The most delicate component in a computer should be the hard drive. Although this has changed somewhat with the continuous progress of manufacturing technology, some hard drive makers such as Quantum have also released related new technologies. For example, starting with Quantum's seventh generation, they used the SPS vibration protection system developed to reduce the impact force suffered by the hard drive, hoping to make the hard drive's "body" stronger.
But the drawback of hard drives being easy to fail has not been fundamentally changed. For personal computer users who like to keep up with the latest hardware, the replacement frequency of hard drives is generally not as fast as that of CPUs or display cards—even when buying a new hard drive, the old one usually still stays in the case to keep doing some work, so people especially do not want to see hard drive failures, especially when precious data is stored on it.
If the hard drive only has logical damage, that is still manageable—at worst you just reinstall the software—but what about physical damage? Actually, as long as the situation is not especially serious, using some methods to deal with it can generally solve the problem too.
First, let's look at what symptoms appear when a hard drive has physical damage, that is, bad sectors.
1. When reading a certain file or running certain software, errors occur frequently, or it takes a very long time before the operation succeeds, while during that time the hard drive keeps reading and makes harsh noises. This means that some sectors carrying data on the hard drive have gone bad.
2. At boot time the system cannot boot from the hard drive; after booting from a floppy disk you can switch to the hard drive letter, but cannot enter it, and using the SYS command to transfer the system also cannot succeed. This situation is rather serious, because it is very likely that the hard drive's boot sector has a problem.
3. During normal computer use, blue screens appear frequently for no apparent reason.
For the above three situations, we generally all have ways to make more or less some remedies. Several methods for repairing hard drive bad sectors are provided below. Note that the methods listed earlier should be considered first.
(1). First start with the simplest method. In Windows98 Explorer, select the hard drive letter, right-click the mouse, choose "Properties" from the shortcut menu, and under "Tools" perform a full scan of the hard drive surface and automatically fix any bad clusters that may appear. For the above situation #2, where you cannot enter Windows98, you can
boot the machine with a Windows98 startup disk, then after the "A:>" prompt type "scand isk X：" to scan the hard drive, where "X" is the specific hard drive letter. For bad clusters, the program will mark them with a red "B" (bad) on a black background.
(2). In fact, the first method often does not work, because Windows98's automatic repair of "bad sectors" is largely aimed at logical bad sectors, and cannot automatically repair physical bad sectors, so it is necessary to consider giving these bad sectors "cold treatment." So-called "cold treatment" means marking these bad sectors and not using them—if you can't afford to mess with them, you can at least avoid them. Remember the locations of the bad sectors from method 1, then do a high-level format of the hard drive and divide the area containing bad sectors into one partition. From then on, do not store or access files in that partition. It should be explained that in order to save hard drive space, do not make this partition too "economical"; instead, leave an appropriate margin, because reading the "good sectors" around bad sectors is not wise—bad sectors tend to spread. If you use "good sectors" that are too close to the bad ones, then before long new bad sectors will appear on the hard drive.
(3). Use some software to process the hard drive, the most typical being PartitionMagic. Here version 4.0 is used as an example: scanning the hard drive can be done directly with the "check" command in PartitionMagic, but this command has no automatic repair function, so it is best to call the relevant Windows98 program from within PartitionMagic to complete this task.
After bad clusters have been marked, you can try retesting them. The method is to choose "Advanced/bad Sector Retest" from the Operations menu; after dividing the bad clusters into one (or more) partitions, you can consider hiding that partition to avoid accidental operations in Windows98. This function is implemented through the Hide Partition menu item. What especially needs attention is that if you directly hide a partition containing bad clusters without formatting it first, then the subsequent partitions after it will, because of drive letter changes, cause some programs related to drive letters in those partitions to fail to run correctly. For example, shortcuts created on the desktop by some software will not be able to find the host program. The solution is to use the DriveMapper menu item under the Tools menu. It will automatically collect shortcuts and related information in the registry and make the correct modifications to them. It should be pointed out in particular that in the newer aPartitionMagic5.0 Pro, DriveMapper has also been upgraded to version 3.0, making this work more efficient and simpler. In addition, the software DiskManager can also do this work. After hiding the partition, do not try to merge the partitions before and after the partition where the bad sectors are located—that is futile, because those two partitions are not physically contiguous.
(4). As for damage to hard drive sector 0, it looks rather tricky, but it is not beyond remedy—as long as you shield the discarded sector 0 and use sector 1 in its place. The ideal software for completing this task is Pctools9.0, specifically the DE tool in Pctools9.0. Note that after modifying the sector, only after formatting the hard drive will the partition table information be written into sector 1 (which is now acting as sector 0).
(5). Unless absolutely necessary, this trick is best not used: doing a low-level format on the hard drive. Because low-level formatting a hard drive has at least two harms: first, it wears the platters; second, for a hard drive with bad sectors, low-level formatting will also accelerate the spread of bad sectors.
(6). One final point: the relevant settings in the motherboard BIOS must be set properly. Especially for some motherboards from before the TX chipset class, because they do not have the ability to automatically identify hard drive specifications, improper settings often affect hard drive use. In mild cases the hard drive cannot be fully utilized; in serious cases the hard drive may be damaged.
What has been introduced above are solutions for when a hard drive has physical damage. However, most of these methods are passive ones, paid for at the cost of hard drive capacity. If a hard drive develops bad sectors and it is not due to aging, then it indicates there are usually improper practices in daily use, such as defragmenting the hard drive excessively often, or having too little memory so that application software accesses the hard drive frequently. Also, neglecting dust protection for the hard drive can lead to mechanical failure because the drive heads have difficulty positioning. In addition, overclocking the CPU and raising the external frequency, forcing the hard drive to work for a long time at excessively high voltage, can also cause failures. Therefore, in everyday use of hard drives, cautious operation is still the best policy.
But the drawback of hard drives being easy to fail has not been fundamentally changed. For personal computer users who like to keep up with the latest hardware, the replacement frequency of hard drives is generally not as fast as that of CPUs or display cards—even when buying a new hard drive, the old one usually still stays in the case to keep doing some work, so people especially do not want to see hard drive failures, especially when precious data is stored on it.
If the hard drive only has logical damage, that is still manageable—at worst you just reinstall the software—but what about physical damage? Actually, as long as the situation is not especially serious, using some methods to deal with it can generally solve the problem too.
First, let's look at what symptoms appear when a hard drive has physical damage, that is, bad sectors.
1. When reading a certain file or running certain software, errors occur frequently, or it takes a very long time before the operation succeeds, while during that time the hard drive keeps reading and makes harsh noises. This means that some sectors carrying data on the hard drive have gone bad.
2. At boot time the system cannot boot from the hard drive; after booting from a floppy disk you can switch to the hard drive letter, but cannot enter it, and using the SYS command to transfer the system also cannot succeed. This situation is rather serious, because it is very likely that the hard drive's boot sector has a problem.
3. During normal computer use, blue screens appear frequently for no apparent reason.
For the above three situations, we generally all have ways to make more or less some remedies. Several methods for repairing hard drive bad sectors are provided below. Note that the methods listed earlier should be considered first.
(1). First start with the simplest method. In Windows98 Explorer, select the hard drive letter, right-click the mouse, choose "Properties" from the shortcut menu, and under "Tools" perform a full scan of the hard drive surface and automatically fix any bad clusters that may appear. For the above situation #2, where you cannot enter Windows98, you can
boot the machine with a Windows98 startup disk, then after the "A:>" prompt type "scand isk X：" to scan the hard drive, where "X" is the specific hard drive letter. For bad clusters, the program will mark them with a red "B" (bad) on a black background.
(2). In fact, the first method often does not work, because Windows98's automatic repair of "bad sectors" is largely aimed at logical bad sectors, and cannot automatically repair physical bad sectors, so it is necessary to consider giving these bad sectors "cold treatment." So-called "cold treatment" means marking these bad sectors and not using them—if you can't afford to mess with them, you can at least avoid them. Remember the locations of the bad sectors from method 1, then do a high-level format of the hard drive and divide the area containing bad sectors into one partition. From then on, do not store or access files in that partition. It should be explained that in order to save hard drive space, do not make this partition too "economical"; instead, leave an appropriate margin, because reading the "good sectors" around bad sectors is not wise—bad sectors tend to spread. If you use "good sectors" that are too close to the bad ones, then before long new bad sectors will appear on the hard drive.
(3). Use some software to process the hard drive, the most typical being PartitionMagic. Here version 4.0 is used as an example: scanning the hard drive can be done directly with the "check" command in PartitionMagic, but this command has no automatic repair function, so it is best to call the relevant Windows98 program from within PartitionMagic to complete this task.
After bad clusters have been marked, you can try retesting them. The method is to choose "Advanced/bad Sector Retest" from the Operations menu; after dividing the bad clusters into one (or more) partitions, you can consider hiding that partition to avoid accidental operations in Windows98. This function is implemented through the Hide Partition menu item. What especially needs attention is that if you directly hide a partition containing bad clusters without formatting it first, then the subsequent partitions after it will, because of drive letter changes, cause some programs related to drive letters in those partitions to fail to run correctly. For example, shortcuts created on the desktop by some software will not be able to find the host program. The solution is to use the DriveMapper menu item under the Tools menu. It will automatically collect shortcuts and related information in the registry and make the correct modifications to them. It should be pointed out in particular that in the newer aPartitionMagic5.0 Pro, DriveMapper has also been upgraded to version 3.0, making this work more efficient and simpler. In addition, the software DiskManager can also do this work. After hiding the partition, do not try to merge the partitions before and after the partition where the bad sectors are located—that is futile, because those two partitions are not physically contiguous.
(4). As for damage to hard drive sector 0, it looks rather tricky, but it is not beyond remedy—as long as you shield the discarded sector 0 and use sector 1 in its place. The ideal software for completing this task is Pctools9.0, specifically the DE tool in Pctools9.0. Note that after modifying the sector, only after formatting the hard drive will the partition table information be written into sector 1 (which is now acting as sector 0).
(5). Unless absolutely necessary, this trick is best not used: doing a low-level format on the hard drive. Because low-level formatting a hard drive has at least two harms: first, it wears the platters; second, for a hard drive with bad sectors, low-level formatting will also accelerate the spread of bad sectors.
(6). One final point: the relevant settings in the motherboard BIOS must be set properly. Especially for some motherboards from before the TX chipset class, because they do not have the ability to automatically identify hard drive specifications, improper settings often affect hard drive use. In mild cases the hard drive cannot be fully utilized; in serious cases the hard drive may be damaged.
What has been introduced above are solutions for when a hard drive has physical damage. However, most of these methods are passive ones, paid for at the cost of hard drive capacity. If a hard drive develops bad sectors and it is not due to aging, then it indicates there are usually improper practices in daily use, such as defragmenting the hard drive excessively often, or having too little memory so that application software accesses the hard drive frequently. Also, neglecting dust protection for the hard drive can lead to mechanical failure because the drive heads have difficulty positioning. In addition, overclocking the CPU and raising the external frequency, forcing the hard drive to work for a long time at excessively high voltage, can also cause failures. Therefore, in everyday use of hard drives, cautious operation is still the best policy.
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