A damaged hard drive is a rather inconvenient situation, as it prevents you from using your computer. We will teach you how to repair it very quickly and easily. In MacOS, you can use "Disk Utility", a system application, to repair it. The process is also called: First Aid. You just have to apply it to your hard drive and that's it.
Focusing on the Windows operating system, we will go a little deeper, using the famous program called "Victoria". To fix 100% hard drive in Windows.
It is important that once downloaded, it runs as an administrator so that it can work properly for you. With the program open, you will see the storage drives and, at this point, you will need to select the one you need to repair. If you have a USB external hard drive connected, the program will recognize it.
Having several hard drives you will be able to orient yourself by differentiating them by their size or capacity, but in the case of having two identical hard drives you have to make sure which one exactly you need to repair. To do this, you can use the administrator.
You will find it in the search engine by entering the word "Hard disk". Enter the section ¨ Create and format hard drive partitions ¨
It will show you a window with all your hard drives. Right-click on one of them and enter "Properties" in the window that opens. There you will be able to see the name of the hard drive in question and you will be clear which drive it belongs to.
Repair your hard drive with these steps
To repair your hard drive, do the following:
- Select the hard drive you want to repair. It will show you a small review at the top so you don't get confused with other units.
- Go to the ¨SMART¨ tab and click on the ¨ button Get SMART ¨, where you can see information about the status of the disk.
- It will show you parameters of different colors. If there are several yellow ones, that's a bad sign, although if they appear red it means your hard drive is in a very bad condition. Do the same procedure with a different hard drive so that, by comparison, you know what the parameters should look like.
- Go to the "Test" tab. You will see the option » Ignore by default is selected. This option allows you to scan your hard drive and locate bad sectors. Keep it selected and press «Scan» to start the scan.
- Then press "Remap" and then "Scan". This way, not only will you see bad sectors, but the settings will try to fix them.
- The colored boxes will indicate each sector scanned. It is recommended to do not mark the green sectors, because they represent no danger, unlike the orange, red and blue sectors.
Let's clarify that The "Remat" option does not erase information from your hard drive, so it is safe to use it. It is also recommended to use this option, as it facilitates recovery of bad sectors and makes them healthy.
Even if you prefer to make sure you don't lose your files, you should know how to make a copy of your files from a damaged hard drive.
Other Repair Methods
The other options you can select to repair your hard drive are:
- ¨Cancela¨. By selecting this option, what the program does is that, if you start the scan and find a bad sector, it overwrites it, permanently deleting all the data on the hard disk without leaving a trace.
- This way you can repair a sector that has slowed down. This implies that you will lose the information you have saved on your hard drive. We recommend using it only if you have nothing to lose.
- ¨Scrivi¨. It is a method that requires a lot of caution, since completely format the hard drive, regardless of whether it is damaged or not. Its purpose is for units to become healthy, even those that already were.
- The price will be to remove all information. All partitions on the disk will also disappear. Checking this option will not allow you to select any others. It will show you a warning window asking if you want to continue. You should only select it if you are absolutely sure that the disc does not contain anything of importance.
Before running any of the processes you have read above, we recommend that you make a backup copy, so you will avoid losing information that you will later regret. After applying all these steps, you will have a hard drive ready for use. It is also important to check the health of the hard drive to see if it has any errors and if it is really damaged.
