In today's article:
1. How can I find out what condition my hard drive or SSD is in and how long it will last? How to find out your health status hard drive or used SSD. What is S.M.A.R.T and what do its indicators say: Value, Worst, Raw, Threshold?
2. What are bad blocks? How to find out how many bad sectors (bad blocks) there are on my hard drive, can they be fixed, and most importantly, how can I fix them?
3. What should I do if the operating system does not boot or freezes even after reinstallation, and the hard drive makes clicking noises and strange sounds during operation? Why every time booting Windows does the disk check utility chkdsk run?
4. How to create a bootable USB flash drive with the Victoria program and check the hard drive of a computer or laptop for bad blocks, even if it does not boot, and so on...
Welcome friends to our website! Today's article is about the Victoria program. I can confidently say that this program is the best among utilities for diagnosing and treating hard drives. This creation was developed by the first category sorcerer Sergei Kazansky.
I prepared for this article for a very long time and responsibly, feeling grateful to this program. Sometimes Victoria saved seemingly lost data on the hard drives of my clients, friends and acquaintances (often the master is NOT faced with the task of returning a faulty hard drive to normal operation, but only saving the data on it), and sometimes brought the hard drive itself back to life!
- I really wanted to write an article that would help novice users figure it out, and most importantly, they are not afraid of this program, but they are afraid of something, if you use the program carelessly, for example, start a thoughtless scan in Erase mode or, even worse, Write, then you can delete all the data on the drive, Even if you come to your senses in time, you will still crash the MBR boot record and you will not be able to boot into the operating system next time.
Friends, it’s impossible to put everything I want to tell and show about the Victoria program in one article.. As a result of my efforts it turned out several articles:
- Today's article. How to download and run the Victoria program directly from a running Windows. What is S.M.A.R.T. or how to determine the health status of your hard drive or SSD in a couple of seconds. More articles...
- How to cure a hard drive.
Firstly, there are two main versions of the Victoria program:
The first version will allow us to diagnose and minor repairs of hard drives directly in a running Windows, but I want to say that it is possible to diagnose a hard drive using this version, but correcting bad sectors (remap) often ends in failure, and there is also the possibility of errors when working with Victoria directly “from Windows” is present, so many experienced users and professionals prefer the second version of the program.
The second version of the Victoria program will be located on a boot disk or flash drive; from this disk (flash drive) we will boot our desktop computer or laptop and also carry out diagnostics and, if necessary, treatment of the hard drive.
Note: The second version will be very useful to many, since most users have one hard drive in their computer, or even more so in a laptop, in this case you can boot from Victoria’s disk (flash drive) and work with one single hard drive.
1. Victoria on the boot disk is very useful if you cannot start the operating system due to bad blocks.
2. If you have one hard drive and an operating system is installed on it, and you run Victoria in the same running operating system, then it will probably refuse to correct bad sectors (bad blocks).
Many users will notice that often a good bad problem cannot be fixed even by Victoria, to which the answer can be this - not all bad problems are of a physical nature (a broken sector on the hard drive), many bad problems are of a logical nature and can be easily fixed by this program.
I’ll just say briefly that physical problems (a physically destroyed sector) cannot be restored, but logical ones (software, sector logic errors) can be restored.
Friends, we can talk a lot, but there is a good life proverb: “It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times,” so I will give you several examples of how the Victoria program works.
Victoria for working from a boot disk
We go to the official website of the program and select Victoria 3.5 Russian ISO image of the boot CD-ROM.
We also need Victoria on the boot disk, but we will consider working with this version second. If you do not have a disk drive, then we will make a bootable USB flash drive with the Victoria program.
Victoria for working directly in the operating room Windows system XP, 7, 8, 10
We also download the Windows version on my cloud.
Right-click on the downloaded program archive and select Extract files.
The files are extracted into the created vcr43 folder. We go to this folder and be sure to run the executable file of the program victoria43.exe as administrator.
Main program window Victoria
In the main window of the program, we will go through all the tabs superficially, and then in detail.
Standard
Select the initial tab Standard. If you have several hard drives, then in the right part of the window, select the hard drive you need with your left mouse and immediately on the left side of the window the passport data of our hard drive will be displayed: where you were born and married, model, firmware, serial number, cache size, and so on. At the bottom there is a log of our actions.
What is S.M.A.R.T.
Then select the hard drive we need in the right part of the window, if you have several of them, and select it with the left mouse. Let's choose a hard drive for example WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2(volume 500 GB).
Go to the SMART tab, press the button Get SMART, a message will light up to the right of the button GOOD and S.M.A.R.T. will open. the hard drive we have selected.
S.M.A.R.T.(from the English self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology) - an improved technology for self-monitoring, analysis and reporting of the hard drive, developed in 1995 by the largest hard drive manufacturers.
In other words, friends, if you look at this window, you can find out the state of your hard drive.
Please note that the Victoria program has highlighted the number 8 in red (alarm!) on the Raw value, the most important attribute for the health of the hard drive
5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), indicating the number of reassigned sectors.
Note: the value of the Raw attribute is very important, read why .
In simple words, if the firmware built into the hard drive detects a bad sector (bad block), it will reassign this sector as a sector from the backup track (the process is called remapping). But there are no spare sectors on the hard drive infinite number and the program warns us that soon there will be nothing to reassign bad blocks with, and this is fraught with data loss and we need to get ready to replace the hard drive with a new one.
Looking ahead, I will say that in the next article we will try to treat this hard drive.
9 Power-On time 14810, not highlighted in red, but I want to say that approaching the figure of 20,000 operating hours in most cases is associated with illness and unstable operation of the hard drive.
The attributes are also highlighted:
196 Reallocation Event Count - 3 . The number of operations of reassigning bad blocks to sectors from backup tracks (remapping), both successful and unsuccessful operations are taken into account.
197 Current Pending Sector - 1 3. An indicator of the number of unstable sectors of real candidates for bad blocks. The hard drive firmware plans to replace these sectors in the future with sectors from the reserve area (remap), but there is still hope that in the future some of these sectors will be read well and will be excluded from the list of candidates.
198 Offline scan UNC sectors - 13 . The number of actually existing non-reassigned bads on the hard drive (possibly fixable ones with a logical structure - details later in the article).
199 UltraDMA CRC Errors - 63771. Errors that occur when transmitting information via an external interface, the reason is perhaps a twisted and poor-quality SATA cable and it needs to be replaced or a loose SATA connector on the motherboard or on the hard drive itself. Or maybe the hard drive itself of the SATA 6 Gb/s interface is connected to the connector on the SATA 3 Gb/s motherboard, it needs to be reconnected.
S.M.A.R.T attributes and their meanings. Very important to know!
Attribute values
Val is the current value of the attribute, it should be high (up to 255); if the value of Val is equal to the critical Tresh or even less than it, then this corresponds to an unsatisfactory assessment of the parameter. For example, in our case, on a WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 (500 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II) hard drive, the Reallocated Sector Count attribute has the value Val-199 and the attribute Tresh(threshold) has a value of 140, which is bad, but the value of Val -199 is not yet equal to the value of Tresh (threshold) of 140 and we have time to copy the data from this disk and retire it.
Wrst is the lowest value of the Val attribute for the entire operating time of the hard drive.
Tresh - attribute threshold value, given value should be much lower than Val (current value).
Raw - the “raw value” that will be converted into a value Value, the lower this value, the better. An important indicator for evaluating the attribute is the real number from which the Value value is formed, but how exactly the process of forming the Value value occurs is a proprietary secret of each hard drive manufacturer!
Decoding S.M.A.R.T.
Let's look at all the S.M.A.R.T attributes, but I want to say that most often on “bad” hard drives it is this Reallocated Sector Count attribute that will be unsatisfactory. This is already a reason to be wary and test the surface of a hard drive or SSD (we will learn how to do this later in the article).
Friends, to instantly assess the health of a S.M.A.R.T hard drive, I use another simple program in Russian, CrystalDiskInfo, be sure to download and install it for yourself. All attributes are indicated in Russian!
http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html
Select Shizuku Edition (exe).
In this window, you can select Russian for the program language.
As you can see, CrystalDiskInfo directly tells us (confirming Victoria’s fears) that the WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 hard drive (500 GB capacity) has bad values for the attributes responsible for Reassigned sectors, Unstable sectors, Uncorrectable sector errors, highlighting them yellow and points to those. hard drive status in one word: "Alarm"
What does the S.M.A.R.T of a faulty hard drive look like?
And here S.M.A.R.T of a faulty hard drive WDC WD500BPVT laptop, which was brought to me for repair.
Victoria from Windows. Pay attention to the attribute:
5 Reallocated Sector Count, it has a value of Val -133 and the Tresh attribute has a value of 140, this is unsatisfactory since the value of Val -133 should not be less limit value Tresh (threshold) 140, that is, the number of bad sectors will increase, and there is nothing to reassign them; spare sectors on the backup tracks have already run out.
197 Current Pending Sector - the indicator of the number of unstable sectors of real candidates for bad blocks has gone beyond all possible limits.
And most importantly, self-assessment SMART status = BAD (unfit).
Program CrystalDiskInfo(download link is just above). We see the same thing, the Reallocated Sector Count attribute has a value of Val (current) -133, and the Tresh attribute (threshold) has a value of 140, the program rated the condition of the hard drive as Bad.
this laptop is terribly slow, data cannot be copied from it, Windows cannot be reinstalled, periodically the hard drive disappears from the BIOS, that is, such a hard drive must be replaced without hesitation, even ours Victoria will not be able to completely cure such a screw, since healthy sectors on the reserve tracks have ended and there is nothing to reassign bad sectors with, and copying data from it will be a real adventure for a week (I’ll definitely write an article about it).
Looking ahead, I will say that a test of this screw in the Victoria program showed the presence of 500 irreparable bad sectors (bad blocks).
DOS is a version of the Victoria program.
Note: To make your life easier, some hard drive diagnostic programs map each attribute, good or bad, to the color of the icon.
Green - the hard drive attribute is normal.
Yellow - indicates a slight discrepancy with the standard and it is better not to store important data on this screw. If you have Windows on such a hard drive, transfer it to an SSD.
Red indicates a significant discrepancy with the standard and the hard drive should have been changed yesterday.
S.M.A.R.T of the same WDC WD500BPVT hard drive in the program HDDScan
Attributes
001 Raw Read Error Rate-frequency of errors when reading information from disk
002 Spinup Time-time to spin up disks to working condition
003 Start/Stop Count-total spindle starts/stops.
005 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap) indicates the number of reassigned sectors. If the firmware built into the hard drive detects a bad sector (bad block), it will reassign this sector as a sector from the backup track (the process is called remapping). But the reserve sectors on the hard drive are not an infinite number and the program warns us that soon there will be nothing to reassign bad blocks to, and this is fraught with data loss and we need to prepare to change the hard drive to a new one
007 Seek Error Rate- the frequency of errors when positioning the head unit, a constantly growing value, indicates overheating of the hard drive and an unstable position in the basket, for example, it is poorly secured.
009 Power-on Hours Count- the number of hours spent in the switched on state.
010 Spin Retry Count- the number of repeated spins of the disk to operating speed if the first one fails.
012 Device Power Cycle Count-Number of complete disk on-off cycles
187 Reported Uncorrectable Error-Errors that the hard drive’s firmware could not recover using its own methods of eliminating errors with hardware, the consequences of overheating and vibration.
189 High Fly Writes-the recording head was located higher above the surface than necessary, which means the magnetic field was insufficient for reliable recording of the media. The reason is vibration (shock).
For laptops this figure is slightly higher.
190 Important parameters regarding temperature. It is important that the temperature does not rise above 45 degrees.
194 HDA Temperature-temperature of the mechanical part of the hard drive
195 Hardware ECC Recovered-the number of errors that were corrected by the hard drive itself.
196 Reallocation Event Count- The number of operations of reassigning bad blocks to sectors from backup tracks (remapping), both successful and unsuccessful operations are taken into account.
197 Current Pending Errors Count- uncorrectable sector errors, also an important parameter, the number of sectors, reading which is difficult and very different from reading a normal sector. That is, the hard disk controller could not read these sectors the first time, usually these sectors belong to soft bads, also called software or logical bad blocks (sector logic error) - when writing user information to a sector, service information is also written , namely the sector checksum ECC (Error Correction Code), it allows you to restore data if it was read with an error, but sometimes this code is not written, which means the sum of user data in the sector does not match the ECC checksum. For example, this happens when the computer suddenly turns off due to a power failure; because of this, information was written to the hard disk sector, but the checksum was not.
- Logical bad blocks cannot be corrected by simple formatting, since when formatting the hard disk controller will first try to read information from the bad sector; if it fails (in most cases), then no rewriting will occur and the bad block will remain bad. block. You can correct the situation in the Victoria program, it will forcefully enter information into the sector (heal the sector), then read it, compare the ECC checksum and the bad block will become a normal sector. More details about all types of bad blocks in our article How to check a hard drive.
198 Offline scan UNC sectors- The number of real non-reassigned bads that actually exist on the hard drive (possibly fixable ones with a logical structure - details later in the article).
198 Uncorrectable Errors Count-the number of uncorrected errors when accessing a sector, indicates surface defects.
Reported Uncorrectable Errors- shows the number of uncorrected bad sectors.
199 UltraDMA CRC Errors-the number of errors that occur when transmitting information via an external interface, the reason is a twisted and low-quality SATA cable, it may need to be changed.
200 Write Error Rate- the frequency of errors that occur when writing to a hard drive; this indicator is usually used to judge the quality of the drive’s surface and its mechanical part.
202 Data Address Mark Errors- I haven’t seen a decryption anywhere, literally an address marker data error, it could mean something that only the manufacturer of this hard drive knows.
How to quickly check a hard drive or SSD for serviceability?
Victoria
Hard drive surface test!
On the right side of the program window, check the Ignor item and the read item and click Start. This will run a simple hard drive surface test without error correction. This test will not bring any negative or positive effects on the hard drive, but at the end of the test you will know what condition your hard drive is in..
The test results are excellent. Not a single block with a delay of more than 30 ms!
CrystalDiskInfo
Hard drive SAMSUNG HD403LJ (372 GB) from a recent article
There were bad blocks on it and I had to transfer Windows 8 from it to an SSD. After a successful transfer, the owner (my classmate) gave me this screw and Victoria soon brought it back to life after “writing all over the clearing” (Write algorithm). The previous owner refused to take back the cured hard drive.
The test results are slightly worse. 3 blocks with a delay of more than 200 ms and 1 block with a delay of 600 ms (possibly a candidate for trouble).
The not quite serviceable hard drive MAXTOR STM3250310AS (250 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II) is 8 years old (veteran) and still works, although I take care of it, storing only unimportant data files on it.
Although there are no obvious bad things on it, we see that the attribute is 5 Reallocated Sector Count - (remap), indicating the number of remapped sectors critical and soon there will be nothing to reassign bads with.
9 Power-On time - total number of hours worked by the hard drive 23668 , this is a lot, usually problems with hard drives begin after 20,000 hours of operation.
Also unimportant attribute 199 UltraDMA CRC Errors - 63771, errors that occur when transmitting information via an external interface, the reason is a poor-quality SATA cable and it needs to be replaced (this is not always the case).
The test results are even worse. 71 blocks with a delay of more than 200 ms and 1 block with a delay of 600 ms (possibly a candidate for trouble).
HDD ST3200826AS(200 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA). The propeller is about three years old and the flight is still normal.
Test results. 6 blocks with a delay of more than 200 ms.
New SSD SSD SPCC SSD162
At the end of the article, let's check my oldest SSD solid state drive - ADATA S510 60GB (60 GB, SATA-III)
It’s already three years old, but it works perfectly, it’s a pity that the capacity is only 60 GB, but when I bought it there wasn’t more, and it cost about two hundred bucks.
Let's move on to the next article
Victoria is a program for testing, diagnosing and minor repairs of hard drives with IDE or SATA interfaces. The program is free and is intended mainly for employees of specialized service centers. At the same time, Victoria is very popular among a wide range of computer users, since it allows you to:
identify faulty areas of the hard drive surface;
determine the average access time;
control the noise level;
delete information from the hard drive without the possibility of recovery;
set User and Master passwords.
Distinctive features of Victoria
Unlike programs for similar purposes, including the popular Windows utility Scandisk, Victoria works with the equipment under test at the lowest level, that is, using controller ports. Thanks to this, the diagnostic results are higher quality, more extensive and more accurate.
It should also be noted that the Victoria program contains almost all possible tools that may be needed when testing hard drives. Unlike various proprietary utilities that come with a specific drive model, the program does not have any restrictions on supported hard drive models.
Today, two versions of the Victoria program are available to users - 4.46 and 3.52. Both of these versions are freely available and run on DOS and Windows operating systems.
Advantages and disadvantages of Victoria
The main advantage of the Victoria program is its accessibility, as well as the fact that it does not require installation (a program designed for Windows OS requires the porttalk.sys file in system folder/system32/drivers/). In addition, Victoria attracts users with its high speed, ultra-small distribution size and extensive capabilities in terms of the number of tests, far superior to similar programs.
However, despite such obvious advantages, Victoria also has its disadvantages. For example, when performing a test, the utility quite often makes mistakes. Also obvious disadvantages of Victoria include its closed source code.
Main functions of the program
Auto-detection of controllers (PCI ATA/SATA) by class code.
Conclusion detailed information about the drive being tested.
Benchmark functions to determine performance.
Low-level formatting disk.
Checking the hard drive interface.
Low-level drive testing - designed to detect bad sectors on the surface of a hard drive; unlike the Windows scandisk utility, the program conducts it with less CPU load and faster.
Determining the average access time - in addition to information showing the performance of the tested hard drive, it also allows you to detect probable defects that will appear in the future. This is possible by sorting the read data blocks by the time they were accessed.
Noise level control - regulates the speed of movement of the hard drive heads, thus reducing the noise level.
Complete deletion of data without the possibility of further recovery.
Setting passwords.
Sector-by-sector copying from an arbitrary area to a file, skipping damaged areas.
There is version 4.46 for Windows, unofficial versions written by enthusiasts, for example version 4.47. It is already more convenient for operation and diagnostics - this version already has a graphical interface. The program opens in a separate window, the window can be minimized, buttons, navigation, switches are made like in Windows, etc. The program supports working with large-capacity disks; less time is spent on testing. Today we will take a look at version 4.46 and 4.47.
There are different opinions about the performance of version 4.46. Although it is more beautiful, faster and more convenient, not everyone is happy precisely because the declared error correction mechanism does not fully work on it. Here, of course, we must take into account that the program is free. There was also a commercial version, it cost about $700. The author himself admits that he does not want to leave hard drive repairers without work, so you cannot expect full functionality in free version.
How to install and run the Victoria 4.46 program to test the hard drive?
It all depends on the task you set for yourself. If you decide to quickly and easily diagnose a disk, the Windows version is suitable for you. This is the so-called desktop version. It can be run like any other program. It will test the disk, find errors, but will not be able to fix them, since the disk will be busy. You can download this program here. You need to run the program as Administrator by selecting the program file in Explorer:
Another version of the program is included in the rescue disks; you can download such a disk, burn it to a CD, and boot your computer from this disk. Afterwards, you can select a program from the menu and run it. Such disks are loaded from Windows PE and can work fully.
How to work in the Victoria 4.47 program?
After starting the program, we see a window where we can start working. The first thing we must do is select the one we need HDD. Each disc has its own unique serial number, which is usually found on the label.
When you select a disk, all information about it is displayed - model, serial number, support for units of measurement, cache. The device passport with its technical characteristics is displayed on the screen.
The next tab is S.M.A.R.T. You should definitely read it. Go to the tab and press the button Get SMART:
Control system own state(SMART) displays the current state (health) of the device. Read more in. The condition of this disk is no longer very good, it will need to be changed soon:
But the program considers the SMART status to be good so far. In addition, it saves the verified disk as a binary SMART file. Comfortable. You can compare after testing. Go to the tab Tests. This is what we need now. The window on the left displays testing in real time:
We check whether the checkboxes for counting bad sectors are checked. Information about the marked sectors is recorded in the log:
Select the scan mode. This version has a linear reading mode from the first sector to the last (the fastest):
Another mode, linear reading, but vice versa - from the last sector to the first. It happens that bad sectors come at the very end and in this mode the program finds them right away:
There is a random reading mode, this is when the block address is not read sequentially, but is set by a random number generator:
There is also a mode that works according to the butterfly algorithm - sectors from the beginning and end of the disk are checked alternately. The test ends when it reaches the halfway point. Not a quick check mode. Evaluates disk performance and simulates disk operation under load.
The switches above are responsible for the surface reading mode:
- Verify— test mode, the data on the disk is checked;
- Read— information is read sector by sector;
- Write— disk recording mode.
Attention! Testing a drive with the Write option selected will result in data loss on the drive. Be careful!
Below are the switches that determine what the program will do with bad sectors:
- Ignore— finds bad sectors, but does not fix them;
- Remap— heals (hides) bad sectors by assigning them a new address from the reserve. There is no further contact with them;
- Erase— erases information from bad sectors and writes zeros there. If this succeeds, the sector is no longer considered faulty. Destroys data.
- Restore. Tries to recover information from bad sectors. In the free version the mode is disabled.
For safety, it is better to first set the settings as in the screenshot. Using the start button we begin testing:
Information will begin to appear on the screen in the form of a graph:
You can stop scanning at any time and switch to another mode. You can change the size of the block being checked and the delay timeout. This may increase or decrease scan time.
Here, I suddenly found bad sectors on my disk:
Hmm, there are already 448 of them. Now more will be added after testing. The surface of the disk gradually degrades. I need to think about replacing it before it’s too late, I’ll put this guy in reserve or use magnets... Only ten minutes have passed, and I already have three bad sectors:
I think testing can end here. You need to launch Victoria from the “rescue disk” and carry out full testing and correction. Those who wish can see the most full review program capabilities.
Video about how to use the Victoria program 4.46, 4.47
In the meantime, I'll cure the disk. I just recently did this. An article about this. Probably, sooner or later I will have to clone this disk to a working one. I promise you an article on this topic. And now I tell you - bye! Leave your opinions in the comments.
Victoria hdd is a program for extensive analysis of the hard drive of a computer, laptop, or external hard drive. This program is used by both beginners and professionals, as it has a very user-friendly interface with many tips, and at the same time, the program provides a large number of opportunities for setting up a hard drive and repairing it.
Features of the Victoria hdd program
- Works directly with Windows OS.
- View complete technical information of the hard drive.
- View SMART information.
- Scanning the surface of the hard drive and searching for bad sectors.
- Perform normal formatting.
- Recovering or reassigning damaged (Bad) blocks of the hard disk surface.
How to download and run the program
Victoria hdd 4.47 is completely free software.
You can download the program from the official website http://victoria4.ru/
Once you have downloaded the program, you can simply unpack it and immediately start working without installation.
For the program to work correctly, it must be run as Administrator.
After launching the program, we will see an interface where it is necessary, first of all, to select the hard drive with which we are going to work. To do this, simply select the disk we need with one click.
After selecting a disk, the hard drive's nameplate information will be displayed in the left window:
Hard drive SMART information
In order to view information about the status of the SMART hard drive, you need to select the hard drive you need and go to the SMART tab.
On the SMART tab, click the “Get SMART” button and wait while the program scans the hard drive information.
After the scanning is completed, we can see the general condition of the disk by the signal in the upper right part of the screen near the “Get SMART” button, in my case the condition of the hard disk is good, so the program displays the “GOOD” signal if the disk is in a critical state then in this place there will be an inscription “BAD”.
On the left side we see detailed SMART information.
To determine the status of the hard drive, you need to analyze the following points:
- Reallocated sector count – number of bad (BAD) sectors that were reassigned. If this number exceeds 10, then you should think about transferring information from this drive
- HAD Temperature average temperature hard drive operation. This parameter should not exceed 40°C if the temperature is higher. Then you should think about cooling your hard drive.
- Seek error rate - the frequency of errors during the operation of the heads, this value should also be equal to zero, if the number is higher, then it is worth diagnosing the hard drive for the presence of overheating or vibrations.
Scanning your hard drive for bad sectors (BAD)
In order to scan the surface of the hard drive for the presence of bad (BAD) sectors, you need to go to the “Test” tab.
Consider the interface of this tab. The first thing you should pay attention to is the large gray field, in which the scanning process and the surface of the hard drive will be graphically displayed.
On the right we can see a field in which the number of sectors with at different times response.
Learn more about the field that displays the number of sectors with different response times.
The first 3 types of blocks are allowed on the surface of the hard drive; they display the number of sectors with an acceptable response time that will allow you to use the hard drive without problems.
Green sectors are also acceptable and may be present, but a large number of them will significantly reduce the writing and reading speed of the hard drive. Such sectors in large quantities may be present on old drives, or on hard drives that are in constant, uninterrupted use.
All other sectors (orange, red, Err) can cause the system to freeze or severely slow down the hard drive.
Scan options and what they mean:
Restore - this option is used to restore damaged sectors if they can be restored, but this option is only available in the paid version of the program.
If you have decided on the scanning parameter, then select it and press the “Start” button. We are waiting for the scanning to complete; while the program is running, we can monitor the found and successfully corrected bad (BAD) sectors in the status field, which is located at the bottom of the program window.
Conclusion
The Victoria HDD program is a good tool for viewing information about the hard drive, or SMART status, you can view complete passport information and SMART status, which cannot be done in most similar programs, or you can, but the information will not be complete. If you don’t know much about restoring and minor repairs of hard drives, but diagnose and return the drive to good condition want to on our own, then this program is just for you. But if you need to carry out more accurate and quality work with a hard drive, then I recommend using the program, it is a more professional tool for working with hard drives and has more functions.
Good day, dear readers of the blog site. In today's article we will talk about software, for testing hard drives, namely about Victoria. The Victoria HDD program was created for testing a variety of drives - these can be regular flash drives, external hard drives, regular HDDs, RAID arrays and other devices.
In addition to testing, the application has another important function called “Hide HDD surface defects”. In this material I will tell you how to use this program and describe its main functions. If you decide to use Victoria HDD, you are probably an advanced user, but I will still describe each step in detail. This article will be especially instructive for beginners.
For Windows 7 x64 (or higher) users! Since the project was abandoned by the developer, official version does not work with modern 64-bit operating systems. Users didn't want to lose this great program and independently made a version of Victoria HDD, which runs on modern systems - download it from here.
IMPORTANT! Running in Windows 7 and higher is carried out only as Administrator, regardless of what type account you are using. The Victoria HDD window is divided into several tabs, I will return to them a little later.
The developer of the program is Sergey Kazansky. The program is distributed free of charge. You can download it from the official website.
http://hdd-911.com/index.php?option=com_docman&Itemid=31
So, you have successfully downloaded the program and installed it on your computer.
You will also see two switches: “PIO” and “API”, they change the operating mode of the application with the drive being tested. The "PIO" mode will only be available if it is supported by the chipset motherboard. If your computer was purchased in the last five years, then you don't have to worry about this. Now I will describe each control element in the program menu:
— Standard. If you look at the right side of the program window, you will see a list of devices that are connected to the computer. Not only USB flash drives and hard drives are listed here, but also various readers, memory cards and other miscellaneous devices. With this application they can be fully tested. To select the desired device to check, you need to left-click on it.
Well, on the left side of the “Drive ATA Passport” information about the component is indicated. The “Seek Acoustic & BAD’er” button activates the test, simulates bad sectors on the drive, and also allows you to change “AAM” (disk settings).
- S.M.A.R.T. Button to show all characteristics. It is worth saying right away that USB drives do not work with it. The remaining buttons are responsible for reading attributes, saving them and monitoring them.
- Advanced. By selecting this section, you can see the contents of the sector that is specified in the “Sec” field. The “MBR ON/OF” buttons are responsible for turning recognition on and off in Windows.
TEST tab in Victoria HDD
We should tell you more about the main tab, since we will be working with it. We need the “Start LBA” and, accordingly, “End LBA” windows - they start testing in a specific area of the partition. By default, the program always scans the drive. The Pause button stops work, but you can resume it. After this, the “Continue” button appears.
It is also worth highlighting the following buttons in this tab:
1. Timeout – here is the time after which the program will automatically proceed to testing the next sector.
2. Restore – an attempt to clear data and write back; the function does not work if the hard drive capacity exceeds 80 GB.
3. Break All – the button cancels all commands that were given before.
4. Ignor – skipping error messages generated by the application.
5. Sleep – stop the disk.
6. Erase – the program switches to the mode of working with damaged components.
I have described the main functions and buttons, now you can move on to testing the disk. Prepare the faulty HDD disk.
IMPORTANT! If it is possible to open it in any way, it is better to try to save important data from it, since here you are just learning how to work with the program.
Let's run a disk test: detailed instructions for Victoria HDD
Unpack the archive and run the file with the .exe extension, as shown in the screenshot below:
After launching the program, you need to select the hard drive that you plan to scan for bad sectors. For example, I took my old Samsung disk, which has a capacity of 640 GB. There is no important information on it, so you can do whatever you need with it. This screenshot details what you need to pay attention to when choosing a disk:
The first step is to familiarize yourself with the “SMART” status that I described. To do this, you need to click on the button called “Get SMART”.
There are a few options here that you need to pay attention to before moving on to the next step:
— HAD Temperature – everything should be clear here even without a translator. We see the temperature of our carrier. It is safe to work with the disk only when its temperature does not exceed 40 degrees. If the indicator is higher, the life of the hard drive will be noticeably reduced.
— Status – “GOOD” for Victoria HDD should be set here.
— Reallocated sector count – this item indicates the number of operations to transfer damaged sectors of the hard drive. If the indicator is not zero, then the disk automatically detected bad sectors and replaced them with spare ones.
Now the test, the sequence of actions is shown here. Press the “Start” button only to set all the necessary parameters:
You can select the ending and starting sector so as not to waste time checking all partitions of the hard drive. By default, the application runs a scan of the entire disk. Next, you should select a test mode - this can be “write” (check for writing, be careful, since the data will be overwritten), “verify” (check), “read” (the program will only read, the data will not be changed).
Another important section of the Victoria HDD program is the program’s action when a bad sector is detected, which is referred to as “BAD”. Here you can select “restore” (restore), “ignore” (ignore), “remap” (replace the bad sector with a good one GOOD). Now we are conducting a test, not a repair, so we leave the ignore button; you can run the rest of the methods yourself when you decide whether the disk needs repair or not.
In our case, there is no need to change anything, since we are performing a simple test. Click “Start” - sectors that have already passed the test will appear on the screen, and the percentage of work completed by the Victoria HDD program will also be displayed.
The check can take a long time, especially on hard drives with large capacity. Summing up and studying the result We will see many sectors different color, you need to understand them:
— Orange. This color marks sectors that may soon become broken, that is, unreadable. If there are too many of them, then you should immediately purchase a new disk.
— Reds(Err[x]). Bad sectors, the computer cannot display their contents. The computer puts information there, but cannot open it. This is another reason why files cannot be opened. Red sectors must be limited so that the computer does not work with them.
— Green. The sector is working fine.
If there are a lot of orange and red sectors on the screen, then you need to save information as soon as possible. Bad sectors spread quickly, after which the hard drive becomes inoperable. That's all, I hope my instructions will help you to test your removable drives.
I invite you to watch a video about Victoria HDD:
Therefore, today the Victoria HDD program is in even greater demand among many repair specialists based computer equipment. What programs besides Victoria HDD do you know, dear friends? Maybe suggest something newer in the comments?