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Posts tagged bad tracks
Protect Your Computer—Facts about Hard Disk Problems
Dec 3rd
Although low hard disk quality can lead to bad tracks, you should be aware that the most problems are produced by being used improperly. So in order to protect your hard disk as well as computer, I would like to tell you the facts about hard disk problems and bad tracks in particular.
It can categorize into two kinds: logical and physical bad tracks. Put in simple way, logical one is produced by using certain software or disk improperly while physical bad track is due to problem of magnetic media of hard disk itself. As a matter of fact, to fix the former is much easier to fix than the latter one.
If you find your hard disk is troubled with following problems, it is necessity for you to check whether there is bad track in the disks.
As a matter of fact, your system is not affected by any virus but cannot startup normally and come up with some prompts like “Sector not found” or “General error in reading drive C”. Every time you start up system, it will run Scan disk program to scan disk errors. The normal running sound has changed into weird creaking. Or when formatting hard disk, it stops at certain schedule and then report errors that it cannot finish the whole task. If you perform “FDISK” to hard disk, it repeats at certain schedule. What is worse, the computer might fall into blue screen without any wrong operation.
How to fix bad tracks?
As it is extremely rigorous requirement for interior working environment in the hard disk, any tiny dust can result in irreversible damages. Therefore, if there is any bad track in the disk, you cannot fix the problems by taking apart the disks but can turn to other specific tools to help you so as to minimize the loss. After confirming the bad tracks in the disks, you are not still sure whether they belong to logical or physical. So, you have to fix disk errors from simple to complex means. The common logical problems can be solved by using Windows program or others. But as for physical ones, you need further repair to guarantee the safety of hard disk data and normal usage.
Shield physical bad tracks
If bad track still exits after low-level formatting, it is no doubt that there are physical bad tracks on it. Such problem is produced usually by furious impinge or abrupt power-off during using hard disk and disk head may likely collide with disk when it is tail-wagging. Even though you use disk checking program to mark those bad tracks so as to forbid operating system visiting this sector, the physical ones can extend after a period of time. That is to say, although you have marked bad ones, hard disk is likely to visit the sectors closed to bad tracks which can deteriorate the situation. In order to avoid such problem, you had better shield bad tracks into an unused partition.
By doing the above steps, you can fix logical bad tracks or shield bad tracks into hidden partition so as to ensure the stability of system running and safety of data files. In this way, you can refresh hard disks.
Causes for hard disk bad tracks — How to protect your hard disk
Dec 2nd
We know that a bad track is an area of the hard disk which is not available to store data. Normally,
bad tracks will be the fatal errors for hard disk because it not only make us impossible to use some specific sectors, and sometime it will also bring big disaster to other available disk sectors, which will shorten the lifespan of the hard disk and eventually crash it.
There are many aspects that will result in hard disk bad tracks, and most of them have direct connecting with the illegal operation and usage of hard disk in daily life. Here, some causes will be discussed, telling you how to protect your hard disk with some tiny points.
First, please remember not to suddenly turn off the computer because when the hard disk is still working. Simply stated, when the hard disk is running, it always operates at high speed for the read-write head to read data from different locations of the hard disk. If the power turns off suddenly, the hard disk head will quickly return to its place, which severally hardens the friction between the disk and the read-write head. So please remember not to suddenly turn off the power.
Secondly, please note that dust will greatly result in bad tracks and crash the hard disk, so sometimes we can say that dust is the number one killer of hard disk. To protect your hard disk, please keep your computer as dust-free as your can.
Besides, though the hard disk has the ability to resist shock, a shock will also result in bad tracks. So it is much better to be careful enough when moving the computer. Moreover, I believe it is known to all that bad tracks will be also caused by static electricity. Once you have touched the computer box when the computer is running, you will get a shock because of the static electricity. So please do not touch the circuit board at the back of the hard disk for the electrostatic on human body.
Another important consideration is related to the maintenance of the hard disk which includes a disk defragmentation and a cleanup of the programs / files on the computer. As we all know that when storing files or programs on the computer, a same content will be scattered into different parts and then located or filled in different corners on the hard disk. With the increasing amount of the disk fragments, the hard disk will become fragmented as days by. So it is recommended to regularly defragment the hard disk, rearranging the files on the computer and locating contiguously at a same place. Hence, it will reduce the workload of the hard disk head when inputting or outputting files. In this way, only only the hard disk but also the computer can be used longer. But before the defragmentation, please remember to first run a disk cleanup to delete some useless files.
In conclusion, to protect your hard disk, please do not miss the above aspects to avoid more bad tracks, that is, it is necessary for you to form good habits like running disk defragmentation in daily life to protect your hard disk.
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—How to Solve Certain Hard Disk Problems
Dec 1st
Hard disk is an important part of computer, but its stability and usage time can not as well as other fixings in the computer. That is to say, you should pay more attention to protect your hard disk so as to improve computer performance. This is what I want to tell you in this article.
The one of problems is that if there is any error in the hard disk, it can hinder the applications to write temporary files into it. In order to solve it, you should make sure that there are not excessive temporary files, so it is better for you to remove them at first. By doing this, you can know that the problem is caused by too many files or disk errors.
First of all, I would like to tell how and where to clear up temporary files. Sometimes, redundant temporary files can be in the way of writing to hard disk.
Temporary folder: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files and C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\
History temporary folder: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\recent\
Internet temporary folders: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
In the menu of browser, you can click “Tools”—“Internet Options”. In the “Temporary Internet files” tab, click “Settings”—“View Files”. And then you can open this cache folder.
Or you can click “Start”—“Run” and type “Chkdsk” and press “Enter” or click “OK” so that the computer can start to check disk. In this way, you can add “D:” or “E:” to check them. Besides, you can also add the parameter of “blank/F” to restore errors automatically when detecting errors. For example, click “Start”—“Run” and type “Chkdsk D: /F”. You should be careful that there is a blank ahead of “F”.
Certain software like playing ones can produce temporary folders automatically when running. Such folders end with “temp” or “tmp”. You can find them by searching local disks and remove them manually.
Another problem is computer always reminds that “disk boot error” and you have to restart computer many times before entering into system. Why?
If you have encountered this problem, it is no doubt that there is logical or physical bad track in the hard disk. In the first place, you can enter into system and open the disk defragmenting program of Windows by clicking “Start”—“All Programs”—“Accessories”—“System Tools”. Choose to scan thoroughly and tick “Automatically fix errors” and then perform scanning program to see whether you can get rid of this trouble. If not, you had better back up the important files and data to other storage and try other restoring software to put those bad tracks into certain partition and hide them. The last method is to do low-level format. Although it softens or shield problems, low-level formatting can harm your disk without question. That is to say, you ought to make your mind cautiously before doing that.
All in all, since a lot of cause can lead to hard disk problems
. The best method to prevent them is to protect hard disk in advance.
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.