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Posts tagged bad track
Protect Hard Disk—How to Solve Bad Tracks Problems
Dec 1st
Hard disk should be the most subtle components in the computer. As modern technology is advancing rapidly, hard disk capacity has been increased greatly. But its brittle shortcoming is not still improved radically. For computer users, it is the last thing for them to find hard disk broken, since it restores precious data and information.
As hard disk problems are divided mainly into two aspects—logical and physical bad tracks. If it is logical problem, you can reinstall software under the worst circumstance. And for physical one, you can still handle it on condition that the problems are not so serious.
First of all, let us see what will happen if there is physical damage in the hard disk.
When reading certain file or running programs, it is easy to go awry or takes long time to operate successfully. Even when reading, hard disk is creaking hoarsely. If this happens, you have to aware that certain sectors with data have been broken already.
When booting computer, system can not be lead by hard disk. After starting floppy disk, it can switch to hard disk drive letter but cannot enter into it. Even by using SYS order, it still fails. All of these are probably caused by the problem in hard disk sectors. It is more serious than the previous one. Besides, computer is always troubled with blue screen without any specific reason even though you use it correctly.
According to the situation mentioned above, there are some ways to remedy. Here are some methods to repair hard disk bad tracks. You should take these measures orderly.
First of all, it is wise for you from the easiest way. In Windows98 system, you can right-click drive letter and choose “Properties”. In the “Tool” tab, you can choose to scan the disk thoroughly and automatically restore the probable broken cluster.
To be frankly, the first methods can not work very well every time, because Windows98 just repair the logical bad tracks but not physical ones. Therefore, you should consider perform “Cold Treatment” to these bad tracks. So-called “Cold Treatment” is to mark those tracks and do not use them any more. You should remember their positions and perform high-level formatting. By doing these, those tracks can be arranged in certain area and computer may not restore any file there. Do not decide such area too small in order to save hard disk space. Because bad tracks can extend to other good ones, it is wise for you to leave proper space for those broken tracks in case of new bad tracks happen. Or you can use certain specific software to help you.
In the last resort, you can do low-level formatting to hard disk. This should be the last measure to take because it can harm disks in two aspects at least: one is to abrade disk; another is to accelerate the extension of bad tracks.
Last but not least, if there is any bad track, you should review whether you defragment disk too frequently or there is too low memory so that the applications have to visit disks hourly.
All of the methods mentioned above can solve hard disk physical bad tracks problems correctly but passively, because it expenses the disk capacity. So, the best way is to operate hard disk cautiously.
Hard Disk—Useful Methods to Fix Hard Disk Problems
Nov 27th
It is known to all that hard disk is storage of the computer. If there is any problem in it, it can not only harm hard disk but also slow down your computer. Therefore, you should need to know how to protect hard disk, even fix the problems. This is what I want to tell you in this article.
Sometimes, logical bad track can result from using formal vision of software. Is it weird? Actually, when some software reads data into certain sectors, others are excluded to visit these sectors. In such condition, the scanning program may consider mistakenly there are bad tracks in the sectors and you do not need to fix those tracks at all. But, do not worry about that, such software uses those ways decreasingly.
Normally, logical bad track is caused by improper using hard disk. For example, if the computer has to restart unexpectedly when hard disk is reading data, logical bad tracks are created probably at this moment. What is worse, it may even lead to physical bad tracks. In fact, you can use Windows disk tools to scan the whole disk and to fix errors automatically. The specific procedure is as follows:
In “My Computer”, you can right-click the drive letter, click “Properties”—“Tools”—“Check Now” and tick “Automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”. At last, click “Start” and then everything is OK.
The scanning time is dependent on disk capability and scanning options. But you should be clear about that all the operating systems except Windows 98 do not display details of every sector. Therefore, it is wise for you to choose disk detecting tool of DOS—Scandisk. Such program can check every sector and mark the bad track to prevent operating system to visit this region any more. By doing this, it can guarantee to run system stably and restore data safely.
If you follow the steps mentioned above, the restored bad tracks still exit in the hard disk but just have been marked, so the system will not continue to visit it. However, since you keep on using hard disk, it is likely such bad tracks can expand. In this regard, to scan and mark the bad tracks can not eradicate this trouble. So, it is appropriate for you to back up disk data and rearrange partitions to format disk. commonly, if the problem of hard disk is just involved in logical bad track, to back up data is qualified enough to handle this problem completely. Of course, it is best that you apply Scandisk to detect hard disk again in DOS environment to make sure logical bad tracks are restored thoroughly after rearranging partitions and formatting disk.
In conclusion, to be honestly, the problem of hard disk is rather professional. You can have a try to fix them or let hard disk programs help you.
Optimize PC Performance—How Protect Hard Disk
Nov 26th
If you hope the computer can always work like new, you are supposed not to be too lazy to maintain your computer. As the storage of the computer, the hard disk like other computer parts also needs your careful maintenance. In this article, I would like to tell you how to protect hard disk in order to optimize PC performance.
In the first place, you should try to prevent bad tracks in the hard disk.
When starting up computer, it is impossible to pilot the hard disk even you use floppy disk or CD to start up computer, you can see those driver letter but cannot do any operations to this partition. If so, you should be aware that bad track is in it probably. Any bad track can damage hard disk, even it is just a cluster. On such condition, you should distinguish what kind of the bad track is and solve them respectively—run Scandisk program or replace and maintain it with retailer or manufacturer.
Secondly, you should pay close attention to guard against virus and Trojan programs. It is known to all that they are quite disaster for every part of computer. What is more, hard disk is the main objective of computer attacking virus. So, you should make use of anti-virus software to get rid of those viruses and maintain and back up important data and update such protecting programs in time. It is advisable for you not to use any unknown applications and to check virus and Trojan ahead of running them. The viruses are really headache for computer. You should prevent them from attacking the disks.
Thirdly, defragmentation is a good choice.
After using computer for a lot of time, due to the restoring and deleting of files, the files and available space have to become scattered in the hard disk. If you do not defragment them, the disk may reduce its restoring efficiency. And disk defragmenting program can put the files into continuous space and make the disk available space tidy and clean without taken up by fragments disorderly. You can start up the defragmenting program in the Windows or turn to third-party tools, such as “Advanced Defrag”.
Besides, you can let hard disk brainpower at rest.
If you can keep such function closed, it can do great help to facilitate hard disk working and expand using time. You can click “Control Panel” and choose “Power Management”. It is OK for you to set the time as fifteen minutes in the “Close down hard disk” column. It is better for you to protect the hard disk.
And for you, you should form a good habit of closing down computer correctly. The improper power shutdown can lead to violent attrition between disk head and disk surface. You should follow the normal computer closing down procedure. Any mistake or error in this regard may do harm to disk.
All in all, you should give your attention to daily hard disk maintenance. You can learn more ways to optimize PC performance.
Hard Disk—Must Facts about Hard Disk Maintenance
Nov 25th
If you have ever suffered the computer prompt that there are disk errors, you can not miss this article, because I would like to share my understanding about hard disks with you. When checking files, computer may remind that there is disk error and cannot correct them. Solutions are all in this article.
The bad track of hard disk contains two kinds: logical bad track and physical bad track. The former belongs to software problem and usually results from the improper operation or usage of software; while the latter is the real physical bad track which means that there is physical damage in the hard disk tracks. If you want to solve this problem, all you can do it to change disk partition or the sector usage. Your hard disk is troubled with bad tracks probably on condition that the following problems have happened in the computer.
First of all, when opening, running or copying certain files, it is much slower to perform those operations than before. Even system may fail to do that or Windows system reminds you that it cannot read or write this file”. All of these can tell you certain part of hard disk is troubled with bad tracks.
If Scandisk program can run by itself when opening computer every time, it tells that many errors in the hard disk are needed to restore, such as bad track. And, if system cannot pass this running scanning program smoothly, bad tracks are hiding in the hard disk for sure. Well, it can pass but appear “B” mark which indicates the same problem as well.
During the process of booting computer to check automatically, if the screen reminds that “Hard disk drive failure”, “Hard drive controller failure” or something like that, it is the malfunction in the hard disk drive or in the disk controller hardware; if it prompts that “Sector not found” or “General error in reading drive C”, it means physical damage happen in the hard disk track. At last, if computer freezes up or appears the problem of broken files when running normally, it probably results from bad tracks in the hard disk.
How to maintain the bad track of hard disks?
Scandisk program is the most used tool to solve the problem of logical bad track. And you should be clearly that the Format order can do nothing to restore any bad track in the hard disk. So if there is any bad track, you can solve it by following the steps:
In “My Computer”, you can right-click the drive letter which is needed to scan and click “Properties”—“Tools”—“Check Now” in the Error-checking column. In the new tab, tick “Automatically fix file system errors” and click “Start”. It can scan the whole drive surface and fix probably broken clusters automatically.
Or, in the DOS state, if any bad track happen, normally computer run Scandisk program to check and mark bad cluster by red-letter of “B”(bad).
In the worst condition that system even cannot enter into such scanning program or Windows, you are still able to start computer by using floppy disk or compact disc and choose the same drive letter to scan and fix.
After reading this article, you can learn much knowledge about hard disk. if any problem mentioned above has happened in your disk, you should be very careful to take some actions to maintain hard disk.