This program searches for and attempts to "repair" bad sectors on disk devices.
The program reads all sectors sequentially, until it finds a sector it can not read. Then it tries to write that sector full of zeroes, and then read it again. If the sector is now readable, it is counted as repaired. Why this works is yet unknown to me, but it often does. ;)
This program is released under GPL and is therefore ABSOLUTELY FREE for all uses, but comes with no guarantee. The source of this program is also available
To use the program, select the appropriate disk from the Drive Combo Box, and press "Start". You can abort the process at any time by pressing "Abort".
Disks can be selected in two ways: A drive letter performs a scan on a specific partition only, while a PHYSICALDRIVE performs a scan on the whole drive, including some sectors that do not belong to any partition.
Additional options include:
Starting Sector - You may specify a sector to start testing from. This is useful for stopping a recovery and then resuming it later. Notice, that it is possible to select and "Copy" the value of sectors already tested under the Progress Bar.
Sectors At Once - The program optimizes its speed by reading several sectors at once. If this read fails, individual sectors are examined. Reading more sectors at once is faster, but places a greater load on the system. You may find that a value too big actually slows the recovery process (or the rest of the system). An optimal value should be found with experimenting, as it may vary on different systems and disks. I have found that 400 sectors per read make a good time on my system.
After the recovery it may be possible that some bad sectors were recovered, but are still marked as "bad" by the filesystem and thus unusable. This utility does not fix filesystems. To unmark these sectors, you will either need to use a third-party utility that retests the filesystem, or perform a full format on the drive. In some cases the format utility also remembers the old "bad" sectors and marks them again as "bad" after the format. Check whether the format utlity has any options concerning this. In the worst case, delete the partition and create it again, then reformat.
THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT ANY BAD BLOCKS WILL BE REPAIRED AT ALL OR THAT NO DATA WILL BE LOST IN THE PROCESS. I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE THIS PROGRAM MAY CAUSE, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!
This program was written by Valts Sondors. Started in late 2004, and completed in the first days of 2005! An update was made in early 2008 to include a read-only option.
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