/heard somewhere that fixing hard drive errors will help low level formatting, and it can be carried out using any program, remember: this operation is performed once and only at the factory using expensive equipment. It is impossible to perform low-level formatting using software at home! Of course, you can format it, but it won’t be the formatting we would like.

Sometimes I resort to such formatting (there are special utilities), but I do this procedure to format the disk when other programs refuse to do this. Ask why this happens? Because some programs, if they cannot format the disk, write a message, for example, “ Formatting hard disk could not be completed" and if you use special programs that perform formatting several times in the same area, then sometimes this option works - when the disk cannot be easily formatted.

The hard drive is equipped with some semblance of an operating system (not Windows, which we all know about and use). With the help of marks and OS commands applied to the disk, the drive “understands” exactly where the magnetic head needs to be delivered at the current moment in time for reading/writing. The table of tracks, sectors and labels, as well as the disk OS - Firmware, firmware - is stored in a special section, closed from the BIOS and the operating systems we are familiar with, a zone. Therefore, if you suddenly wonder whether you need to update the firmware of your hard drive, know: you don’t need to do this. After all, a hard drive is not an IPhone, and it doesn’t need updates for a modern hard drive to function properly.

Bad HDD sectors – physical, logical, software

We are getting closer to the problem - the hard drive is losing its functionality.

So, the disks are marked into tracks and the tracks are divided into sectors. By the way, the minimum hard disk sector size available to the user is 512 bytes. What happens if a sector suddenly becomes unreadable? The hard drive controller gives the command to make a few more reading attempts (at this moment we, on the other side of the monitor, can notice how the PC is slightly “stupid”), and if the operation is unsuccessful, the system marks the sector as faulty (failed, bad block ), and the information that should have been written to this sector is written to another working sector in the reserve section. At the same time, information is entered into the labels table that this sector is now considered non-working. The process of redirecting from bad sectors to spare ones is called “remapping”, or in slang “remap”.

Note: imagine: the magnetic head cannot always move continuously along the tracks sector by sector - due to bad sectors she has to jump to and from the backup track every now and then. For this reason, by the way, you can hear extraneous sounds, crackling sounds from the HDD. Naturally, the more bad sectors there are on the disk, the slower the hard drive works.

There are several types of bad sectors:

Physical bad block. Such sectors arise as a result of physical, mechanical hard damage disk – ferromagnetic shedding, cracks, chips. It is logical to assume that their occurrence is due to physical impact - vibration, shock or high temperature (overheating), dust penetrating inside the disk. A physical bad sector cannot be corrected by any software; the only solution is to enter it into the defect table and assign it a “deputy” on the backup track. Therefore, do not knock on your laptop and also be attentive to system unit computer, which is usually placed under the table.
Logical bad block. Are a consequence of a violation of logic work hard disk and are divided into two categories: correctable and unrecoverable.
1. Uncorrectable logical bad block. In this case, service information is violated - sector label, address, etc., which is sometimes possible to correct, but is only accessible to specialized specialists with expensive equipment.
2. Correctable logical bad block. Along with the information, an additional parameter is written to the sector - a checksum, or Error Correction Code (ECC), which allows you to restore information even in the event of a failure. It happens that you turn off the computer (for example, from the outlet while the system was still running), information was written to the hard drive, but the checksum was not entered into the table. This is where HDD recovery programs come to the rescue, which, “without asking” the sectors, forcibly write zeros into them, and, accordingly, new checksums. After this, the sector returns to work, and the disk is formatted without problems standard means Windows. If formatting is not done, the hard drive will access the disk multiple times and your computer or laptop will freeze due to an incorrect checksum.

Software bad block. The name itself tells us that such blocks arise during the operation of the program, which means that such problems can be corrected with the help of any program. This includes incorrectly marked sectors and other “small things” that can be corrected by regular formatting.

IMPORTANT: I'm sure you all know this very well, but just in case I'll say it: formatting will destroy all your data on the disk. Therefore, before formatting the disk, make sure that all necessary information copied from it to another medium. Otherwise, you will simply lose it.

Standard Windows utilities for checking hard drives

We've sorted out the theory, let's move on to practice. There are several applications for working with “problematic” hard drives, which have proven themselves to be a powerful and reliable tool. First things first.

By tradition, I’ll say a few words about standard Windows tools. The functionality, of course, leaves much to be desired, but it will do for preventing disk errors. To check the disk using the OS, open Explorer, right-click on any of the disks and select “Properties” from the menu.

In the window that opens, go to the “Service” tab and see that we have few options - you can check for file system errors or run defragmentation. We won’t dwell on checking (press the button and check), but I’ll say a few words about defragmentation. As the name implies, this process is the reverse of the process of disk fragmentation as a result of a remap (this was discussed in the theoretical part of the article above). Simply put, defragmentation is the organization of the disk table and spare sectors for faster access to the latter and speed up the response of the hard drive as a whole. It is recommended to run disk defragmenter occasionally. However, remember: any verification operation or hard fixes disk is a long process, so you need to reserve time.

Conclusion: you need to check the disk for errors in file system and you can also defragment the disk.

Another way to check the disk using standard means is through the command line. We launch it - press “Win” + “R” on the keyboard, then enter “cmd” and click “OK”. Next we write the command “chkdsk C: /f /r”, where “C:” is the letter of the drive being checked, “/F” and “/R” are parameters indicating that it is necessary to automatically correct errors and also check bad sectors and try to recover information.

Attention! If you fail to use this command, namely, you will not have enough privileges to use this command, then below I will tell you what to do in this situation.

Note: the method that I described above rarely helps, so I highly recommend the chkdsk utility, which saved me more than once.

You also need to take into account that if your physical disk divided into logical drives, for example, C, D, etc., then you need to check all your logical drives.

If the disk you are checking is currently in use, the system will prompt you to schedule a disk check the next time you restart the PC, you need to press the Y key: “Y” - “Yes”, and “N” - “No” ). After which you must reboot your device.

If the disk is free, a check will be carried out, the results of which will be displayed on the screen. The program may ask you to unmount the volume ( local disk), in this case also press the “Y” key on the keyboard. Below I have shown an example of this message:

If you run the command “chkdsk /?”, the program will display full list parameters that can be used with this utility, however, in most cases, the method described above is quite sufficient for diagnostics.

If the utility writes that you do not have privileges to execute the command, then you need to run it as an administrator. It's easy to do. For users who have Windows 8 or 10 installed, press the “Win” + “X” keys, a menu will open where you need to select “Command Prompt (Administrator)”. After this, you can safely enter the command you need. If Windows 7 or XP is installed on your computer, then you need to search for “cmd” or “command line”, right-click on it and select run as administrator.

By the way, you can return to the results of the disk scan later, even after closing the command line and restarting the PC. To do this:

Press “Win” + “R”, write “eventvwr.msc” in the line, click “OK”.
In the “Event Viewer” window, open “Windows Logs”, right-click on “Application” and select “Find...” from the menu that appears.
Enter “chkdsk” into the search bar and find the corresponding log entry.

Well, we’ve sorted out the standard checking tools, now let’s look at software from third-party manufacturers.

If Windows does not boot for you, then connect the hard drive you are testing to another computer. This way, you will boot from another hard drive, and check your own (which may have errors).

Checking the drive using Seagate SeaTools

This program, as the name suggests, was released by the manufacturer of HDDs of the same name - Seagate, but this does not prevent it from being “omnivorous” and working with any disks. You can download it from the official website, the software is free: . At the time of writing, you need to click on the link “SeaTools Diagnostic Software for Windows OS”, which is located on the left. After downloading and installing the program, you need to run it.

Next, select the disk that you are trying to restore to normal operation (by checking the box on the left) and click “Basic tests”. Here you can select options for working with your hard drive. In the picture below I showed what checking capabilities this utility has. You can use all the options this program offers. You can click on the picture below to see the program interface:

Like any self-respecting utility, there is a boot disk image (Seagate for DOS), launching from which will allow you to use the scanning functions before loading the OS. For example, when the system does not boot. It is advisable to check the hard drive in this mode. Because this way you will not have problems during verification.

In addition, the program has a “Help” section, which is entirely in Russian.

Checking Western Digital drives

The next utility is more narrowly focused and is designed to work exclusively with HDD Western Digital. Its name is Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic. To download the program, go to the manufacturer’s website http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=ru, find the program in the list and download it. Next, run the program, right-click on the desired drive and select “Run Diagnostics”.

Traditionally there is a version bootable iso image and the capabilities are similar to the previous software, the interface is elementary.

Disk analysis with HDDScan

I will mention another worthy representative of the “army” of fighters against hard drive errors. Here it is worth especially noting the check function in the mode linear recording– “Test” – “Erase”. When launched, the program forcibly records data sector by sector, thereby returning most of the bad sectors to work (this was also mentioned above). By the way, if it is possible to disconnect the hard drive from your PC and connect it to another with HDDScan installed on board, then use this verification option. This way you will achieve maximum scanning efficiency. You can download the program on the website. After downloading, you need to unpack the archive, go to the unpacked folder and run the “HDDScan.exe” file.

To run the test, select your hard drive on the left, then click on the picture with hard drive and select "Surface Tests".

In the window that opens, leave everything as default – “Read” and click “Add Test”. So, we have started the scan, now we can click on the “RD-Read” entry double click left mouse to open a window where there will be detailed information about working with a hard drive.

If you have a lot of delays - from 20ms and above, then this means that your disk is already very bad and you need to think about where to copy all the important data that is on hire. In the future, you need to replace the bad hard drive with a new one. It is advisable to use the program on another computer so that no processes interfere with checking your disk.

Recovering a hard drive in Victoria

So we get to, perhaps, the most popular tool for “revitalizing” magnetic data storage devices. This program sometimes it is very problematic to download from the official website and therefore I will give you a link to another site where you can download this program http://www.softportal.com/software-3824-victoria.html. I always try to provide links only to official sites, but sometimes developer sites do not open for some reason and therefore I had to provide a link to a third-party resource. This site is popular and therefore you don’t have to worry about viruses.

After downloading the archive, unpack it and run the program as administrator. Be sure to take this step!

At the beginning of work, select the “Standard” tab, and in the window on the right, select the desired disk, and then click on the “Passport” button. In the log window below you will see how your HDD was identified. If an entry appears in the log, it means that the program was able to read information from this hard drive.

If this does not happen and you see “Get S.M.A.R.T. command... Error reading S.M.A.R.T!” — probably the HDD controller is not working in the mode we need. To change it, you will have to go to the BIOS and go through the following path: “Config” - “Serial ATA (SATA)” - “SATA Controller Mode Option” - change from “AHCI” to “Compatibility” (IDE). Save the changes in the BIOS and continue working with the program.

Note: do not forget to return everything to its place after finishing working with Victoria.

So we got to the disk test: go to the “Test” tab, click “Start”.

As the check progresses, the cells in the left window will be filled with multi-colored rectangles. It is in our interests that they are all gray - this is the color of the working sector. But the blue and red ones are an indication of the bad sectors of the disk. If after checking there are especially many blue cells, then you need to run the check again, first turning on the “Remap” option (located at the bottom right). As a result of this check, the program will try to isolate broken blocks(I also talked about this in theory) by hiding them. It is also worth noting that orange and green rectangles mean that there are sectors on your disk where there are very high delays. If they are present, then this is also very bad.

IMPORTANT: if the results of the disk check are disappointing, I recommend copying the information to a backup disk, or being prepared to replace it. Once the disk begins to “lose” sectors, then most likely this process will continue. It is impossible to predict how long the disk will serve you. If this hard drive does not have necessary files, and you only use it to work on the Internet, then of course you don’t have to buy a new storage medium. The next time you have problems with this hard drive, it means that it is already unstable and you will need to buy a hard drive.

I tried to describe theory and practice as simply as possible. Of course, it will be difficult for the average user to study the material in 5 minutes, and therefore give your disk enough time to resolve the issue of its unstable operation.

In this article I gave examples of utilities that are used computer technicians, and if you use other programs, then there is nothing wrong with that. After all, the most important thing in your case is the result. Namely, to understand what to do with your media - restore it or it’s time to buy new hard disk.

I hope I and this article were useful to you. Good luck with your testing and only high-quality hard drives!

Video that will help you work with Victoria:

For tough health The disk, like any other component of a computer or laptop, must be monitored so that it does not fail prematurely. In this article we will get acquainted with the built-in OS Windows utility hard drive checks chkdsk. With its help, we will diagnose the HDD and correct existing errors.

The hard drive is an integral part of the computer and careless treatment of it can damage it, in which case everything that was on it will be lost. working hours and it’s unlikely to help here on its own. And in order to avoid such a situation, you need to at least occasionally check your hard drive for errors. Today I will not talk about powerful utilities such as Victoria or MHDD, about them another time. In today's article we will look at the built-in utility in the Windows operating system - chkdsk, it is designed to check the hard drive and fix problems on it.

And so, you need to open the command line. You can use Start - search for cmd, or use “Win + R”, the “Run” dialog box will open, enter cmd in the line and click OK. The Windows Command Prompt will open.

Enter the command there: chkdsk c: /f /r
Where chkdsk is a hard drive check command
c: - hard drive letter, if your computer has several disks or partitions and you need to check another one, just enter the desired letter, for example d: or e:
/f - specifies error correction on the HDD.
/r - corrects errors on the disk and restores part of the data that can still be read.

There are other commands, to familiarize yourself with them you need to enter the command: chkdsk /?Where a complete list of chkdsk commands will be displayed.

After entering the command, the utility should begin scanning. Once the scan is completed, it will display its results. If you want to scan the system disk or partition (C), the following message will appear on the command line:

The program will not be able to scan the system disk while it is running, so you must restart the computer. And for scanning to begin immediately before loading the OS, you must enter at the bottom of this message on the command line Y and press Enter. The computer will reboot and scanning the disk will begin.

The built-in utility in Windows for checking the HDD can be launched without the command line; it has a graphical mode. In order to start scanning in graphical mode, you need to log into My Computer, select the desired drive, for example C: / right-click on it in the drop-down list context menu select "Properties". Next, on the “Service” tab, under the “Check Disk” item, click on “Run Check”.

In the window that opens, click "Launch".

If you are checking the system drive (C), the computer will ask you to reboot (Disk Scan Schedule) and only then start scanning before loading the OS, but if you need to check any other drive or partition, the scanning will begin immediately.

How to disable chkdsk scanning at startup?

Sometimes users encounter this problem when the chkdsk utility automatically starts scanning the HDD when the computer boots. This happens because errors are found on the hard drive and the system automatically tries to fix it. It is not recommended to disable chkdsk automatic scanning, it may cause damage hard drive. If you still decide to disable it, you can do it like this: enter in the command line - chkntfs /x c:d: and press Enter.
Where "c" and "d" are drive letters (partitions). And after that, automatic chkdsk scanning at startup will be disabled.

This is the overview of the built-in Windows CHKDSK programs to check and correct errors on the hard drive is coming to an end, if you have any questions on this topic, please contact us.

The process of checking a hard drive for bad sectors is a search for erroneous records and bad sectors located on the drive.

Some of these problems can cause information loss - in most cases, beyond recovery.

Therefore, every user should be aware of their occurrence - both in order to try to correct errors on the disk, and to back up important information to another location.

The principle of formation of bad sectors

Over time, the owner of almost every HDD has to deal with problem sectors.

The principle of their appearance is as follows:

During the production of disks, sectors are created, with the help of magnetization of which information can be written to the drive.

Reading and writing information on (especially if the disk is hit or dropped), and sometimes also influence computer viruses lead to a gradual deterioration of its structure.
Bad sectors begin to appear on the surface of magnetic disks - areas in which information is stored incorrectly or not recorded at all.

It is possible to eliminate bad sectors, but the system does not automatically perform such actions - the user will have to manually run the scan and repair.

If there are few bad sectors, they are replaced by reserve areas.

When damaged HDD blocks appear, their addresses are reassigned to sectors from the reserve, and no data loss occurs.

Signs of a problem

Among the main signs that problem sectors have appeared on the disk and need to be restored are: The following are worth noting:

The computer freezes while loading the operating system;
failure to start the OS - in most cases, the download only reaches a certain point (for example, the Windows logo or the “Welcome” sign) and stops;
causeless and frequent reboots computer;
errors in the operation of the system, expressed in the inability to launch applications, closing windows and slow response to user actions.

The list of utilities that can be used to solve the problem is quite large.

They are divided into two main groups– those that are already built into the operating system (for example, Windows), and applications from other manufacturers.

The latter can also be divided into paid programs and more popular among domestic users free versions.

Using Windows Tools

To correct errors and bad sectors, Windows OS already contains .

The advantages of using it include the ability to restore areas damaged during operation or as a result of virus infection of the system.

Another plus– possibility of launching in two ways, in normal mode or .

The utility is capable of checking any physical and logical disks, but there are slight differences in working with inactive and system areas.

Thus, the stages of checking and restoring a regular partition (which does not contain system control files and the OS itself) will be as follows:

1 Going to the window "My computer".

2 Right-click to open properties of the selected disk.

3 Select a tab "Service".

4 Pressed check disk button.

5 Put checkbox next to check bad sectors.

System volumes on which Windows is installed are scanned differently.

The start of the utility launch coincides with the steps for a regular partition, but when you try to check the disk, a message appears on the screen stating that it is impossible and asking you to do this after a reboot.

After a reboot, the system does not boot - instead, a system check is performed HDD partition, the progress of which can be determined by the information displayed on the screen.

And you can run Hitachi Drive Fitness Test not only from Windows, but also in mode if problems with the disk have already made it impossible to boot the system.

Seagate Seatools

The Seatools utility is free application, whose capabilities include:

detection of HDD structure violations, including bad sectors and write or read errors;
fixing bad sectors or overwriting them with zeros, so that in the future the system ignores damaged areas;
Windows OS problems;
damage to the system bootloader;

The application works most effectively with Seagate drives.

The average time to fix detected errors (together with the verification process), depending on the size of the partition, can reach 4 hours.

The advantages of the program include its free distribution and the provision of a detailed report.

HDD Health

The free HDD Health program features the ability to receive while checking bad sectors the following information:

manufacturer and HDD firmware;
current storage temperature;
general condition device structure, including whole and damaged sectors;
a number of other useful attributes.

The utility is distributed free of charge by Panterasoft.

At the same time, the disk condition is assessed only using S.M.A.R.T indicators and is less effective than checking the disk with other applications.

Victoria

A good way is free program"Victoria".

During the scanning process, the user can obtain information not only about disk sectors, but also about all partitions (volumes) of the computer and the connectors to which they are connected.

The utility does not require installation, but should only be run as Administrator.

Rice. 9. HDDScan disk troubleshooting program.

Among additional information – temperature control of all disks that are connected to the PC. In addition, the scan results are generated in the form of a report and can be saved in a separate file.