Check the hard drive is not Bad Sector and identification signs!

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I. What is Bad Sector?

We can simply understand this, Bad Sector is an area on the computer’s hard drive that cannot be used due to being permanently damaged.

The physical structure of a hard drive usually consists of three main components:

1. Platter (circular disc): Where to store the firmware – the lower level controller of the HDD and data.
2. Actuator: Department of information transmission.
3. Electronic Control Board (PrintedCircuitBoard = PCB): Contains communication ports and high-level controller of the hard drive.

II. The cause of the hard drive is Bad Sector

There are 7 main causes that lead to a bad sector hard drive that are:

1. 1 hole created due to a failure in the magnetic coating of the platter surface.
2. Poor bonding between the magnetic layer and the platter substrate in one position creates a hole.
3. 1 hole is created on the platform surface of the platter caused by time.
4. The error is caused by the Actuator’s mechanical movement or by the user causing the impact resulting in the head being hit on the platter surface.
5. The lubricant inside the motor, due to the high temperature of the evaporated environment, meets a lower temperature, it hardens into particles, impacting and destroying the platter surface.
6. The high temperature of the computer environment causes the functional degradation of the magnetic surface.
7. Electrical error and / or reset occur during data reading / writing.

III. Signs that your hard drive is being Bad Sector

1. The hard drive shows signs of data retrieval error, cannot be booted or the computer automatically resets and automatically shuts down.
2. Computer hangs while the hard drive light is on …
3. Cannot access a directory or a hard drive partition on the machine.
4. Hangs in DOS environment or cannot ghost the computer.
5. Error Bad Track 0- Disk Unsable when you Format the hard drive.
6. Fdisk fails, when you execute Fdisk an error message appears “No fixed disk present” (The current hard disk cannot be partitioned), or may be crashed during Fdisk.
7. Error reading data on driver C :, Retry, Abort, Ignore, Fail .. when you run an application on Windows.
8. Hard drive gets hot and does not work properly or makes strange noises.
9. While installing Windows, the system crashes without any error message.

IV. How to prevent and limit Bad Sector drive?

Pay attention to the temperature issue for the computer, if you are using a laptop, you should put it in cool places and it is best to buy a cooling fan. If you are using a PC, install a ventilator …

Power is also a major cause of your hard drive failure. The power source is for example flicker, unstable. Or more dangerous is a sudden power failure, so if you are using a Laptop, never remove the battery from the machine while in use. If you are using a PC, maybe a UPS (UPS).

Read more articles:

V. How to check Bad Sector effective hard drive

There are actually many ways to know if your hard drive has Bad Sector error or not, but I just introduce some of the most effective ways to use it.

#first. Check Bad Sector by HDD Regenerator in Hiren’s Boot

+ Step 1: First you need to prepare a Hiren’s Boot or you can create a bootable usb with Hiren’s Boot => then you choose the preferred boot mode as USB or CD. If you do not know how to refer to the article: What is BIOS? How to access BIOS of HP, Sony machine

Note : This way is only to check if your hard drive has Bad Sector? or repair Bad Sector lightly, but I recommend you to backup data to another storage device because it is often difficult to fix Bad Sector error.

+ Step 2: After entering the main menu of Hiren’s Boot, select the line Hard Disk Tools

+ Step 3: Next choose HDD Regenerator and press Enter. Then you just let the program automatically load, no need to press anything.

+ Step 4: After running, a hard drive will appear for you to choose from. If you are using 2 hard drives then enter the number ⁽¹⁾ or ⁽²⁾ and press Enter to choose.

If you only have 1 hard drive, press 1 any key to continue or press ESC to exit.

+ Step 5: There will be 3 options for you:

1. Scan and repair (ie scanning the entire hard drive and repairing bad sectors by itself)
2. Scan but not repair (scans the hard disk and displays the error location but doesn’t fix the error)
3. Regenerate all sector in a range (Recovers all sectors in the selected area recovers even when there are no errors).

You enter options (1) ie full scan and auto fix => press Enter.

Next, the program will ask where you want to scan from. By default, the program will scan from the first Sector of the hard drive, default value is 0. Click Enter to continue.

The auto-repair and scan process is in progress, you are happy to wait. Enlist making coffee cups to help relieve sadness ?

A few notes during the Bad Sector error checking process:

1. During error checking, if you want to stop the test, you can press the key combination “Ctrl + C” or “Ctrl + Pause / Break” to finish and the errors that the program have fixed are still valid. Please.
2. If you feel the HDD Regenerator program check very slowly and continuously display many words B then, your hard drive (HDD) is too badly defective. And you should immediately back up important data to another computer, but if there is nothing important, just use it until you die ?
3. During the error scan that the program handles too long or hangs, you can turn off the computer or press the button Reset to restart.

After the scan is complete, the program will display a results table informing you whether your computer has bad sectors or not, and how many bad sectors… in general it listed is quite detailed.

#2. Use the DLC BOOT tool to check and fix Bad Sectors (recommended)

If you are using DLC ​​BOOT you can also do it quite easily because of the software HDD Regenerator has also been integrated into this computer rescue toolkit already. In general, all the computer rescue tools that I introduce on the blog have basic software like this.

Update: You can use this new DLC BOOT 2019 to be able to use the newer software included in that toolkit. Check out other computer rescue kits if you like!

But here I take the example of DLC BOOT tool. Please boot into USB BOOT and select Dos Program as shown below.

Next you also choose is Hard Disk Tools... and follow the instructions above and you’re done ?

# 3. Check Bad Sectors right on Windows

If your computer still can access Windows, you can go to Windows to do it quite easily. (However to scan and fix Bad Sectors, I still encourage you to use the usb boot tool, it will be better)

+ Step 1: Please download this HDD Regenerator tool to: Download link / Link backup / Link backup

+ Step 2: Please unzip => run the file hdd-regenerator_2011.exe and start to install. The installation process is very easy, so I will not guide you further.

+ Step 3: Open the software, you will see a main interface as shown below. At this point you will have 3 options that are:

1. Click here to repair physical bad sectors… ..: Scan and fix Bad Sectors right on Windows.
2. Bootable USB Flash: Support you to create bootable Usb to fix Bad Sectors.
3. Bootable Cd / DVD: Support you to create bootable disks to fix Bad Sectors.

Here I will choose the number⁽¹⁾ ie running directly on Windows always.

A message appears, please press NO to continue, if pressed incorrectly YES the computer will reboot there.

Okey, in the next window, select the hard drive to scan => then click the button Start Process to begin.

A familiar window will appear, with 4 options for you. But here I will enter is 1 and press Enter, in the next interface you also choose 1 and press Enter again let the program start scanning and fixing errors.

BECAUSE. Epilogue

So I have completed the user manual HDD Regenerator in Hiren’s Boot to check and fix errors the hard drive suffers from Bad Sector and share tips and experiences to identify and minimize this dangerous hard drive failure. Hope the article is useful to you!

Good luck !!

Kien Nguyen – techtipsnreview