Huawei multi tool version 8.0 4.3. Download and Compatibility

Many PC users hardly think about checking the status of their HDD. Checking the hard drive, first of all, is needed for early detection of errors.
If you manage to identify problems with the hard drive in advance, then you can save all important information stored on it until its final failure.
In this article, we will describe, using specific examples, the procedure for checking the status of the HDD, and also tell you what to do in a situation if your hard drive is faulty.

How to check the status of a hard drive

Check Status hard drive you can use various utilities that read the status of your hard drive from its self-diagnosis system SMART. SMART technology is now installed on every manufactured hard drive. SMART technology was developed back in 1992 and is still being improved to this day. The main task SMART is logging of the hard drive aging process. That is, information such as the number of HDD activations, the number of spindle rotations, and many others is being collected. More SMART looking for errors"screws", both software and mechanical, and as far as possible corrects them. During the monitoring process, SMART performs various tests such as short and long to identify those same faults. In this article, we will consider such programs that can read information from SMART:

  • Ashampoo HDD Control 3;
  • Defraggler;
  • HD Life;
  • Victoria.

Each program from the list, in addition to reading SMART readings, offers a number of functions, tests, which in one way or another extend the life of the hard drive. But the most interesting is the program Victoria. The Victoria program, in addition to determining the state of the HDD, also knows how to produce REMAP bad sectors. That is, she can hide bad sectors by replacing them with spare ones if they exist. In essence, the REMAP procedure can restore hard drive. It is also worth noting the possibility of fixing the hard drive thanks to the console application " chkdsk". The console program "chkdsk" can fix file system errors, which will allow you not to reinstall Windows.

Ashampoo HDD Control 3

We will first look at the program Ashampoo HDD Control 3. Let's run this utility on the computer under Windows control 10.

The Ashampoo HDD Control 3 window shows the message " ✓ OK", as well as the inscription " This hard drive has no problems". This information means that the hard drive in question is in perfect order. If you see the message " Error", as well as the inscription " This hard drive has a problem”, then this means that it has bad sectors or overheats. To view full information about the health of the "screw" taken from smart, you need to click on the footnote "" located in the central block.

In addition to viewing information from smart, Ashampoo HDD Control 3 can run self-test test S.M.A.R.T. and surface check test. You can test these tests in the "" block.

By performing these tests, you can also identify problems with the HDD. In addition to taking readings from smart and tests, Ashampoo HDD Control 3 can:

  • Perform defragmentation;
  • Clean up the system from debris;
  • Find and remove duplicate files;
  • Securely overwrite files from the HDD, without the possibility of recovery.

The presence of such functionality of Ashampoo HDD Control 3 in monitoring the health of the screw and additional functions puts the utility in the first place.

Defraggler

Utility Defraggler primarily intended for defragmentation, but besides that, she can read SMART readings. The utility is free and any user can download it from www.piriform.com. After starting the utility, you need to go to the tab " State».

The window shows that the utility displays a message about the state of the screw, as " GOOD"- it means that he is in perfect order. If you see the message " Error” in the status, this will mean that there are bad sectors on the hard drive and it is time to change it. The utility is quite simple and is suitable, first of all, for novice PC users who want to monitor the health of the HDD and defragment it. I would also like to note that the utility supports all current operating systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10.

How to check your hard drive with HDDlife

Utility HDD life has a nice interface and immediately gives us the information we need, which is responsible for the serviceability and breakage of the screw.

From the image above, you can see that in the block health is " OK!", which means that everything is in order with the HDD. To see the details of smart, you just need to click on the link " click to view S.M.A.R.T. attributes».

If you see a message in the health block " DANGER!”, then this means that your HDD will soon become unusable.

In this case, you need to replace the old hard drive with a new one. The HDDlife utility, first of all, is suitable for novice PC users, as its simplicity will make it easy to monitor the health of the “screw”. Except standard utility the developer is still releasing HDDlife for Notebooks which is designed for laptops. The laptop version has the same functionality as standard version, but can also level control HDD noise . It is also worth noting that the program supports all current operating systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10.

Victoria

Program Victoria is being developed under DOS and by Windows. For our example, we will use the Windows version of Victoria, which can be downloaded from http://hdd-911.com. On the this moment Victoria is available in version 4.47. By running the Victoria utility, we will get into such a window.

Victoria does not have a beautiful interface, as in previous utilities, and is written in such old languages ​​as Delphi and assembler.

In the first tab of Victoria " Standard» is all information about established hard drives into the computer.

Second tab " SMART» needed for smart reading. To display smart results, you must click the Get SMART button and the results will be displayed.

In the hard drive under consideration, Victoria found 1212 bad sectors. Such a number of BAD sectors is critical, so in this case it is necessary to carry out full backup all data from the HDD. To repair the hard drive with the REMAP test in Victoria, go to the tab " Tests» and select the mode « Remap". After these steps, you can start the reassignment procedure bad sectors to the backup button Start .

The REMAP test at Victoria can take a very long time. The test time depends on the number of bad sectors. This test of the Victoria utility does not always help, since there might not be any spare sectors left in the "screw".

Please note that using Victoria tests, you can damage the health of the HDD and the information on it.

How to check the disk for health using "chkdsk"

It may happen that by checking the S.M.A.R.T. using the utilities described above, you did not find any problems, but the system still behaves unstable. Instability may appear blue screens death, freezes in programs. Such behavior operating system Windows caused file system errors. In this case, the console command will help us " chkdsk". By running the "chkdsk" command, you can fully restore functionality Windows OS. For this example, we will take a computer with a new operating system. Windows system 10. First of all, let's open the console in Windows 10 as an administrator. This can be easily done by right-clicking on the " Start” and selecting the item we need.

In the running console, execute the following command CHKDSK F: / F / R After checking using the “chkdsk” command application, the result of the check will be displayed in the console.

Now consider the command " CHKDSK F: /F /R» more. Immediately after the "chkdsk" command comes the letter " F"- this letter local disk on which we correct errors. Keys " /F" and " /R» fix errors in the file system, as well as fix bad sectors. These keys are used almost always, unlike the others. You can view the rest of the keys with the chkdsk /?

It is also worth noting that in Windows 10, the capabilities of the “chkdsk” application have been significantly expanded thanks to new keys.

How to test a hard drive for health using DST

Abbreviation DST stands for Disk Self Test, that is self-test disk. Manufacturers specifically build this method into the HDD, so that later, using special software, they can perform DST self-diagnosis, which will identify problems. By testing the "screw" using DST, you can get information about the probable failure of the hard drive. It is especially convenient to use DST on servers and computers of enterprises, where reliable storage of information plays a big role. Now consider the use of DST on the example of HP laptops. For new HP notebooks with support UEFI BIOS there is a special diagnostic menu " Startup Menu". is running this menu by using power key and key combinations ESC.

To run system tests, press the F2 button.

In the window that appears, DST is called Hard Disk Test. After selecting it, a self-test will start.

Other manufacturers also have a DST method, only running on a PC from other manufacturers is different from the above.

Checking a hard drive in Linux

For example, let's take a computer based on the Ubuntu 16.04 operating system. To do this, launch the terminal in Ubuntu. In the terminal, type the following command sudo apt-get install smartmontools This command should install

If you don't like working in console mode, you can install a graphical utility gnome-disk-utility. In it you can see everything you need about the HDD and its status.

Summing up

In this article, we described how you can monitor HDD status, as well as how to fix its sectors and file system, if possible. From the material it becomes clear that condition monitoring hard drives is very important because it allows predict HDD failure.

If you find that your hard drive is problematic, then do not postpone its replacement for later. A problematic "screw" can fail at any time, and you will lose all the information stored on your computer.

We hope that our material will be useful to our readers, and will fully help to solve the problem. hard checks disk.

Related videos

The hard drive is an important, but far from perfect, component. personal computer. For some users, it works unreliably, “crumbles”, data from it is lost or is significantly damaged. One of the most common hard drive problems is the appearance of so-called "broken" (bad) sectors on it, which become a "headache" for many users. In this article, I will talk about the reasons for the appearance of bad sectors on the hard disk, list a number of programs that allow them to be recognized, and also explain how the hard disk is checked for bad sectors on your PC.

What are "bad sectors"?

As you know, a traditional hard disk consists of several rotating magnetic disks, over which magnetic heads move, magnetizing any part of the disk and thus writing information to it (in the form of zeros and ones).

The disk itself is divided into tracks, and the latter, in turn, are divided into sectors, on which the information necessary for the user is recorded.

Due to certain reasons (I will list them below), information from a number of sectors cannot be read by the hard drive. Such sectors receive the status of “bad sectors” (bad sector), and the system tries to either restore the health of such a sector (restore), or reassign the address of such a bad sector to the reserve sector (remap), or to completely clean up the bad sector (erase). In the case of remapping, spare healthy sectors are usually located at the end of the hard disk, and the hard drive spends additional time accessing them, which inevitably affects the speed of the hard disk, loading various applications and programs. Next, I will tell you how to check HDD computer into bad sectors.

Causes of bad sectors

What are the reasons for the appearance of bad sectors on HDD drive? Usually they are as follows:

  • Gradual “shedding” of the surface of the hard disk due to its wear, due to which there are more and more bad sectors on the disk;
  • Physical impact on the hard drive due to various kinds of external shocks;
  • Power surges in the network that directly affect the integrity of data on the hard drive and lead to the appearance of bad sectors;
  • Incorrect shutdown of the computer (improper operation), as a result of which bad sectors appear on the hard drive.

Symptoms of bad sectors

Due to the described reasons, there are more and more bad sectors on the hard disk, which begins to directly affect the operation of the operating system. In particular, you may notice the following:

  • The system boots slowly;
  • The system slows down (freezes) when reading and writing data from the hard disk;
  • The system generally refuses to boot (quite often - in the middle of the process);
  • The computer sometimes restarts for no reason;
  • During the operation of the OS, various errors regularly occur.

After we have described the symptoms and causes of bad sectors, let's move on to a description of how to check your hard drive for bad sectors.

The best ways to check your hard drive for bad sectors

So how to check bad sectors (and fix them)? Below I will describe a number of methods that have proven their effectiveness in working with various hard drives.

Method 1. Use the CHKDSK system utility

The easiest and most convenient way to find and fix bad sectors on an HHD hard drive is to use the functionality of the CHKDSK system utility.

  1. To use its capabilities, launch Explorer, right-click on an inactive volume (which does not have an operating system installed), select "Properties" in the menu that appears.
  2. In the window that opens, go to the "Service" tab, there click on the "Perform verification" button.
  3. Check the boxes next to the two verification options, click on "Start", and wait for the process to finish.

The same can be done for the system volume (on which the OS is installed). The only thing is that this may require a system reboot, but after the system reboots, it will start checking the disk for bad sectors.

You can also run CHKDSK through the console. To do this, run a command prompt as an administrator, and in it enter:

chkdsk c: /f /r - (instead of with: if necessary, specify a different letter of the problematic drive) press enter and wait for the process to finish.

Method 2. We use the Victoria HDD program to analyze and treat the disk

Victoria HDD is probably the most popular program to check the hard disk for bad sectors (and to restore the latter). It effectively checks and recovers bad sectors, has good feedback from specialists, and can be used both in classic graphics mode and in DOS mode.

One of the Wiki's bonuses is the ability to read the SMART indicator of your hard drive, which allows you to monitor in sufficient detail the degree of its performance (the "SMART" tab of the program). In addition, the Victoria program performs “remapping” (remapping of damaged sectors), resets bad sectors, conducts a detailed test of the hard drive surface, ranking sectors into different groups depending on the speed of reading information from them.

  1. To use this program, download and run it.
  2. Then go to the "Test" tab, select "Ignore" there and check the surface for bad sectors.
  3. If such are found, it is worth choosing the “Remap” mode in the same tab, this will allow you to reassign addresses from bad sectors to backup ones.
  4. If bad sectors remain after remapping, you can try to restore them using the “Restore” function, while the “Erase” function completely erases data in bad sectors by writing zeros there.

In general, the functionality of Victoria is quite extensive, and in order to familiarize yourself with its full description, you need to go to the material specifically about using the program.

Method 3. We use the HDD Scan program to check the hard drive for bad sectors

Another program that can check the hard disk for bad sectors is HDD Scan. This is a fairly popular utility that offers several different tests (Surface Test, Smart Offline Tests, etc.). Let's select Surface Test, check the box next to "Read" on the right and start checking the surface of the disk.

The program will analyze the response time of the available sectors, and give us the result in graphical mode.

Method 4. Checking your hard drive with HDD Regenerator

Program HDD Regenerator allows you to check and recover data on your hard drive, the same applies to bad sectors. I note that the program is paid, but those who wish can search the net for its free options.

  1. To take advantage of the program's capabilities, you need to run it, select the disk to work with, decide on the scan mode (I recommend Normal Scan), and then select the "Scan and repair" option (scan and repair).
  2. Then it will be necessary to specify the boundaries of the scan (starting from sector 0) and monitor the scanning process itself.
  3. Depending on the response speed, the sectors will be marked with different letters and colors.

Method 5. Scan the disk with the HDD Health program for bad sectors

Another program for checking the disk surface is bad sectors. HDD Health analyzes the general state of the disk, provides detailed statistics on existing partitions (using SMART technology, including the general state of the structure, disk rotation temperature, bad sectors, and so on).

Icon running program located in the system tray, the program itself, as necessary, notifies the user of any problems in the hard drive.

Hard disk recovery, removing BAD (bad) sectors [video]

Usually, checking the hard disk for bad sectors is carried out using special programs tools, the level of Victoria HDD or HDD Regenerator. The most effective of all the programs listed in the article - Victoria HDD allows you not only to check the surface of the hard disk for bad sectors, but also to restore them, remap and clean them. If bad sectors began to appear on your hard drive, then I recommend using the functionality of the above programs, they have proven their effectiveness in working with the hard drives of many users.

It would seem that what could be more reliable in terms of storing valuable information than electronic device as a traditional hard drive (HDD)? Perhaps you, dear user, will think about the "new receiver" - a solid-state hard drive. However, despite the high manufacturability of the latter, the risk of data loss still remains high. However, when the user knows how to check the hard drive for operability, and at the same time periodically monitors its working condition, the degree of reliability and comfortable use of any hard drive increases significantly. If you want to understand how to implement all this in practice, find out what to be afraid of and how to avoid unforeseen operational situations, then we invite you to read the material in this article. Believe me, a few minutes of reading will eventually turn into some kind of life experience that will help you avoid many mistakes in the future, including data loss.

What Makes a Hard Drive Work: A Structural Introduction

The mechanical type of drives, and this article will focus on such hard drives, is a storage device that consists of several main parts:

  • Hermoblock is a HDD frame frame.
  • The printed circuit board is (usually green, located on the bottom of the device).
  • The head unit is a mechanical module through which the process of reading and writing data to the hard drive takes place.
  • A disk with magnetic coating (pancake) is the area of ​​the HDD on which information is stored.
  • The spindle drive is a device that causes the plates to rotate at a given speed.

It is worth noting that, depending on the modification of the hard drive, the number of read heads and magnetic disks may be different. Of course, the more storage components in the device, the higher the capacitive values ​​of the HDD.

How good is your hard drive?

Follow the instructions below and you will get a practical answer to your question: "How to check if a hard drive is working?" So:

  • Download and install the Victoria utility on your computer.
  • Run the specified software with administrator rights.
  • After opening the working window of the program, activate the Smart tab.
  • Next, click on the Get Smart button.
  • If the value GOOD is displayed in the adjacent checkbox, then you can breathe easy - your hard drive is in perfect order!

However, in order to fulfill full check your media, you must use the TEST tab. After you launch this utility using the Start button, you will need to wait for the end of the test process. It is worth noting that the presence of red and blue sectors is not a good sign at all, such graphic indicators indicate that the storage area has damaged or bad sectors. However, the program we are considering for checking hard working The disk also has some recovery tools.

Digital hard drive repair - how is it?

Upon completion of the test analysis process (using the Victoria utility), check the Remap item and restart the test with the same Start button. The program will "try" to fix all detected errors and restore bad sectors.

By the way, depending on the physical capacity of your drive, the duration of the running process also varies. It may well turn out that it will take a lot of time. Therefore, be patient and wait - miracles happen, and you will have time to see this more than once!

Simple and effective to use "Windows-restorer": the standard method of "healing" HDD

There is no access to the Internet, and you do not have the opportunity to install the aforementioned software, and the difficult question “how to check the hard drive for operability” is waiting for resolution? No problem! Follow these simple guidelines:

  • Enter the start menu.
  • Then left-click on "This PC".
  • Move the marker to the required hard disk partition and press the right mouse button.
  • Select "Properties" from the dropdown list.
  • Go to the "Service" tab.
  • Activate the Check button.
  • Before you start the process "Restoring the health of the hard drive", check the boxes next to the two items in the next window.

In some cases, for example, when you want to analyze the state of the system partition (C :), you will need to reboot the OS. Subsequent recovery steps will be displayed on the monitor screen as command lines and changing digital values ​​- be sure to wait for the completion of the running verification process!

Summing up

Well, now you know how to check the hard drive for operability. However, do not forget that the timely preventive maintenance of the hard drive has a positive effect on the long-term operational life of this product. Defragment your HDD every two weeks, clean your hard drive of digital garbage, and don't forget about the general process of optimizing your OS. That's all. Proper operation of your drive and many years of service!

Good afternoon.

In today's article I want to touch on the heart of a computer - a hard drive (by the way, many people call the processor the heart, but I personally don’t think so. If the processor burns out, buy a new one and there are no problems, if the hard drive burns out, then information in 99% of cases cannot be restored).

When do you need to check the hard drive for health and bad sectors? They do this, firstly, when they buy a new hard drive, and secondly, when the computer is unstable: you have strange noises (); when accessing a file - the computer freezes; long copying of information from one hard disk partition to another; missing files and folders, etc.

In this article, I would like to talk about plain language how to check a hard drive for bads, to assess its performance in the future, to sort out typical user questions along the way.

So, let's begin…

Updated on 12/07/2015. Not so long ago, an article appeared on the blog about the recovery of bad sectors (treatment of bad blocks) with the HDAT2 program - (I think the link will be relevant for this article). Its main difference from MHDD and Victoria is support for almost any disk with interfaces: ATA/ATAPI/SATA, SSD, SCSI and USB.

1. What do we need?

Before proceeding with the testing operation, in cases where the hard drive is not stable, I recommend copying all important files from a disk to other media: flash drives, external HDD etc. ().

1) You need a special program for testing and restoring the hard drive. There are a lot of similar programs, I recommend using one of the most popular - Victoria. Below are the download links

2) Next, a multi-colored program window will appear in front of us: go to the “Standard” tab. The upper right side shows the hard drives and CD-Roms that are installed in the system. Choose your hard drive that you want to test. Then press the "Passport" button. If everything goes well, then you will see how your hard drive model is determined. See picture below.

If the hard disk controller is operating in AHCI (Native SATA) mode, SMART attributes may not be obtained, with the message “Get S.M.A.R.T. command… Error reading S.M.A.R.T!”. The inability to receive SMART data is also indicated by the “Non ATA” highlighted in red during the initialization of the media, the controller of which does not allow the use of ATA interface commands, including the request for SMART attributes.

In this case, you need to go to BIOS and in the Config->>Serial ATA (SATA)->>SATA Controller Mode Option->>tab change from AHCI to Compatibility. After finishing testing with Victoria, change the setting to the way it was before.

You can read more about how to change ACHI to IDE (Compatibility) in my other article:

4) Now go to the "Test" tab and press the "Start" button. In the main window, on the left, rectangles colored in different colors. It is best if they are all grey.

You need to focus your attention on the red and blue rectangles (the so-called bad sectors, about them at the very bottom). It is especially bad if there are a lot of blue rectangles on the disk, in this case it is recommended to check the disk again, only with the “Remap” checkbox enabled. In this case, the Victoria program will hide the found bad sectors. In this way, hard drives are restored that have begun to behave unstably.

By the way, after such a recovery, the hard drive will not always work for a long time. If he has already begun to “crumble”, then hope for a program - personally, I would not. With a large number of blue and red rectangles, it's time to think about a new hard drive. By the way, on a new hard drive, blue blocks are not allowed at all! experienced users call bad sectors (meaning bad, not readable). Such unreadable sectors can occur both during the manufacture of a hard disk and during its operation. All the same, the hard drive is a mechanical device.

During operation, the magnetic disks in the hard drive case rotate rapidly, and the reading heads move above them. If the device is bumped, struck, or a software error occurs, it may happen that the heads hit or fall to the surface. Thus, almost certainly, a bad sector will appear.

In general, this is not scary, and many disks have such sectors. File system disk is able to isolate such sectors from file copy/read operations. Over time, the number of bad sectors may increase. But, as a rule, the hard drive often becomes unusable for other reasons before the bad sectors “kill” it. Also, bad sectors can be isolated using special programs, one of which we used in this article. After such a procedure - usually, the hard drive starts to work more stable and better, however, it is not known how long this stability will last ...

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