Greetings to all readers! Hard drive problems and data loss cause quite a lot of trouble. Especially when the information on them is valuable to its owner.
After all, hdd recovery is not as simple as, for example. Today we will look at the excellent Victoria program for testing hard drive for problems.
Checking the hard drive itself, like it, is a vital operation that will help you keep the situation under control. And protect yourself from unpleasant surprises.
The advantage of the Victoria program is that it interacts with the equipment being diagnosed at the lowest level, unlike most other utilities (for example,).
The above-mentioned advantage of the Victoria program allows it to identify all the slightest flaws in the operation of the disk and conduct the hdd test as efficiently as possible. Which in turn leads to our maximum awareness.
Of course, at the same time, using the program is not the most carefree pastime.
2 Download the Victoria program and restore the hard drive after formatting
When opening the program for the first time, be prepared for the fact that you will have to manually select the hard drive you want to diagnose.
The fact is that in the vcr.ini file it is written Secondary Master. And in order to choose HDD you should press the key R.
A menu with a list is displayed on the screen, from which the desired item is selected using the keys "up down". As you move the cursor, you will notice an active indication, indicating readinessHDD.
For hard drives that are working normally, 2 lights are on - DRSC And DRDY, on some computers it may also INX .
AMNF– a light that can light up in the error register. The remaining indicators should be extinguished. More details about indicators at the end of the article.
So, place the cursor on the item we need and press the key « Enter » .
Now the Victoria program begins to search for external controllers and hard drives on them. Then the program will determine all working hard drives and those actually present in the positionMASTER.
Victoria won't notice others. After Victoria finds additional ports, it will display information on the screen. It will be something like this table:
The name of the developer of the ATA controller is his Vendor Code;
The name of the controller itself is its ID Code;
Class of this controller: EXT (i.e. external) / INT (i.e. internal) / RAID;
The name of the connected hard drive, if it is working.
In the table, all found ports will be numbered, select the one you need among them and press the buttonEnter .
It may be that the program does not find hard drives on some controllersPromise. Therefore, we press the keyF2, which initiates the opening of the passport.
What is a HDD passport? This is information provided by the manufacturer itself, which consists of the characteristics of the hard drive and describes its various parameters.
Therefore, Victoria, when conducting an analysis, works very closely with this passport and obtains the necessary information from it.
HDD test - Victoria
Next, testing the surface of the hard drive is required. To start this process press the keyF4. Then the menu list opens.
In this list, select “Linear reading” and then follow the list “Ignore Bad Blocks" . The last line makes sense - ignore bad sectors. You can select using the key"Space" , and the keys also work"Down up".
I would like to especially draw your attention to the third menu item from the top. The following buttons are located here: "Record (Erase)" And "Record from file".
When pressed, they erase information on the hard drive. The same consequences can befall the hard drive when working with a buttonBB = Erase 256 sect, which is in the fourth menu item.
Then press the button againF4. Then the scanning begins and we just have to wait for the results that the program will display in a special window.
Problems may occur during scanning. The hard drive freezes due to a system malfunction. If the diagnostics freeze, then the program continues after 16 seconds of waiting. At the same time, Victoria displays T, which means Timeout.
If the program constantly displays T in the scan field and delays are quite frequent, then the hard drive is not responding to the program. In case of such problems, you need to press the keyF3 – Reset, this often helps.
I urge you to use the help system more often, as there is all the information about the functions of the commands. You can call this system by pressing the keyF1.
Victoria can also check the interface. To do this, turn to the third menu item from the top and press the keyF 4 "Scan".
2.1 Checking the Victoria interface
This process is a recording of data cycles into the hard drive's buffer memory, and then begins to read this information from there. At the same time, Victoria compares the read data with the recorded data.
Reading time is also measured in intervals from64 before500 mks.And if the program finds a discrepancy between what was read and what was written, it displays information about this.
Of course, such errors indicate that the functions of the buffer memory and interface are not fully implemented. In turn, this means that the drive is unsafe and could possibly damage the data stored on it.
In order to receive full information It takes quite a long time to diagnose the condition of the hard drive. As with .
To leave the program, press the X key.
After exiting the program, the user will be in the “Volkov Commander" . You can exit it by pressing the keyF10 and selecting"YES" .
This will take you to another section « DOS", you can exit by pressing one of our favorite keyboard shortcutsControl+Alt+Del. The computer will then restart. In this case it is obligatoryCarefully remove the disc from the drive and selectbooting from HDD.
2.2 Victoria Conventions
Now I will describe the indicationHDD and the meaning of error codes by indicator"light bulbs" .
So.
BUSY (Busy) – the hard drive is busy, either “digesting” the command, or simply frozen. While this indicator is active, the others do not work. And the system only responds to the “Reset” key, akaF3.
DRDY (Drive Ready) – this indicator lights up, which means the hard drive is ready to receive user commands.
DRSC (Drive Seek Complete) – the previous meaning that the hard drive has finished installing the head on the track is somewhat outdated.
INX (Index) – the indicator flashes with each disk revolution. IN Lately less is used and the indicator may produce incorrect results.
WRFT (Write Fault) – previously meant a writing error. On hard drives these days, this means a device malfunction - “Device Fault”.
DRQ (Data Request) – the indicator, having shown activity, indicates that the hard drive is open for data exchange via the interface.
ERR (Error) – error. An indicator indicating that some kind of error has been made. Below we will look at error codes that can help you find out about its origin and meaning.
Error registers:
AMNF ( AddressMarkNotFound) – a register indicating the impossibility of reading a certain sector. This can often indicate serious problems computer. For example, on Toshiba and Maxtor hard drives it often means that the magnetic heads are faulty.
BBK (Bad Block Detected) – a now obsolete signal about the detection of a bad block.
UNC (Uncorrectable Data Error) - indicates a failure in the data correction process. This means the block is declared unreadable. The cause can easily be identified as a data checksum violation or physical damage.HDD.
IDNF (ID Not Found) – the sector could not be identified. Working hard drives display a similar error if there was an attempt to access a non-existent address. In general, it means quite serious problems - a violation of the microcode or lower-level formatHDD.
ABRT (Aborted Command) – the hard drive does not execute the command due to a malfunction or this command is not supported by it. This may be due to an outdated hard drive model or, on the contrary, it is too new.
T0NF (Track 0 Not Found) – such a signal means it is impossible to recalibrate to the starting cylinder of the working area. On modernHDDindicates a malfunction of the microcode or magnetic heads.
Diagnostics are certainly good, but it is much better when you are insured against data loss. Read how to do this in one of the following articles. And so as not to miss.
3 HDD recovery using Victoria
The problem for many users is that our favorite operating systemWindowsoften runs various processes in the background.
For most users, they are practically useless, but at the same time they load the hard drive.
An example would be the system indexing a disk or defragmenting a hard disk after a certain period. I would like to note that the built-in defragmenter is somewhat weak.
And working in the background does not allow it to always be successful, because the user also performs some actions. Therefore, it is better to start the defragmentation process through this.
At the same time, I would like to note that in Windows XP scheduled defragmentation is not performed. Thus, my recommendations for disabling automatic scheduled defragmentation will be relevant for users working with Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
So, your path will be like this:
Right-click on any of the hard drives in “My Computer” => from the context menu list select “Properties” => a window will appear where you should click on the “Service” tab => now “Defragment” => then “Configure schedule" => uncheck the "Run according to schedule" checkbox.
Almost any user perfectly remembers the location of his files. Well, even if you forget, you can easily find what you need using a slow search.
And by removing indexing, it will be possible to slightly increase disk performance, since the system will not be busy with background indexing.
So, in order to disable this matter, you need to go to “My Computer”. Now right-click on the first hard drive. As a result, a list will be displayed from which you should select “Properties”.
Then a window will appear where we turn our attention to the “General” tab and uncheck the “Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties" . And of course, don’t forget to click on “Apply”.
But this is not the finishing touch! The system will now prompt you to confirm the attribute change. And here we select the item Apply to “To the C:\ drive and to all subfolders and files.”
Naturally, the letter in the line depends on what your disk is called -C, Dor something else. Well, click on the “OK” button. Now we wait for the system to apply the changed settings. Next, using the same scenario, we change the settings of the remaining hard drives.
If suddenly your PC displays a window with a message stating that Administrator rights are required, click on the “Continue” button. If the system displays a message about the impossibility of applying new attributes, click on “Skip all”.
So, we continue to improve the performance of hard drives and to do this we enable write caching for them. This process is as simple as the ones described above.
Right-click on the first hard drive in the list in “My Computer”. As always, the context menu appears, and here we select “Properties”. We go to the “Hardware” tab and select the hard drive from the list that appears.
You will recognize them by paying attention to the “Type” column, where it will say “Disk devices”. Having selected the disk, double-click on it and see a new window. Here we select the “Policies” tab.
Here we’ll do some adjustments, namely: put a checkmark next to “Allow disk write caching » .
They determined the policy for caching records on the hard drive. In the comments, when you uncheck the boxes, you will probably notice a warning that data loss is possible.
I want to console you: don’t be afraid, such cases when working with these settings are rather rare. Data loss is rare even in cases where the power goes out in the middle of working with disks - modern computers often shut down correctly.
In general, don’t worry about the security of your information, and the settings significantly optimize the system’s operation.
Note: when setting up external hard drives, keep in mind that the checkboxes in the “Policies” tab will be set slightly differently.
That's all, finally watch the video about the raccoon thief :) Good luck!
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You can restore your hard drive using special programs. The drive can be diagnosed and minor problems repaired. At everyday use computer, as a rule, this is enough for further fruitful work. In this article you will learn how to use one of these utilities to treat HDD. It's called Victoria.
What can the utility do?
This program was created by Belarusian specialist Sergei Kazansky. It is free, multifunctional and designed for both professionals and novice computer users.
Modes
The utility can work using Windows tools (API) and offline via ports.
Offline mode gives more accurate readings, has additional recovery tools, and allows you to diagnose external hard drives. This work option is intended for specialists.
API mode also has many features. Its advantage is that even a novice user can work in it. This method will be presented to your attention.
What will the utility do?
With Victoria, you can get the following benefits:
- Speeding up your computer.
- More stable operation of programs and the operating system.
The following options are available for this:
- Replacing defective hard disk sectors with spare ones.
- Repair of non-working areas of HDD.
- Erasing bad sectors.
Is it possible to do without Victoria?
Experienced users can say that the replacement of bad HDD sectors with spare ones is performed by the operating system (OS) itself. Yes it is! To do this, you need to run a hard disk volume scan. But such a replacement has a number of disadvantages:
- Works with the active partition (volume) only in DOS mode.
- Does not provide detailed information to the user.
- Does not allow you to choose how to resolve HDD faults.
Bill Gates created a great operating system. But, if you have been using it for more than a year, then you have replaced some Microsoft programs with specialized software. Is not it? For example, a browser. Did you guess right?
In addition, I will suggest some other successful replacements.
Working with the program
At the time of writing, the latest version of Victoria is 4.46, but you may encounter modification 4.47. Take her. This is the same version with the code bugs fixed. This is exactly the one I use.
Download and launch
The utility can be obtained by entering the request in Yandex: “Download Victoria”. Select any site and save the program to your computer. I download from ex.ua and I wish the same for you: fast, simple, without advertising and Trojans.
Please note that it is English speaking. In Russian you will find only old versions. It’s just that enthusiasts don’t have time to translate them.
The utility does not require installation. It will be in archive form. Unzip it and go inside. There will be a single executable file - vcr447.exe. For convenience, you can create a shortcut to it on your desktop.
If you have Windows 7 and higher, then run the file as administrator. To do this, place the cursor on vcr447.exe and right-click. In the context menu, click “Run as administrator”.
Launching with a shortcut is done the same way.
Before Victoria appears, you may see several pop-ups:
- Unknown error.
- Invalid handle.
- PortTalk driver not installed.
This is not addressed to you, but to computer repair specialists: they warn that the driver for working with ports is not installed. Don't pay any attention to this. Click OK everywhere, and Victoria will appear.
Beginning of work
The graphical shell of the program opens on the Standard tab.
On the right, select the disk you will work with. Even if he is alone, still click on him with the mouse, then you will see his data on the left.
Warning! Do not enter any passwords under any circumstances! This is for the masters!
Open the Smart tab and click Get Smart on the right. Now the table will display the results of 242 parameters of your disk.
These parameters are removed from the very beginning of installing the disk on the computer. Victoria takes them from the system.
Look through everything, but pay attention to the fifth item, the Health column:
- green circles mean excellent health of HDD sectors;
- yellow color warns that the measurements have deviated from the norm;
- red circles should not be present, as they signal that the received parameters are unacceptable.
The Raw column shows the number of bad sectors of the disk.
Test tab
Now open the Test tab.
The testing principle is to measure the time from a request to receiving a response from each HDD sector.
While scanning the disk, the utility evaluates the sectors it scans and sorts them by color (the maximum allowed time in milliseconds is indicated to the left of them):
- Three gray ones are excellent.
- Green – good.
- Orange – satisfactory.
- Red and blue are bad.
Opposite which sectors of the hard drive you check, actions according to modes will be applied to those.
Modes
There are four operating modes:
- Ignore – only the HDD will be checked without applying actions to bad sectors.
- Remap – bad sectors will be replaced with spare ones.
- Restore – the utility will try to restore damaged sectors programmatically.
- Erase – sectors are erased from disk memory. This mode does not need to be tested, because it can ruin areas that may eventually work. The first three options are enough.
What are reserve sectors?
The operating system (OS) allocates spare space on each hard drive.
Typically this is the slowest area of about 10% near the center of the HDD. If there are bad sectors, the OS transfers information from them to the backup area. But it doesn’t do this itself, but when you run a disk error check using Windows tools or when using third-party software.
Diagnostics
If you have selected a mode and checked the boxes next to the colored rectangles, then press Start.
Attention! If nothing happens, then you did not select your hard drive in the Standard tab with the mouse. Go back to the beginning and do it!
You can observe the scanning process visually.
In early versions of Victoria, scanned disk sectors were shown in a grid.
Utility victoria hdd was created to solve problems and test various types of hard drives with the ability to use different parameters. The software has advanced functionality that allows you to solve various hard drive problems that arise under current circumstances.
Utility features
This utility can be downloaded from 
Download the archive, unpack it and run the executive file vcr446f.exe
The utility interface opens. 
It's free software is endowed with a logical and simple interface, where there are various additional software modules for examining hard drives. Even an ordinary inexperienced user can understand the program, because all the points are written out in clear language, and you can even understand the basic and most important functions even at the first launch.
The Victoria hdd utility will help the user perform a thorough check of the hard drive; as a result, information about the status of the hard drive will be provided. In addition, you can perform self-diagnosis in the “S.M.A.R.T.” mode. which allows you to determine the service life of the disk.
Victoria hdd software has a function to check the surface of the hdd disk for possible damage and other problems. The utility can perform a full scan of the hard drive for defective sectors; after the analysis, information about the state of the media as a whole is provided. If Victoria hdd finds bad sectors, they will be reassigned so that you can use the drive in the future without losing data.
The Victoria disk utility can be used by both professional repairmen and ordinary users. Depending on dexterity and skills, the user can configure the Victoria hdd software to suit his needs, which will change the hard drive analysis algorithm.
What is included in the functionality of the Victoria utility:
The utility is capable of giving a detailed report on the operation of the hard drive and its technical specifications;
Allows you to identify connected media via a sata/ide channel;
Has the ability to detect flaws on the surface of the hard drive;
Capable of eliminating hard drive shortcomings caused during operation, such as encryption of a bad sector and others;
Equipped with a practical and comfortable smart monitor that clearly displays important vital signs of the disc;
Has an integrated explorer for working with the file system;
Detailed help system for using and configuring the Victoria hdd utility;
The Victoria utility is absolutely free;
The Victoria hdd utility was created to conduct various tests of hard drives; it is more suitable for people with an above-average level of computer use. If you are running the Victoria hdd utility for the first time, it is better not to change the preset settings if you have no idea about their purpose.
In general, the Victoria utility is very useful and relevant for tracking hard drive problems and successfully eliminating most failures. This software has already been able to restore more than one practically “dead” hard drive, and if you are faced with a problem related to a hard drive, the Victoria hdd utility will be very useful.
Checking the hard drive
We open the program, and on the “Standard” tab we see the disk passport, which is listed on the right. 
Go to the “Tests” tab. Select the “Ignore” check mode. In this mode, the program will make requests to sectors of the hard drive and if they are faulty or faulty, it will skip them. 
The Victoria program is designed for testing various drives: HDD, flash, RAID arrays, and also allows you to hide HDD surface defects, if such a possibility exists. The author of the program is Sergey Kazansky, it is distributed free of charge, you can download it http://hdd-911.com/
Brief description of the program
On Vista and older systems, the program must be run as Administrator, even if your Account has administrator rights.
The program window is divided into several tabs: Standard, SMART, Test, Advanced and Setup. The API and PIO switches change the mode of operation of the program with the disk under test. PIO mode requires chipset support motherboard. Modern systems younger than approximately 2011 do not support this mode of program operation, so we will not describe it. Let's bring short description control elements in tabs.
Standard. The window on the right shows a list of drives installed in the system. These are not only hard drives, but also USB flash drives, SD, CF and other memory card readers. They can also be tested. Selecting a device for testing is done by clicking on the desired item. Immediately on the left in the Drive ATA passport window, information about the selected device is displayed. Seek, Acoustic management & BAD"er runs the seek test, allows you to manage AAM (if supported by the disk) and simulate bad sectors on the disk.
S.M.A.R.T. When you press the Get SMART button, the SMART is read. USB drives are not supported. The remaining buttons SMART ON, SMART OFF, Auto save attributes ON/OFF allow you to enable/disable SMART monitoring and save the read attributes.
Test. The main tab that we will work with in the future. The Start LBA/End LBA windows specify the beginning and end of the tested area. By default, the entire disk is tested. Pause – pauses the test, the value changes to Continue. Start – starts the selected test, changes the value to Stop – stops the test. Diamond with green arrows - moving forward or backward along the surface of the disk. Block size – the size of the block of sectors read at a time; you can leave it alone. Timeout – time after which, if there is no response from the drive, the program will move to the next sector. End of test – what to do at the end of the test: stop the disk, start the test over again, turn off the disk or turn off the computer. The color scale shows the number of blocks with the specified reading time. Switches Verify, Read, Write – test selection. Verify - check: the disk reads the sector, but does not transfer its contents to the computer. Read – reads a sector into the computer. Write – erases a sector - this test destroys user data. Switches Ignor, Remap, Restore, Erase – mode of working with bad blocks. Ignore - skip. Remap – attempt to perform the procedure of reassigning a sector from the reserve. Restore – attempts to read data and write it back (does not work on modern disks >80GB). Erase – an attempt to write to a damaged sector. It can correct it if an incorrect check sum (CRC) is written to the sector. > - test execution forward.<- выполнение теста назад: с конца диска. >?< - чтение по случайным адресам. >|< - тест «бабочка»: чтение попеременно сначала и с конца диска. Break All – отмена всех команд. Sleep – остановить диск. Recall – включить диск снова (после sleep).
Advanced. The main window shows the contents of the sector specified in the Sec field. The window below shows the contents of the partition table using the View part data button. MBR ON/OFF buttons enable/disable the ability to recognize partitions in operating system.
Example of working with the Victoria program For an example of testing a disk, let's take a faulty HDD WD2600BEVT, which has surface damage and bad attributes in SMART. We launch the program, select our disk and see the following: on the left we see the parameters of the selected disk.
Next, on the SMART tab, you can see the SMART of our disk. Here he is.
We see that the program interprets it as bad. Let's take a closer look.
Attribute 5 Reallocated sector count – number of reassigned sectors 1287 - the disk “crumbles”.
Attribute 197 Current pending sectors – the number of candidate sectors for reassignment; if the 5th attribute is full, it indicates that the disk is “crumbling”, the surface is quickly degrading.
This means that if you need data from a disk, you need to copy it immediately, and not try to repair such a disk. The actions that we will consider next can lead to the loss of information.
You can see errors like UNCR - these are bad, unreadable sectors - bad blocks.
You can uncheck the Grid checkbox, then a disk reading graph will be displayed. In places where there are bad spots, speed dips are visible, marked in red.
At the end of the test, you can try to hide the bad sectors by selecting the Remap mode. This can help if there are bads, but SMART does not yet have BAD status. It looks like this:
The result of the remap can be viewed by reading the smart disk. Here he is:
The value of the 5th attribute increased and became 1291. During normal operation, disks, in the absence of access to them, launch their own procedures for checking and reassigning sectors in the background, and the number of candidates for remap, numbering in the hundreds, indicates that the disk can no longer maintain condition condition and must be replaced. And the SMART status does not always adequately describe the condition of the disk - it can be severely damaged, and the SMART status is displayed as GOOD.
Good afternoon.
In today’s article I want to touch on the heart of the computer - the 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 the information cannot be recovered in 99% of cases).
When do you need to check your hard drive for performance and bad sectors? This is done, 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 drive partition to another; missing files and folders, etc.
In this article I would like to talk about in simple language, how to check a hard drive for problems, to assess its performance in the future, and sort out typical user questions along the way.
So, let's begin…
Updated 07/12/2015. Not long ago, an article appeared on the blog about restoring bad sectors (treating bad blocks) with the HDAT2 program - (I think the link will be relevant for this article). Its main difference from MHDD and Victoria is its support for almost any drive with interfaces: ATA/ATAPI/SATA, SSD, SCSI and USB.
1. What do we need?
Before starting the testing operation, in cases where the hard drive is not stable, I recommend copying all important files from the disk to other media: flash drives, external HDDs, etc. ().
1) You need a special program to test and restore 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 part shows the hard drives and CD-Roms that are installed in the system. Select your hard drive that you want to test. Then press the “Passport” button. If everything goes well, you will see how your hard drive model is determined. See picture below.
If the hard disk controller operates in AHCI (Native SATA) mode, SMART attributes may not be received, with the message “Get S.M.A.R.T. command… Error reading S.M.A.R.T!” The impossibility of receiving SMART data is also indicated by the “Non ATA” highlighted in red when initializing a medium whose controller does not allow the use of ATA interface commands, including requesting SMART attributes.
In this case, you need to go into the BIOS and in the Config tab->>Serial ATA (SATA)->>SATA Controller Mode Option->>change from AHCI to Compatibility. After finishing testing with the Victoria program, change the setting as 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 click the “Start” button. In the main window, on the left, rectangles colored in different colors. It's best if they are all gray.
You need to focus your attention on the red and blue rectangles (the so-called bad sectors, more about them at the very bottom). It’s especially bad if there are a lot of blue rectangles on the disk; in this case, it is recommended to run the disk scan again, only with the “Remap” checkbox turned on. In this case, the Victoria program will hide the bad sectors found. In this way, hard drives that have begun to behave unstable are restored.
By the way, after such a restoration, the hard drive will not always work for a long time. If it has already begun to crumble, then I personally would not rely on the program. Subject to availability large number blue and red rectangles - it's time to think about a new hard drive. By the way, blue blocks on the new hard drive are not allowed at all! Experienced users call them bad sectors (meaning bad, unreadable). Such unreadable sectors can occur both during the manufacture of the hard drive and during its operation. After all, a hard drive is a mechanical device.
During operation, the magnetic disks in the hard drive case rotate quickly, and the read heads move above them. If there is a shock, impact of the device or a software error, it may happen that the heads hit or fall to the surface. Thus, it is almost certain that a bad sector will appear.
In general, this is not a problem and many disks have such sectors. The disk file system is capable of isolating such sectors from file copying/reading operations. Over time, the number of bad sectors may increase. But, as a rule, a hard drive often becomes unusable for other reasons before bad sectors “kill” it. Bad sectors can also be isolated using special programs, one of which we used in this article. After such a procedure, usually the hard drive begins to work more stable and better, however, how long this stability will last is unknown...
Best…