Welcome to my “ Hard drive recovery NYC.”
The reason for writing this material is often enough appearing messages from the owners of hard disks about the degradation of the performance of the latter in the process of use. At best, this causes a decrease in performance and the appearance of bad sectors on the surface of hard drives, and at worst - leads to the loss of expensive information.
At the same time, according to the statistics of local service centers, only a small part of the HDD returned by the buyers is to be sent to the manufacturer. In general, there are cases of so-called "false returns", where problems of disrupting the functionality of the hard drive can be solved directly on the spot, without even opening the PC case.
At the same time, according to the statistics of local service centers, only a small part of the HDD returned by the buyers is to be sent to the manufacturer. In general, there are cases of so-called "false returns", where problems of disrupting the functionality of the hard drive can be solved directly on the spot, without even opening the PC case.
Help in this is called diagnostics and recovery utilities from hard disk manufacturers. We found it necessary to talk more about these programs because many users do not even suspect about their existence. And since the procedure for returning the hard drive to the seller, as well as its subsequent diagnostics at the local service center, is a relatively long process and in some cases (for example, if the warranty period for the HDD has expired) is not free, the ability to apply the necessary software for diagnosing and eliminating failure of the drive will be very useful not only to system administrators and engineers of the technical support service of large firms but also ordinary users.
It should be noted that the plates installed on hard drives have never been completely devoid of defects. Faulty areas are also present on the most modern hard disks. In earlier times, the addresses of such sites were even indicated on the drive body. Naturally, such areas were blocked at the factory for the manufacture of HDD. With the advent of S.M.A.R.T. technology. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) after detecting similar sites, their localization and allocation of additional volume from the "secret" areas of the disk began to monitor the standalone controller of the hard drive.
The same controller of modern drives is capable of analyzing information obtained with the help of S.M.A.R.T., and take appropriate actions to prevent possible data loss.
It is desirable to make the partitioning and partitioning of the hard disk using internal processor commands, rather than the 13th BIOS interrupt, as in the FDISK and FORMAT programs. The fact is that in the latter case, an incorrect markup of the hard drive is possible (due to BIOS limitations) and, as a consequence, the appearance of "quasi-bad" -blocks. First of all, this concerns storage devices, the volume of which is more than 8.4 GB.
Based on the above, it can be concluded that interacting with the hard drive is best through its internal controller. And here we are just coming to the topic of the article - diagnostics and recovery utilities. I must say that such programs are offered by all leading manufacturers of hard drives. Since utilities use internal commands, often typical only for a certain type of hard drives, these utilities work only with drives of this manufacturer.
Typically, these programs allow the following:
perform an analysis of the operability of the main components of the device and identify possible problems in the work;
correctly split and partition the hard drive;
select the necessary Ultra ATA mode (by the way, it is highly recommended to use this feature without having to rely on the "intelligence" of the operating system, especially when working with Windows);
to get access to the service information about the hard disks available in the system (serial number, storage volume, work settings, etc.).
Some manufacturers offer utilities in the form of separate executable modules. Others (for example, IBM or WD) distribute one full-featured complex, where these programs run from a single shell. In any case, such utilities as a whole are available for each developer of hard drives and are available for free download.
Programs run from a boot diskette, which is natural because sometimes you have to diagnose a disk with a damaged boot sector. And some manufacturers offer software solutions together with a DOS-like operating system.
Within the framework of this material, we will only review diagnostic utilities. In the event that Ultra ATA mode management programs or partitioning/formatting of the hard disk are distributed as separate modules, we will not focus on them. Nevertheless, as already mentioned, such a tool is in the arsenal of each manufacturer.
As a rule, the following tests can be performed with the help of diagnostic utilities:
the correct connection of the interface cable, the support of the system of large-size HDDs, etc .;
Express test, based on the analysis of information collected as a result of scanning the disk using S.M.A.R.T. in the background, and in some cases, checking the first and last megabytes of the surface as the most frequently affected by damage;
Check the entire surface of the hard drive for physical damage.
Sometimes a test is also available that emulates the work of the drive with a high load.
The result of passing the tests will be the message that the hard drive is working correctly or an error code. In the latter case, the standalone controller of the drive can try to perform the operation of repairing the failed sections or blocking them.
This operation is possible only if the functional violations are not too serious and do not go beyond the reserve capabilities of the drive. Typically, the factory settings assume the availability of 100 spare parts on the surface of the hard drive.
It should be noted that the plates installed on hard drives have never been completely devoid of defects. Faulty areas are also present on the most modern hard disks. In earlier times, the addresses of such sites were even indicated on the drive body. Naturally, such areas were blocked at the factory for the manufacture of HDD. With the advent of S.M.A.R.T. technology. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) after detecting similar sites, their localization and allocation of additional volume from the "secret" areas of the disk began to monitor the standalone controller of the hard drive.
The same controller of modern drives is capable of analyzing information obtained with the help of S.M.A.R.T., and take appropriate actions to prevent possible data loss.
It is desirable to make the partitioning and partitioning of the hard disk using internal processor commands, rather than the 13th BIOS interrupt, as in the FDISK and FORMAT programs. The fact is that in the latter case, an incorrect markup of the hard drive is possible (due to BIOS limitations) and, as a consequence, the appearance of "quasi-bad" -blocks. First of all, this concerns storage devices, the volume of which is more than 8.4 GB.
Based on the above, it can be concluded that interacting with the hard drive is best through its internal controller. And here we are just coming to the topic of the article - diagnostics and recovery utilities. I must say that such programs are offered by all leading manufacturers of hard drives. Since utilities use internal commands, often typical only for a certain type of hard drives, these utilities work only with drives of this manufacturer.
Typically, these programs allow the following:
perform an analysis of the operability of the main components of the device and identify possible problems in the work;
correctly split and partition the hard drive;
select the necessary Ultra ATA mode (by the way, it is highly recommended to use this feature without having to rely on the "intelligence" of the operating system, especially when working with Windows);
to get access to the service information about the hard disks available in the system (serial number, storage volume, work settings, etc.).
Some manufacturers offer utilities in the form of separate executable modules. Others (for example, IBM or WD) distribute one full-featured complex, where these programs run from a single shell. In any case, such utilities as a whole are available for each developer of hard drives and are available for free download.
Programs run from a boot diskette, which is natural because sometimes you have to diagnose a disk with a damaged boot sector. And some manufacturers offer software solutions together with a DOS-like operating system.
Within the framework of this material, we will only review diagnostic utilities. In the event that Ultra ATA mode management programs or partitioning/formatting of the hard disk are distributed as separate modules, we will not focus on them. Nevertheless, as already mentioned, such a tool is in the arsenal of each manufacturer.
As a rule, the following tests can be performed with the help of diagnostic utilities:
the correct connection of the interface cable, the support of the system of large-size HDDs, etc .;
Express test, based on the analysis of information collected as a result of scanning the disk using S.M.A.R.T. in the background, and in some cases, checking the first and last megabytes of the surface as the most frequently affected by damage;
Check the entire surface of the hard drive for physical damage.
Sometimes a test is also available that emulates the work of the drive with a high load.
The result of passing the tests will be the message that the hard drive is working correctly or an error code. In the latter case, the standalone controller of the drive can try to perform the operation of repairing the failed sections or blocking them.
This operation is possible only if the functional violations are not too serious and do not go beyond the reserve capabilities of the drive. Typically, the factory settings assume the availability of 100 spare parts on the surface of the hard drive.
The company offers owners of Fujitsu drives two diagnostic utilities: SDIAG for SCSI hard drives and FJDT for HDD EIDE. In the framework of this article, we will consider the second of them, although their functionality and methods of working with them are almost identical.
The FJDT utility is available for download from the Download section of the Web site www.fel.fujitsu.com. It runs from the DOS boot floppy and works exclusively with Fujitsu drives. After the program is started and the hard drive is checked, the user can run Quick and then, if necessary, expand the Comprehensive tests.
The duration of the first test is from one and a half to two minutes. In this case, the FJDT checks the adequacy of the cache while writing/reading data scans the internal (150 MB) and external (50 MB) areas for damage to the surface, performs random search / read operations, etc. Comprehensive Test lasts longer - - Up to 20 minutes, depending on the volume of the hard drive. This makes a complete check of the working surface of the disk.
After passing the disk test program provides a summary of the suitability of disk use. If the functionality is broken, an error code is displayed and a recommendation is made to contact Fujitsu's support service or suggest an attempt to fix the problem using FJDT tools.
The FJDT utility is available for download from the Download section of the Web site www.fel.fujitsu.com. It runs from the DOS boot floppy and works exclusively with Fujitsu drives. After the program is started and the hard drive is checked, the user can run Quick and then, if necessary, expand the Comprehensive tests.
The duration of the first test is from one and a half to two minutes. In this case, the FJDT checks the adequacy of the cache while writing/reading data scans the internal (150 MB) and external (50 MB) areas for damage to the surface, performs random search / read operations, etc. Comprehensive Test lasts longer - - Up to 20 minutes, depending on the volume of the hard drive. This makes a complete check of the working surface of the disk.
After passing the disk test program provides a summary of the suitability of disk use. If the functionality is broken, an error code is displayed and a recommendation is made to contact Fujitsu's support service or suggest an attempt to fix the problem using FJDT tools.
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