• Best Hard Drive Repair Utility
• Hard Disk Tools Allocation
• Hard Drive Repair Freeware

Most veteran hard disks have errors, including so-called bad blocks. Some of them may cause sad things happening to your hard disk, and it’s only a matter of time.

Windows OS offers tools which test your hard disk for errors, and chkdsk mentioned here, is one of them. However, they are not designed for diagnostic and testing, so we want to introduce some other, more effective software to correct errors on a hard disk.

Fix tools and diagnostics software:

If you need constant Windows monitoring for a 24/7 PC, you'll have to pay for a program such as Ariolic Software's Active Smart 2.9 ($30) or LSoft Technologies' Active Hard Disk Monitor ($6. Best Overall Hard Drive Repair Software: Disk Drill. Choosing the best overall hard drive repair software was easy. Disk Drill is by far the most modern data recovery suite on the market, both in terms of its design and its features. With Disk Drill, you can recover over 200 file formats from all storage devices without any expert skills.

HDD Regenerator – hard disk testing and bad sectors repairing software

HDD Regenerator is a professional software for hard disk diagnostic, scanning for and repairing errors. The word “regenerator” gives you a hint to this program being able not only to find errors, problems and bad blocks but also to fix them. In other words, you can use it as a hard disk bad sector repair tool.

HDD Regenerator can be used as an adequate tool for corrupted data recovery. If some data can’t be read (or hard disk detected but not showing in my computer), Regenerator will help to get round bad blocks / clusters and read problem files.

To check HDD health there is a particular test. S.M.A.R.T data helps get additional information. HDD Regenerator includes the range of tools needed for that.

Other features of the hard drive regenerator:

• Supports FAT and NTFS file systems, yet during the test a filesystem doesn’t make any different
• Detailed statistics on the hard drive performance and health
• Creation of a bootable regenerating flash or CD/DVD as part of HDD Regenerator
• Prescan mode: quick scan of disk surface
• HDD monitoring in the real-time mode
• Data security: the program works in the read-only mode (except for bad blocks rewriting)

The PRO version of HDD Regenerator costs $79.99 a year. A free demo version allows recovering one bad sector for free.

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test (WinDFT) – testing software for Hitachi hard drives

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test is used to perform hard drive diagnostic and troubleshooting. This utility allows testing internal and external hard drives with the support of G-Technology.

Software features:

• To perform the diagnostics you can select either Quick Test or Extended Test.
• You will see Pass or Fail status next to every test in TestLog.
• Reading of SMART attributes.
• Bootable CD image creation option. If you can’t boot from your hard drive, WinDFT can be started in LiveCD mode.
• Hitachi Drive Fitness Test performs testing without overwriting data on the disk.

Seagate SeaTools for Windows: hard drive performance test

SeaTools from Seagate is a free HDD diagnostic, error repair tool and performance tester for Windows and DOS.

This utility enables you to detect some problems on HDD before turning to the repair service centre (in our reality you are likely to be offered a new disk to replace the once which doesn’t work, which means losing your data stored on it).

Note. This software is compatible not with all HDD models, it works only for Seagate hard disks.

Problems that Seagate utility can detect:

• Damaged filesystem of the HDD
• Bad blocks and reading errors
• Windows driver-related and system errors
• Desktop or laptop hard drive not detected
• Incompatible hardware
• Windows bootloader (MBR) problems on the disk
• Viruses, keyloggers and other malicious apps

SeaTools works the following way: a user selects tests for diagnostics and starts them, receiving a detailed report as a result. If the HDD test is passed, you will see the PASS mark, otherwise it will show as FAIL. You should take into consideration that HDD testing can take up to 4 hours. In order to save time you can select one of the three test modes.

Seagate SeaTools is able to scan hdd for bad sectors and even repair them by trying to do recovery or writing zeroes (this method allows ignoring problem sectors during reading/writing of the disk structure).

HDD Health: checks disks and reads SMART attributes

HDD Health is another free utility for hard disk testing and controlling a health status. It checks your hard drive for errors (SSD/HDD), its status and makes predictions (Health index).

The tool’s main window displays the following information:

• manufacturer, model, firmware revision
• current temperature HDD (SSD) (accessible via system tray)
• disk structure overall condition
• other attributes (Extended info menu)

Best Hard Drive Repair Utility

Just as other diagnostic tools, HDD Health reads S.M.A.R.T technical info, which is good for specifying the current hardware performance. The software doesn’t include any other components for detecting errors and checking for bad blocks.

Hard Disk Tools Allocation

So the set of tools HDD Health offers comes in handy in case S.M.A.R.T. criteria are enough to check the hard disk health (and if the device condition is not critical). Fortunately, in the latest HDD/SSD disks S.M.A.R.T. technology is implemented.

Download HDD Health app for free on the developer’s page Panterasoft.

HDDScan – testing hard drive for corrupted partitions

HDDScan is a free hard drive diagnostic tool which also reads S.M.A.R.T., check SSD status and other parameters. Performing the disk surface test will provide you with a log file containing detailed information on the disk condition.

HDDScan supports various memory storage devices:

• RAID arrays
• HDD drives with IDE/SATA interface
• SATA/ATA SSD
• USB-flash drive

Some of the most useful HDDScan features are:

• Checking for errors which can’t be found by basic Windows utilities: bad blocks and bad sectors
• Hard drive testing (Reading/Verification/Erasing disk surface tests)
• Temperature monitor for all hard drives connected to your computer
• Export of any data as a customized report

CHKDSK – Windows utility for fixing errors and bad blocks

You don’t have to install external programs to check your hard disk for errors. Windows has a computer utility Check Disk designed for this.

CHKDSK appeared already in DOS, and is known as scandisk there. The utility both finds and repairs basic filesystem errors. As was said above, it is not meant to search for all types of errors and is not an HDD diagnostic tool.

However, using CHKDSK you can fix errors on data storage devices: not only hard drive but USB memory and SD cards (any device which has a bad block). Starting with Windows NT, it also fixes bad blocks (damaged partitions) marking them in a specific way. As a result, other tools ignore these partitions when reading/writing.

According to the latest annual survey of hard drive reliability by Backblaze, a provider of cloud backup services, the annualized failure rate for modern hard drives is around 2 percent. This means that if we have a group of 50 people, with every person in the group using two hard drives (perhaps one inside a personal computer and one inside a laptop), then one of those 50 individuals is going to lose all the data stored on the hard drives within a year.

That’s bad news if you keep important data on your computer without proper backup. When a hard drive failure occurs, not only are you likely to lose access to your files but you may not even be able to boot into your operating system to search for a solution on the web.

As with so many other things in life, preparation is the key to success even when it comes to hard drive repair and recovery. If you know why hard drives fail and are familiar with some of the most popular hard drive repair and recovery solutions, you have much better chances of seeing your files again.

What Causes Hard Disk Failure

Hard disks are mechanical devices, and, like all mechanical devices, they can fail without notice. Some hard disk failures are entirely avoidable, but many others are governed only by luck and chance.

Mechanical Damage

Unlike solid-state disks or USB flash drives, which have no moving parts, every traditional hard drive has a very fragile part called the read/write head. This head looks like a miniature gramophone needle, and its purpose is to transform the platter’s magnetic field into electrical current to read data from the disk and transform electrical current into a magnetic field to write data on the disk. Because there are only 3 nanometers of clearance between the head and the disk platter, which holds the actual data, even the slightest misalignment can, and usually does, result in a catastrophic head crash.

Every traditional hard disk comes with an air filter that equalizes the atmospheric pressure and moisture between the enclosure and the outside environment. It’s critical for the filter to prevent all dust particles from getting inside the enclosure as even the smallest speck of dust can cause a head crash if the head happens to run over it.

Often, a head crash is caused by a sudden jolt, such as when a user throws his or her laptop on a bed instead of carefully laying it down.

Manufacturing Defects

All reputable hard disk manufacturers thoroughly test their products before selling them to consumers. But even with modern testing methods, defective hard disks still sometimes slip out and end up on sites like Amazon. Most manufacturing defects reveal themselves during the first year of use, so it’s advisable never to trust a brand-new hard disk with critical data. Of course, it’s best if you don’t trust any hard disk unless you keep up-to-date backups somewhere else.

Overheating

Most hard drives are designed to operate at temperatures from 5 to 50 degrees Celsius, and some newer hard drives can operate at up to 60 degrees Celsius. While overheating usually doesn’t result in a critical failure, it often leads to data corruption and read errors. It’s paramount to keep your PC or laptop well ventilated, especially during the summer months. In extreme cases, heat can even cause the electronic circuit board that controls the entire hard drive to fail, making it impossible to do hard drive repair regardless of which software you choose for the job.

Electronic Failure

Inside every hard drive is a plethora of sensitive electronic components. A sudden power failure preceded by a short power surge can literary fry these components, rendering the entire hard drive useless. A high-quality surge protector is by far the best way how you can protect yourself against electronic hard drive failure. Yes, a reliable surge protector isn’t cheap, but it’s one of those expensive purchases that are worth every dollar.

Hard Drive Repair Freeware

File Corruption

When unintended changes are introduced to data during the data writing process, we talk about file corruption. As we’ve explained above, file corruption can happen because of overheating, but it can also be caused intentionally by malware.

In recent years, we’ve seen massive growth in the number of ransomware infections. Ransomware attacks don’t technically corrupt files; they encrypt them. However, from the point of view of a user who’s unwilling to pay several hundreds or thousands of dollars to the ransomware creators, the result is the same.

Top 6 Best Hard Disk Repair Software Tools

Now that you know what causes hard drive failure, we have for you a list of top 6 best HDD repair software tools that you can use to analyze, avoid, and solve virtually all common hard drive issues.

Best Overall Hard Drive Repair Software: Disk Drill

Choosing the best overall hard drive repair software was easy. Disk Drill is by far the most modern data recovery suite on the market, both in terms of its design and its features. With Disk Drill, you can recover over 200 file formats from all storage devices without any expert skills. Disk Drill’s claim to fame is the one-click approach to data recovery; simply click on the Recover button and Disk Drill will automatically take care of the rest.

Apart from the ability to recover virtually every file format you may come across, Disk Drill can also help you solve virtually every hard drive repair scenario because it comes with extra free tools for disk monitoring, hard drive cleanup, data protection, data backup, and much more. If you don’t have time to learn multiple hard disk repair software tools, download Disk Drill and rest assured knowing that it comes with everything you’ll ever need.

Best Disk Usage Tool: WinDirStat

When you get your hands on a hard drive that may be corrupted, you should first discover what’s stored on it before you attempt to repair it. You may find out that most of the storage space is occupied by junk files left over by various applications. Traditional file managers are unfit for this job because they provide a very limited view of the stored data. WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer with a special treemap-view, which represents each file as a colored rectangle whose area is proportional to the file’s size. When you see one huge rectangle next to hundreds of small rectangles, you know that you’re looking at a space hog.

Best Disk Imaging Tool: Clonezilla

Clonezilla is one of the most useful free hard drive repair software tools. It allows you to easily create full partition and disk backups, which can be deployed on other computers. Clonezilla supports far more file systems than most IT professionals can name, and it even features some basic boot repair tools.

Best Disk Wipe Tool: DBAN

Unfortunately, not all hard drives can be repaired. Sometimes, it’s wiser to move all data to another storage device and securely wipe the damaged hard drive before throwing it away. If you value your privacy and security, you should know that the disk format utilities that comes with Windows and macOS don’t guarantee complete data removal. They merely mark the storage space as free, allowing anyone with a good data recovery tool, such as Disk Drill, to recover the deleted data back. Featuring multiple military-grade erasure methods, DBAN can wipe any storage device clean and don’t leave behind even a trace of the original content.

Best Health Monitoring Tool: CrystalDiskInfo

CrystalDiskInfo is an extremely handy disk monitoring utility, which can read S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) data from hard disks. S.M.A.R.T. data include things like the rear error rate, the seek error rate, or the spin-up time. Hard disk manufacturers know which values are normal and which may indicate an imminent hard disk failure, and they hard-code them into the firmware. CrystalDiskInfo monitors these values and makes it immediately obvious when they get out of hand, giving you enough time to back up your data before it’s too late.

Best Partition Manager: GParted

GParted is a free, graphical partition editor that you can use to resize, copy, and move partitions without data loss or file corruption. You may want to shrink a partition to create space for another operating system or a backup partition. GParted is part of many other hard disk tools, such as Clonezilla or Partclone. It can also be downloaded from the official website as a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86 based computers and used from a USB flash drive.

Conclusion

Does it seem that your hard drive is dying? Don’t despair. There are many wonderful hard disk repair software tools that you can use to diagnose and fix hard drive issues. Most of these tools don’t cost anything, which cannot be said about the service offered by most data recovery businesses.