How to recover broken. Eliminate errors and bad sectors on the hard drive

The hard drive is an important, but far from perfect, component of a 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 you to recognize them, 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 either to restore the operability 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 the HDD? 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 installed operating system), 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 "Run", 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 for checking a hard disk for bad sectors (and for recovering the latter). It effectively checks and recovers bad sectors, has good reviews from experts, 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” (reassignment 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, after remapping, bad sectors remain, you can try to restore them using the "Restore" function, while the "Erase" function completely erases data in bad sectors, 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

The HDD Regenerator program 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 general state disk, provides detailed statistics on available partitions (using SMART technology, including the general state of the structure, disk rotation temperature, bad sectors, and so on).

The icon of the running program is located in the system tray, and the program itself, as necessary, notifies the user of any problems with 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.

No matter how good your hard drive is, sooner or later problems may arise with it. Incorrect removal of programs, viruses and harmful applications, wear and tear - all this can lead to a breakdown of the “hard drive” and the appearance of so-called. The latter do not make themselves felt instantly, most likely months will pass before you notice the problem.

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What are bad sectors?

For a more understandable definition of a broken sector, it will not be superfluous to understand the design of your hard drive. In general, it consists of rotating magnetic disks, which are divided into tracks, and these same tracks, in turn, are divided into sectors. They contain any information that you copy to your hard drive. Disk sectors have one unpleasant property - they deteriorate over time and you lose access to them. And this process is accelerated by incorrect work with the computer.

You most likely will not know about the existence of several bad sectors without the use of special programs. They practically do not affect the operation of the computer and become a real problem only in large numbers.

Computer freezes when trying to access any files, long copying from one partition to another, errors and PC restarts - all this may be the result of a large number bad blocks on your “screw”. Some of them can be corrected, and some cannot be treated. According to this feature and the nature of the damage, all broken sectors can be divided into two types: physical and logical.

• Physical bads are the result of damage (for example,), dust getting inside hard drive and normal wear equipment. The main thing is to understand that in such cases, which is no longer subject to recovery. Even the usual data recovery from such sectors will be a miracle;
• Logical bads, on the other hand, appear under the influence of viruses, file system errors, and incorrect writing of information to the disk (for example, a sudden shutdown of the computer while copying files or other active work). In such cases, it is not the magnetic coating of the sector that is damaged, but its data. Such broken sectors are subject to treatment and can be corrected using a variety of programs in normal home conditions.

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Programs for recovering bad sectors of a hard disk

Microsoft provides a built-in utility chkdsk to work with hard drives. By default, the utility checks only for file system errors, but if you add the key /f, then chkdsk will check the disk for bad blocks and try to fix them automatically. Of course, there are many third party alternative solutions for hard checks disk and fix bad sectors, which can be easily found on the Internet. Let's talk about the most popular of them in a little more detail:

• - probably the most popular program for testing hard drives and repairing bad sectors on a hard drive. It can be used not only for treatment, but also for equipment testing. As the developers themselves note, when interacting with the hard drive, it ignores the file system and works at the level of I / O ports. This property provides the most efficient and quality work. In addition, there are two versions of the program, one of which works directly from under Windows, and the other from under DOS. The latter is more versatile, but is also recommended for advanced users.
• - Another popular program that works with equipment through the controller ports. It also has two versions (Windows and DOS), both of which are completely free. It has a very fast speed of work, which does not affect its quality in any way. In addition, it gives complete statistics on your device: the number of on and off cycles, the number of spindle revolutions, etc. The unfriendly interface of the program can be considered a minus, which will become a problem for inexperienced users.
• - a unique program that, according to the developers, can restore even physical damage. The point is that often physically damaged sectors have the wrong magnetization, which this program eliminates. The rest of the set of characteristics and capabilities is similar to the above utilities.

Read about the causes of bad sectors on the hard drive, how to detect and fix them. How to recover data that is damaged or lost due to bad sectors. A hard drive bad sector is a tiny piece of disk space that fails during operation. Such a sector does not respond to read or write requests.

Broken sectors can occur both on traditional magnetic hard drives, and on modern solid-state SSD drives. There are two types of bad sectors - some are the result of physical damage to the disk and cannot be repaired, others are the result of errors software and are correctable.

Types of bad sectors

There are two types of bad sectors. They are often called "physical" or "brain teaser" bad sectors.

Physical bad sectors are hard disk space that is physically damaged. The head of the hard drive may have come into contact with the moving plate and damaged it, or moisture or dust may have entered the drive and clogged it. In the case of SSD drives, bad sectors can occur as a result of wear or overheating of microcircuits, moisture. Bad sectors of this type cannot be fixed.

Logical bad sectors are hard drive space that is not working properly. The operating system, trying to read data from such a bad sector, receives an adjustment error code that does not match the contents of the sector. This means that something went wrong. Such sectors are marked as bad and Windows no longer uses them to store information. However, such sections can be restored by overwriting the disk with zeros (so-called low-level formatting). The built-in Windows disk check utility can also fix bad sectors.

Reasons for the appearance of physical bad sectors

Your hard drive may have bad sectors right from the factory, especially for cheap Chinese-made models. Modern manufacturers of equipment are not perfect, so there is an error in everything. This is why SSDs are often shipped with multiple bad blocks. Such blocks are marked as bad and the data is moved to additional memory locations on the SSD.

In solid state drives, bad sectors appear naturally as a result of a large number of write attempts. The contents of such sectors are moved to additional SSD memory cells until the memory is exhausted. After that, with the appearance of new failures, the capacity of the drive begins to decrease.

In traditional magnetic hard drives, bad sectors are often the result of physical damage. Hard disks may have manufacturing errors, moving parts of the disk are subject to natural wear and tear, the disk can be dropped causing the head to scratch the magnetic plates, air with dust and moisture can get inside the disk and damage the disk.

Reasons for the appearance of software (logical) bad sectors

Logical bad sectors appear as a result of software errors. For example, if the power is turned off or the power cable is disconnected while writing to the computer's hard disk, data writing to the sector is interrupted in the middle of the operation. In most cases, this results in data sectors that fail the data write check. Such sectors are marked as bad. Viruses and other malicious software can also cause system errors and bad sectors.

Loss of data due to hard drive error

In reality, bad sectors lead to a frightening fact - even if your hard drive continues to work properly, your data can be seriously damaged, leading to loss important information. Whether it's work documents or family photos, all the data stored on a computer is valuable to us. This is another reason why you should always back up your data. Only having multiple backups on different storage media can protect you from data loss due to bad sectors or other disk failures.

When the computer detects a bad sector, it ignores it in further work. The data that was in this sector will be moved, so the system will not read and write this sector. Modern hard drives support S.M.A.R.T. and keep a record of the number of moved sectors. The accounting variable is called “Reallocated Sectors”, its value can be found in free utility CrystalDiskInfo. A situation is possible in which the contents of a bad sector cannot be read and moved. This will corrupt the file and you won't be able to open it anymore.

A few bad sectors is not an indicator that the hard drive will soon fail. However, if the counter of bad sectors of the disk increases regularly and the computer warns about this with an S.M.A.R.T. you should replace your disk as soon as possible.

How to check and fix bad sectors

Windows has a built-in Check Disk utility (also known as chkdsk). The program checks your hard drives for bad sectors, flags physically damaged sectors as bad, and fixes logically bad sectors making them available for further use.

If Windows believes that there is a problem on the hard drive associated with bad sectors, the Chkdsk utility will be launched automatically at system startup. But you can also run this utility manually at any time.

Other operating systems, including Linux and OS X, also have their own built-in disk utilities for detecting bad sectors.

Bad sectors are the harsh reality of hard drives and don't panic when you encounter them. However, you should always back up your important files in case of a spike in bad sectors. It should be remembered that the presence of a large number of bad sectors indicates the imminent failure of the hard drive.

Good hour everyone!

I think that many users have encountered a suspicious hard work disk: long copying / reading of files, brakes, loading up to 100%, clicking, inability to read any files, etc.

This disk behavior may indicate serious problems with it. In order to determine what is wrong with him, you have to resort to specialized service utilities.

In this article, I want to focus on a few of the best utilities that can view S.M.A.R.T. (special hard drive self-monitoring technology, ), check the disk surface for bad blocks and try to restore its performance (that is, try to reassign bad sectors to backup ones, more about this at the link below).

What is a bad block, how to check the disk with the Victoria utility (detailed for beginners, with examples and screenshots), see this article -

6 best utilities for checking a disk for bad blocks

Victoria

Developer site: http://hdd-911.com/

One of the best utilities for checking and treating bad blocks on a hard drive. The program performs testing, diagnostics, and treatment of the disk at a low level. In addition to HDD, Victoria also supports other types of media: FDD, CD / DVD, USB / Flash / SCSI, it also "sees" drives under Windows through APIs and ports.

Note: I told how to work with Victoria in one of my previous articles, the link to it is presented just above.

Key features:

1. support for IDE/SATA controllers;
2. the ability to view S.M.A.R.T. disk;
3. the ability to control acoustic noise;
4. tests to check the mechanics and surface of the disc;
5. obtaining a complete technical disk information;
6. the ability to work from under Windows and DOS;
7. work on laptops is supported;
8. support for low-level HDD formatting;
9. Benchmark functions.

HDDScan

One of the best programs to check hard drives from under Windows. Allows you to quickly assess the state of the hard drive, check the drive for bad sectors, view S.M.A.R.T. attributes.

In addition, the program allows you to manage power, adjust the acoustic mode, control the temperature of the drive (data can be displayed on the taskbar).

Key features:

1. Support for SSD drives;
2. HDD support with interfaces: ATA/SATA, SCSI, USB, FireWire or IEEE 1394;
3. Drive test in linear verification, linear reading and linear writing modes;
4. Reading and analysis of identification information from hard drives with ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire/SCSI interface;
5. Changing AAM, APM, PM parameters on drives with ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire interface (useful for those who have a hard drive that makes a lot of noise during operation);
6. Works in all popular OC Windows: XP, 7, 8, 10.

HDTA2

HDAT2 is a system utility needed to diagnose and "treat" hard drives. One of the main differences between this utility and Victoria (presented above) is the support for a much larger type of disk (note: supported interfaces: ATA / ATAPI / SATA, SSD, SCSI and USB).

HDAT2 can work in 2 modes:

1. disk level: diagnostics and "treatment" of bad sectors on identified drives. By the way, in addition to diagnostics, you can get any information about the disk (which can only be obtained programmatically);
2. file level: searching, reading and checking entries in FAT 12, 16, 32 file systems. Ability to check, delete and restore records of bad sectors, flags in the FAT table.

Important!

I recommend using HDAT2 from a boot disk or flash drive. work from under Windows program will most likely be incorrect. On the developer site, use the version "CD/DVD Boot ISO Image"- it must be correctly written to a USB flash drive / disk, like any bootable media. You can read about this in one of my articles:.

MHDD

Developer site: http://mhddsoftware.com/

MHDD is a service utility for accurate diagnostics and repair of hard drives (HDD). The utility allows you to work with disks at a low level, through the ports of the IDE controller. The program has a fairly high speed of scanning and "healing" the disk from "soft"-bad sectors.

Main functions:

1. accurate and very fast diagnostics of the hard disk condition, the optimal algorithm for correcting bad sectors;
2. the ability to adjust the noise from the drive (AAM);
3. view S.M.A.R.T. readings;
4. error logs;
5. the ability to delete all information on the disk without the possibility of its recovery;
6. an attempt to warm up the drive and its test in extreme conditions;
7. the ability to test several hard drives at once.

Macrorit Disk Scanner

Macrorit Disk Scanner is a good and working tool for checking your hard drive for bad sectors. By the way, I want to emphasize that the utility scans disk very fast- 1.5-2 times faster than, say, the famous Victoria! True, it will not help to "cure" the disk - it simply does not have the functionality that Victoria has.

You can scan the entire disk as well as a specific range of sectors (useful on large disks when scanning can take too long).

The utility allows you to work with all popular types of drives: IDE, HDD, SSD, SCSI, FireWire, RAID, SD cards, etc.

Macrorit Disk Scanner main window

In general, a good alternative to previous programs, especially when you need to quickly and easily find out the status of the disk.

Ashampoo HDD Control

Developer website: https://www.ashampoo.com/ru/rub/pin/0365/system-software/hdd-control-3

A multifunctional program for monitoring the status of all your drives in the system. Thanks to the minute-by-minute monitoring of the state of your disks, the program will prevent the loss of information, warning you in time about all problems.

By the way, those who have used products from Ashampoo know that their programs are designed so that any novice user can simply and easily work with the program. HDD Control is no exception to this rule, anyone who wants to deal with it...

Main functions:

1. monitoring the status of drives online;
2. the ability to test the drive (there are several tests to get a "full picture" of the state of the drive);
3. notification of a dangerous disk condition, leading to a failure or possible loss of information;
4. the ability to defragment the disk;
5. support for drives with an interface: IDE, ATA, hard drives connected via USB and Firewire;
6. supports drives connected via RAID controllers;
7. view disk information: registration number, cache size, number of partitions, etc.;
8. it is possible to quickly clean the disk from junk files;
9. the ability to export disk status data and tests performed.

PS

Whatever were good indications after testing and diagnosing the disk, do not forget to backup important documents and files. As they say, once a year the stick shoots...

It is better to spend 5 extra minutes on a backup than days and weeks of wasted work.

Read about ways to fix HDD errors, is it possible to recover bad sectors and how to do it. Consider how to recover data from bad drives. The occurrence of bad sectors and other hard disk failures can lead to the loss of all information. We will talk about possible methods for correcting such errors and ways to recover data from problematic disks in our article.

The most popular representatives of the team of computer devices are stationary personal computers and laptops, including their various modifications (netbooks, ultrabooks, convertible laptops, etc.). A complex combination of the most powerful computer processors, modern high-level memory elements, ultra-fast graphics accelerators, massive data storages and others required elements, allows them, by right, to occupy a leading place among other types of computer devices.

The presence of modern versions of personal computers and laptops implies the mandatory use of software to maintain a high level of performance, management and control over all processes. The most common program that fully meets the stated requirements can be safely called the operating system Windows from a corporation Microsoft.

The obligatory use of modern developments in the field of computer programming, the highest speed characteristics of processing a huge amount of data, a high level of system functionality, multitasking and unification of the internal shell of the operating system, suitable for the joint use of third-party programs and applications, a friendly user interface and a number of other advantages helped to get the system Windows extraordinary popularity, distribution and recognition of users around the world.

The combination of an advanced operating system and modern elements internal filling personal computers and laptops helps users to cope with any high-cost tasks, to carry out the simultaneous execution of many tasks without a general loss in performance and data processing speed.

One of the main elements of computer devices, which is responsible for managing and securely storing all user information and the operating system Windows, acts as a data store. As such, users can use various devices storage: internal and external hard drives HDD,solid state drives SSD, combined hybrid hard drivescombining elements of the two previous types of drives, and other types of devices.

Despite the rapidly developing industry of solid state drives, they have a number of significant drawbacks that significantly reduce their distribution. Therefore, hard drives have gained the greatest popularity and widespread use, and continue to hold them. HDD, which have proven themselves as low-cost, high-capacity storage devices that meet the needs of the consumer and enterprise segments, and have a high degree of reliability.

Taking into account the widest popularity and a significant number of information storage devices used, the question often arises of the problem of bad sectors and the search for possible ways to fix detected hard drive errors. HDD. To save user information and prevent its premature loss, an important requirement is the mandatory support of the used hard disk in good working order. And if problems arise with its structure, software or hardware content, you need to take care of transferring user data to a working storage device, or recover lost data if bad sectors on the hard drive led to its breakdown. Further in our article we will try to consider possible ways to solve the problems presented.

A brief overview of the hard drive device HDD

Before proceeding with the description of the solution to the above problems, it is worth dwelling on the hard disk device for a full understanding of the principles of operation of the device, the correct diagnosis of the problem and the choice of ways to fix it.

The hard disk is a mechanical storage device, which makes it the most vulnerable element of a personal computer due to the presence of moving parts. The main components of a hard drive are the electronics control board, the read head unit, and rigid aluminum or glass plates coated with a ferromagnetic layer, on which all information is written directly.

In hard drives, depending on the declared amount of memory, one or more platters are used, located on the same axis. Due to the high speed of rotation of the drum, the reading heads, in the process of writing or reading information from the hard disk, do not touch the surface of the plates, thereby achieving a high level of durability of the disk as a whole. And upon completion, they move to the parking area for a safe location.

The case of the hard drive is a hermetically sealed container, which excludes the ingress of foreign elements and particles and achieves the overall security of the device.

The principle of storing information on a hard disk HDD

Based on the knowledge gained about the hard disk structure described in the previous section, it is known that all information is stored on hard platters in a sealed disk enclosure.

The process of writing and reading information implies the presence of a strictly structured disk space with certain elements of disk partitioning. Therefore, the internal organization of the surface of the disc plates has a special marking, in cooperation with which, information is recorded and stored on the device. In accordance with the markup, the surface of the storage plates is divided into tracks, which, in turn, are divided into sectors (the minimum disk memory area used to store information). The sector size, as the minimum basic unit of information recording, is 512 bytes. But depending on the selected file system used when formatting the hard disk, sectors can be combined into clusters, which, in turn, will be used as a single amount of memory when writing and storing data. A cluster can consist of several physical sectors, the final size of which depends on the total number of combined sectors, and can be up to sixty-four kilobytes.

When writing information, the system determines the size of the file being written and places its contents in required quantity clusters. The location of the recorded clusters on the disk surface can be different. Depending on the size of the source file, the workload of the hard disk and a number of other factors, clusters containing the data of one file can be located either next to each other or can be distributed over the entire surface of the storage platter of the drive. In other words, the original file will be split into separate parts during recording and fragmentarily written to the hard disk. Which ultimately can increase the time the disk head reads the file, because it will need to find all the fragments of the file when accessing it. And in case of damage to the sector, some or all of the information may be lost, since the sector is the main element responsible for storing data.

What does the concept of bad sectors mean?

As already described earlier in the previous section, design feature hard disk drive is the presence of sectors (or clusters) that are used to record and store various information. If, for various reasons, a sector is damaged, then, with a high degree of probability, all information recorded on it will be corrupted, and it is not always possible to restore it, depending on the degree and type of damage. Therefore, sectors that have received damage are commonly called bad sectors (the names are also common). BAD sectors, bad or defective), and it is no longer possible to store any data in them.

In the window command line with administrator rights, enter the command to run the application CHKDSK:

In this example, the logical partition will be checked and corrected for errors C:.

The application allows you to use many different flags to perform the corresponding tasks. However, to fix hard drive problems, only two of them are used:

/f– the use of this flag instructs the application to check the hard disk for errors and correct them;

/r- this flag is used in conjunction with the flag /f and forces the application to search for bad sectors of the hard disk and restore their contents.

Learn more about how to check a hard drive for errors and possible methods for correcting them in the operating system. Windows you can on our video channel in the manual: How to Check Hard Drive for Errors and Fix Errors in Windows 10, 8, 7.

In the second case, you can perform actions to search for bad sectors and fix errors from the file explorer Windows. Open the file explorer in any way convenient for you, for example, by double-clicking the shortcut This computer on the desktop. In chapter Devices and drives right-click on the required drive. From the pop-up context menu, select a section Properties.

Or, after selecting a disk, click on the main menu bar in the tab A computer button Properties.

In the local disk properties window that opens, go to the tab Service and then in the section Error checking click on the button Verify.

A check will be launched to detect and repair hard drive errors, the result of which will be the complete elimination of the diagnosed problems.

Using Disk Format

Sometimes, if we are not talking about the system drive, you can use the method of completely formatting the logical drive. Such a process in the execution of operating system tools Windows performs a comprehensive check of the hard disk surface and excludes detected bad sectors from the trusted data storage area. Entering a mark on specific bad sectors into the service information of the disk, Windows further prevents their use for recording new data. Formatting the system disk is possible in conjunction with reinstalling the operating system Windows, which can also be performed if your computer has slowed down significantly, you experience frequent system problems, and you have sufficient knowledge to complete the system reinstallation process.

Open file explorer Windows and find the drive you want to format. Right-click on it, and in the pop-up context menu, select the section Format.

In the local disk formatting options window, specify the appropriate settings and click the button To begin to start the process. After formatting is completed, the logical drive errors will be resolved. However, all information located in this section will be erased. Therefore, this method can be used in the case when the disk does not store important data in itself or they are transferred (copied) to another medium.

Information recovery methods

If the number of bad sectors has become critical, as a result of which access to the disk is lost, it is unreadable or inoperative, then users can try to recover the information located on such disks by contacting a specialized laboratory for help, using free software or using a professional data recovery software.

Contacting a specialized laboratory

Specialized laboratories for recovering deleted data from damaged media have expensive equipment, sterile rooms and specialists of sufficient professional level to repair drives and restore user information.

The use of modern hardware tools for data recovery allows laboratory specialists to extract information from damaged hard drives, overcoming the presence of bad sectors, and restore it.

However, with all the advantages, seeking help from a specialized laboratory has a number of significant disadvantages that significantly reduce the effect of its use.

Laboratory specialists do not give any guarantees that as a result of their actions, user information will be restored, and the total cost of laboratory services will require significant financial costs from users. And even with a negative result, users will in any case be forced to pay for the services of the laboratory.

Therefore, you should contact a data recovery laboratory only if it is impossible to recover information in other ways, and its recovery is worth any cost.

Application of free software

Using free data recovery software is not a sound solution as this type of software has severe limitations. And with the described type of problems (the presence of bad and damaged sectors of the hard disk), such programs have practically no chance of recovering user information.

Free programs have a truncated, significantly limited in their capabilities, internal functionality, and they also implement the principle of limiting the final recovered files by the final number or total occupied volume. Such types of programs are suitable only as a one-time tool for recovering one or more files. To solve more global problems, users need to turn their attention to professional file recovery programs. One of these programs, which received well-deserved recognition from users and many positive feedback, is from the company Hetman Software.

Using professional data recovery software

Professional recovery programs have the widest range of internal tools aimed at troubleshooting, detecting and safely recovering all possible information.

In the international computer information network Internet available for users to download and install different kinds deleted data recovery software. However best solution will turn its attention to a really successful product, which has an unusually high final percentage of finished and working files recovery - .

The program occupies a leading position in the line of programs of the company Hetman Software, and in addition to standard features (file recovery after: normal and permanent deletion, disk formatting, malicious effects of virus programs, system or hardware failure, etc.), it has the ability to recover almost any data from damaged, inaccessible or completely non-working hard drives . Regardless of the type of damage, the number of bad sectors and the overall health of the hard drive, the program successfully analyzes and recovers any information almost in full.

Download the installation file from the official website of the company and run its execution. The step-by-step installation wizard will help you determine the initial settings and safely install the program on your computer or laptop. When finished, press the button Ready to exit the installer.

Now the program is installed and ready for further use. Run, for example, by double-clicking the program shortcut on the desktop, or in another convenient way. When first launched, the program will perform a basic system scan, search for all connected devices and display them in the central pane of the window.

To safely restore information, double-click on the selected local drive or an entire physical drive, and activate the launch of the File Recovery Wizard. In the window that opens, users will need to select the type of analysis that the wizard will need to apply to find and restore files. There are two types of analysis to choose from: Quick scan and Complete Analysis. The first type of analysis will be able to recover files after the usual and permanent deletion methods. Therefore, it is necessary to choose Complete Analysis, which fully utilizes the capabilities of the program and restores all possible information, regardless of the way it was lost.

Users will be able to monitor the analysis process in real time and control its execution in the File Recovery Wizard window by the status indicator. The final completion time directly depends on the size of the hard drive, the degree of damage to data and the drive as a whole, the type of analysis selected and a number of other additional criteria, and can take from several minutes to several hours. Wait for the end of the analysis and press the button Ready.

All found files will be displayed in the program window. Using the preview function, users will be able to see the contents of each specific file in the corresponding section. By selecting the necessary files and placing them in the section recovery list(by simple drag and drop of the file) press the button Reestablish on the main panel of the program window.

The File Recovery Wizard will immediately prompt users to decide on the method of saving the selected files: saving to a hard drive or other drive of the user's choice, writing data to an optical disc, creating a virtual image ISO or download data FTP protocol. By selecting one of the options, users will need to specify a few additional options, for example, select a name and path to save the folder, and save the searched data.

User files are now saved on the specified type of media and are available for viewing and subsequent use.

For a more detailed description of the features of recovering files from a hard drive with bad sectors and ways to minimize the risk of information loss during its recovery, please visit our video channel in the guide: How to recover files from beaten disk?.

Conclusion

Any information that users use on a daily basis requires a secure and large data storage. And hard drives HDD fully meet the stated criteria. They have the largest amount of disk space for recording and storing data, have a high speed of information processing and are quite reliable and durable. However, for various reasons, bad sectors can appear on hard disks, which, subsequently, can lead to the loss of all data stored on the disk.

But knowing the possible causes of damage, you can avoid their occurrence and extend the life of hard drives, as well as protect yourself from subsequent expenditure of effort and money aimed at restoring information or purchasing a new storage drive.

Usage additional elements data protection (for example, backup), and the use of professional file recovery software (for example,), will significantly increase the level of data security and help you get them back in case of unforeseen loss.