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What do you think about repairing a severely troubled hard drive and what steps would you take when encountering one? When you find a bad hard drive upon inspection, the immediate thought might be to replace it with new components. However, when you detect a bad hard drive, consider exploring potential solutions before resorting to replacement.
Specifically, in this article, Mytour will guide you on how to fix a severely troubled hard drive through software running on DOS. Of course, you can also run it directly on Windows, but the results may not be accurate because your hard drive would still be operational and multitasking.
Guide to Fixing Severe BAD Hard Drives
Understanding Bad Sectors
Bad or Bad sectors are easily understood as errors on the disks of hard drives, occurring exclusively with HDD models. They are areas of the disk that are defective and incapable of reading or writing data.
There are 2 main types of Bad sectors: hardware-related Bad sectors, which can result from physical impacts causing the read/write head to touch the disk surface or prolonged usage. The second type is software-related Bad sectors, with many possible causes such as viruses, malware, or sudden power loss and system shutdowns.
How to Minimize the Occurrence of Bad Sectors?
- Hard drives require stability; even computers themselves should be stationary, minimizing both usage and movement.
- When moving, avoid strong impacts.
- Regularly check and clean hard drives.
- Scan for viruses and remove junk from the computer.
- Use in locations with stable power sources to prevent sudden shutdowns.
Fixing Severe BAD Hard Drives
Preparation:
- A USB drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.
- Refer to how to create a USB Boot with Hiren Boot here and follow immediately.
Step 1: After referring to and following the instructions to create a USB Boot with Hiren Boot, let's start fixing severely BAD hard drives. First, plug in the USB and restart the computer. Then quickly press the F12 key (or F11) to enter Boot mode, select Boot for USB.
- Refer to the shortcut keys to enter Boot here because each computer or laptop has different ways to enter.
Step 2: Next, the interface of Hiren Boot installed on the USB will appear, you select Hard Disk Tools at the bottom.
In Hard Disk Tools, choose HDD Regenerator, which is software that helps us effectively repair heavily damaged hard drives.
Step 3: The DOS interface of the software appears, you select the drive with Bad sectors. In this example, there is 1 drive at position number 1, so just press Enter to access.
Step 4: Next, to repair the heavily BAD hard drive, you select number 2 and then press Enter. The Normal Scan option will allow you to scan for Bad sectors and repair them if possible.
Step 5: Next, you choose number 1 to let the software automatically repair heavily damaged hard drives after scanning.
Step 6: Here, the system will prompt you to choose whether to scan from the beginning or at a certain point in time. For the best results in repairing heavily BAD hard drives, rescan from the beginning by selecting number 1.
Finally, all we need to do is wait for the software to run to 100% to repair heavily BAD hard drives. The success rate of repairing the drive may vary. But if a hard drive has been in use for a long time and has severe BAD sectors, then it's advisable to find a new drive.
Here, Mytour has guided you through the process of repairing heavily BAD hard drives using professional software running on DOS to achieve the highest efficiency. Of course, don't forget the suggestions at the beginning of our article to protect your hard drive and avoid having to repair Bad sectors. If a hard drive is properly used, it may only need to be replaced once every 5 to 6 years, whereas if used incorrectly and regularly needing BAD sector repairs, then it may need to be replaced in just 2 years.
