Mhdd low-level formatting command. Hard disk drive (HDD) testing. Reading sectors to a file in MHDD

4.5.2. Program 2 In accordance with the representation of the board adopted in program 1, each decision looked like the queens were simply placed in successive verticals. No information would be lost if the X-coordinates were omitted. That's why

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Recently, manufacturers have seriously taken up the problem of reducing the noise level emitted by drives.
Some have achieved amazing results - for example, Seagate managed to reduce the spindle noise of the fourth “barracuda” so much that it was no longer perceptible to the ear.
But rotating pancakes are not the only source of noise in hard drive mechanics.

The head drive is also noisy - its sharp movements cut through the air inside the can, generating a “grunting” positioning sound.
Of course, it can be slowed down by changing the shape of the current in the coil to a smoother one, but this will inevitably cause a deterioration in such an important hard parameter as access time - it is this that determines the performance disk subsystem in multitasking environments, and when working with many small files.

At the same time, there are tasks in which fast positioning is not needed at all, but silence is needed - for example, when working in office applications, when playing music and movies.

How can we be here?
It is this problem that was solved by hard drive developers quite recently - the ATA specification introduced the “Automatic Acoustic Management” (AAM) function - rapid adjustment of the noise level emitted by the drive as a result of the movement of the heads by reducing the speed of their movement.

AAM can be managed by proprietary utilities of some hard drives, for example IBM and Maxtor.
But they make it extremely inconvenient - the user does not have the ability to quickly assess the current noise level.

In MHDD, all this is implemented much more conveniently: just enter “AAM” into the console, and the hard drive itself will begin to crack its heads, demonstrating its noise level.
And you can change it with the keys “M” (minimum noise level), “L” (medium) and “P” (maximum).

The “D” key turns off AAM completely, while the hard drive becomes as fast as possible, but at the same time as loud as possible.
You can switch the hard drive directly from Windows 9x at any time, unlike other “branded” utilities (Fig. 3).

Figure 3. Automatic Acoustic Management

Security Options

Have you ever wanted to protect your information from strangers?
Of course, such a desire sometimes arises, especially if several people work at the computer.
Personal correspondence, documents, or even just well-functioning operating system- not far full list something that you want to protect and protect from someone else’s invasion.

The most common way to restrict access to confidential information is to create encrypted partitions on the hard drive, archiving with a password, and password-protecting all file system at the logical level ( special programs in the boot sector of the HDD), and sometimes physically changing the entire hard drive (for example, using a mobile rack).

But such protection has many disadvantages.
The information still remains on the media, and although it is not explicitly accessible (protection programs are often limited to encryption only boot entry, leaving even FAT unchanged), it can be easily extracted from such a disk by running a disk editor on it, or (which is simpler) one of the programs for saving information, for example the well-known “Easy Recovery”.

On-the-fly file encryption is more resistant to hacking, but its operation requires a permanent memory resident that intercepts part of the system API and creates a considerable load on the central processor.

And no one is immune from such a program glitching or freezing at the most inopportune moment.
And even if the encrypted partition is damaged (for example, by viruses), it will be extremely difficult to extract information from it.

Ideally, a security system should meet 3 basic requirements:
1. Be independent of the OS, file system, computer and their glitches.
2. Be reliable and difficult to break.
3. Do not take up system resources.
And it would have remained a dream if no one had thought to entrust this to the hard drive controller!

This was proposed by the developers of the ATA/ATAPI-3 standard back in 1996, but hard drives that actually support security functions appeared relatively recently.
This feature is called “Security Set”, and in common parlance - ATA password.
It allows you to protect the entire contents of the hard drive not only from reading, but also from writing, and even from low-level formatting!

This was achieved by integrating a protection program directly into the hard drive.
It communicates with the outside world through a regular IDE interface - you only need a utility that can do this correctly.
BIOSes of some motherboards they know how to set a password on modern hard drives, and on many laptops (for example, from DELL), this has long become the norm.

But now we don’t need to be the owner of a super-cool board or laptop to protect our information - this can be done on any computer using MHDD!
And not only from the BIOS, but also from DOS and Windows at any convenient time.
Let's try to figure out how it works.

We launch MHDD, and by pressing the + key combination, select the hard drive to which we want to deny access.
Click.
Pay attention to the line “Security: High, Off” - it means that the password for the hard drive is not set (Fig. 4).

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Before issuing this command, the UNLOCK command must be issued.

RPM Change spindle speed(this procedure is not guaranteed to work)

FF Write disk sectors. The data to be recorded is taken from the specified file

A.A.M. Configure the noise characteristics of the drive

MAKEBAD Generation of BAD blocks. Does not work on all drives

RANDOMBAD Generation of bad blocks, scattering them randomly across the surface

INIT Reset and recalibration

FDISK Make one partition for the entire disk. Only MBR changes

SMART / Control the SMART system and view attributes

STOP / Stop spindle

I/ Send ID commands, then INIT

ERASE Selectively erase sectors or completely erase a surface (low-level formatting)

To erase directly, bypassing the BIOS, you can disable the disk in the BIOS settings, or erase with the parameter /DISABLEBIOS.On the erasing speed this parameter does not affect.

FASTERASE Surface erasing at maximum speed (password system is used)

TOF Reading disk sectors to a file

Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter. An inscription that sends legions of goosebumps down your spine, each one the size of HDD. According to the law of meanness, this happens when nothing portends trouble. But don’t rush to frantically restart the system - this is a game of Russian roulette. It's better to boot from another medium and do a thorough check. A proven tool will help with this - MHDD.

Introduction

If SMART shows problems, most often this means one thing: the disk is about to start crumbling, and even an extra OS load can have an effect. The next thing you need to understand is whether it is software or hardware. If there are not so many hardware ones, then you can still try to bring the disk back to life.

I think you've heard of products like MHDD and Victoria. They are indispensable for low-level work with hard drive and will help you accomplish great feats in recovery and diagnosis. About Victoria, now it’s time to deal with the second - archaic, but still mega-useful utility.

MHDD is a small but powerful free program that is designed to work with drives at the lowest level (as possible). The first version was released by Dmitry Postrigan in 2000. It could scan the surface of an IDE drive in CHS mode. Now MHDD is much more than a diagnosis. With MHDD you can do anything: diagnose drives, read and write arbitrary sectors, manage the SMART system, password system, control system noise characteristics, and also change the size of the drive.

Despite the fact that working with MHDD is possible through installed Windows, I highly recommend burning the image to a flash drive or external (or second bootable) drive and loading bare DOS from there. Believe me, in a hardware issue it is better to eliminate as much as possible all links in the chain that can lead to glitches or freezing of the computer during operation.

Oh those interfaces

Not every interface can be correctly recognized by the program.

SATA interface. There is a possibility that the disk will not be detected in MHDD. The reason may be the operating mode of the SATA controller (IDE and AHCI) in the BIOS. MHDD, alas, does not support AHCI mode. Needs to be changed BIOS settings. The worst thing is that nowadays not all motherboards support this mode. The only way out is to use a machine with a suitable motherboard or abandon MHDD.

IDE interface. For of this interface The typical distribution of devices on the loop is master/slave. By default, MHDD hides all devices in slave mode. There are two ways to fix this. The first is to change the location of the hard drive (switch the jumper to master) and check that the settings in the BIOS match. The second way is to try changing the disk number in MHDD to 2 or 4. Well, don’t forget about configuration file mhdd.cfg, which is located in the CFG folder. In this case, the parameter PRIMARY_ENABLED=TRUE is important.

SCSI interface. The SCSI controller driver may not be detected.

USB interface. It is theoretically possible to connect a drive via USB using an additional driver and program settings. The driver emulates the operating mode via SCSI. You also need to disconnect all unnecessary USB drives. The target drive must be connected before MHDD can boot. In config.sys you will need to write: device=X:\USBASPI.SYS /w /v , where X:\ is the path to the disk.

So, I'm taking one of the broken disks off the shelf (I usually put the broken label on them) and now I'm going to try to resurrect it to show you how it works in practice. I ended up with a WDC WD7500BPVX-60JC3T0 screw with a vinaigrette instead of the system and all the files on it.

Since the situation is so sad, I can format the disk inside and out with a clear conscience, which greatly simplifies my task. But first, let's look at a little theory and recovery plan.

Getting ready

Initially, the disk must be initialized by the program, which is quite logical. After this, a surface scan is performed, which gives an understanding of the current state of affairs: MHDD will show the condition of the hard surface. Then you will need to format the disk and check again. Usually at this stage the soft bads disappear, and only the hard ones remain. Next, you can perform the REMAP procedure to reassign the bad blocks to the service area.

The main problem is that the service area is not rubber, and even after all operations the disk needs to be looked after. If bad blocks continue to appear, then the disk, no matter how hard you try, is no longer alive. But in more successful cases, this method should help. As practice shows, after a remap the disk can last for a very long time and even outlive its neighbors in the basket. Other times he dies immediately after the reboot - it depends on your luck, and it is almost impossible to predict the effect.

Thou shalt not kill

It is much easier to destroy a disk than to restore it. For example, everyone knows (or should know) that disconnecting the cable during operation leads to dire consequences. We also strongly discourage you from thoughtlessly switching flags and executing commands in MHDD. Read the documentation carefully and don’t start doing something if you don’t fully understand what it might lead to.

Well, we can get down to business! First, let's create bootable USB flash drive. For this I recommend - complete instructions and DOS itself is there. When the media is ready, all that remains is to drop MHDD into its root, so as not to once again climb through directories from the command line.

In order for the disk connected to the first channel to be accurately displayed, you need to edit the mhdd.cfg config, which is located in the CFG folder.

PRIMARY_ENABLED=TRUE

As I already said, scanning any device is only possible if it is identified by the ID or EID commands (or by pressing F2).

Scanning

To scan, type SCAN and press ENTER or use F4. A menu will appear from which you can change some of the settings. By default, the starting sector is zero (start sector). The final sector is equal to the maximum possible (end of the disk). All functions destructive to user data (Remap, Erase Delays) are disabled by default.

Let's go through the scanning parameters.

• Start LBA- the initial sector for scanning, by default 0, that is, the beginning of the disk.
• End LBA- sector of scanning completion, by default the end of the disk. Sometimes it is more convenient to scan not the entire surface (especially when the disk volume exceeds several terabytes), but only the work area where the OS is located. For example, disk C is 50 GB, then the final area will be 2 * 50 * 1024 * 1024 = 104,857,600th sector. You can calculate it more simply: (volume * 2) * 1,000,000, total 100,000,000.
• Remap marks the sector as bad in a special service area, after which the disk does not access it.
• Timeout- delay time for reading a sector, after which the check proceeds to the next sector.
• Spindown after scan- stop the hard drive after scanning.
• Loop test/repair- carry out scanning or testing cyclically.
• Erase Delays- erase sectors in which read delays are detected.

Press F4 again to start scanning. MHDD scans drives in blocks. For IDE/SATA drives, one block is equal to 255 sectors (130,560 bytes).

Here's how scanning works:

1. MHDD sends the VERIFY SECTORS command with the LBA number (sector number) and sector number as parameters.
2. The drive raises the BUSY flag.
3. MHDD starts the timer.
4. After the drive has completed the command, it lowers the BUSY flag.
5. MHDD calculates the time spent by the drive and displays the corresponding block on the screen. If an error (bad block) is encountered, the program displays a letter that describes the error.

MHDD repeats steps 1–5 until the final sector. If you need a scan log, it can always be found in the log/mhdd.log file. During scanning you can see many rectangles of different colors. So that you don’t get too scared, here is an excerpt from the certificate:

The presence of red (>500 ms) blocks on a completely healthy drive is unacceptable. If they exist, it is necessary to erase the entire surface of the disk and, if this does not help, get rid of the delays, we can conclude that this drive is no longer reliable enough. Letter-character blocks, such as x , S , etc., are not allowed: they indicate the presence of bad blocks on the surface.

The first thing to be done is to completely clean the surface with the erase command. If this does not help, then scan with the EraseWaits option enabled. If the bad blocks still do not disappear, you should run scan with the Remap option enabled.

We restore

If the scan reveals errors, the first thing you need to do is copy all the data from the drive (if, of course, you need it). In my case this was irrelevant. Then you need to completely clear the surface using the ERASE command, which erases every sector on the drive.

The drive will recalculate the ECC fields for each sector. This helps get rid of the so-called soft-bad blocks. If erasing does not help, run the scan with the REMAP option enabled.

If you see that every block contains an error, do not try to erase the drive or scan with the REMAP option enabled. Most likely, the drive's service area is damaged, and this cannot be fixed with standard MHDD commands.

An attentive reader, looking at the pictures of the disk scan, probably whistled and shook his head sadly. Yes, my disk completely died while I was writing the article. The number of hardware bads exceeded all permissible limits, and by the time the last lines of the article were typed, it was already crunching like a Belarus tractor. By the way, if a disk starts to crumble, you can’t trust it, especially if hardware problems appear. Remap can help when the disc has not yet begun to actively crumble, but defects have appeared on the surface. In any case, even if you managed to fix it, use such a disk only for non-critical data and in no case as the main one.

What do the indicators signal?

• BUSY- the drive is busy and does not respond to commands;
• WRFT- recording error;
• DREQ- the drive wants to exchange data with the outside world;
• ERR- an error occurred as a result of some operation.

When ERR lights up, look at the top right of the screen: the type of the last error will be displayed there:

• AMNF- Address Mark Not Found - access to a specific sector failed. Most likely means that the sector is damaged. However, immediately after turning on the drive, just the opposite - it indicates the absence of problems and reports the successful completion of internal diagnostics;
• T0NF- Track 0 Not Found - zero track was not found;
• ABRT- Abort, command rejected;
• IDNF- Sector ID Not found;
• UNCR- Uncorrectable Error, an error not corrected by the ECC code. Most likely, there is a logical bad block in this place.

Two more indicators may appear at the top: PWD signals that a hardware password has been set, HPA appears if the drive size has been changed using the HPA command (usually used to hide bad blocks at the end of the disk).