Acer support phone numberis the good way to get instant solution from the experienced, qualified, certified and highly skilled technicians. The Acer support phone number has the world’s largest support staff and service worldwide. They all are well trained and prepared to provide best to consumer of Acer. The all Acer support technicians went through a tough test and training to get this position. The Acer customer service and technical support number team positively deal with consumers in order to retain all of them for future reference. If you need any further detail about the Acer products, support and services, just contact onAcer customer support number. Here are some features of Acer technical support phone number which are given below: Acer online support technicians provide you an instant solution. Acer phone numberexecutives are 24*7 available here(1888-958- 7518)to help you. Acer phone support provides you instant callback feature. Acer service station has the quickest phone call response. All the customer care executives of Acer warranty phone number are responsible, knowledgeable and provide the best service. Acer support number provides you guaranteed bug diagnosis service. Acer technical support number is a leading service provider. Acer tech supportphone number has the well-trained technicians. Acer support number provides you remote assistance service. All the customer care executive of Acer service center number certified from the reputed organization. Acer phone support team use the advanced technique for technical support. TheAcer online supportteams have the highest success rate of troubleshooting. ...read more

Even with Antivirus protection computers can become infected with viruses & more commonly adware and SPYWARE. This can be a result of outdated virus definitions, involuntarily clicking on adware, or sophisticated viruses that require manual removal. It seems that in today's computing environment spyware and adware are more of a threat to home users. Spyware and adware can be malicious, but more often they're just plain annoying! It just will not leave you or your computer alone. Many times spyware or adware appears to be legitimate, but it is trying to scare you into purchasing some bogus spyware or adware or virus removal tool. It takes some painstaking time & attention to remove it fully from your pc once it has found a home. Geeks of Houston has the tools & experience to clean your computer from virus, spyware & adware to give you a fresh start free from viruses & spyware. We will also protect your computer or laptop from having the same problem in the future.  What is a “drive-by-virus The term virus is perhapives not fully accurate as it isn't a particular virus but a method by which some form of malware (malicious software) can be caught. The drive-by effect isto make the user run a programmethat then has unwanted consequences. In short, the activity is centred on home wireless routers where a seemingly anodyne Java applet or Direct-X control can be used to gain access to a personal computer and then make it ripe for infection with any form of malware. How can a computer become infected with a virus? It is only if a user runs a programme that a virus can be caught. That is why an e-mail cannot in itself infect a computer; an attachment, however can as by clicking on it you may be asking your computer to do just that. With a drive-by virus, when you open a web page and then accept to run a Java Applet or Active-X control, you are asking your computer to run a programme. Fraudsters exploit the fact that many people are not conscious of what they are doing as many are so used to blindly accepting to run these kind of add-ons to a web page. How does a drive-by virus work? What the virus does is to exploit the way that home wireless networks are set up to gain access to the computer from inside, thereby circumventing the protection offered by a firewall. The effect will depend very much on what the intention of the malware is but often it leads to capturing details submitted to a genuine site such as e-banking. This is known aspharming. There is a distinction to be made withphishingwhere data is submitted to a spoof website. Most anti-virus applications can help in countering phishing but not pharming because the malware is running inside the firewall. Where can I get more information? The phenomenon is not new. Already in December 2006, Symantec Inc. published astudy"Drive-by Pharming" in which the process is described and the vulnerabilities exposed.  Some specialists have run tests comparing different browsers to see how vulnerable they are to this form of attack but, as it has beenpointed out, although updates and upgrades are available which may solve a part of the problem, there remains a large number of internet users who do not install these. At the same time, anexperimentcarried out by IT safety professional Didier Stevens shows that we compromise our own safety by following links which are explicitly marked as a way of getting a virus. How can I protect myself? Fundamentally, the best form of protection is awareness and behaving responsibly on-line: ·                                 only visit sites you trust, ·                                 regularly update your browser and anti-virus applications, ·                                 consider not accepting to run controls on web sites or ·                                 disable plug-ins from your browser. To disable plug-ins in Internet Explorer 7, click on Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or disable Add-ons and then choose which you want to run or not. Here are a few scanners we use (online) ...read more

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n this article we are going to discuss the mostpopular hard disk driveswith ATA (AT Attachment) interface, also called IDE (Integrated Drive Electronic), and used in the vast majority of personal computers. So, a storage medium based on magnetic disks consists ofmagnetic disks(1,2,3, sometimes 4 disks) combined in a stack and mounted on the spindle motor axis,read/write head stack assemblyenclosed in dust proof enclosure (hermetically sealed enclosure) andcontrol board. All produced HDDs since around 1989-1990 havelinear(rotating around axis due to magnetic field) HSAactuator. Such structure allows achievingfaster positioning speedthan a discrete mechanism has (withstepper motor), but instead it requires creating servo loop to determine actual angle of actuator’s turn. That is why positioning HSA in HDD is carried out according to recorded to diskservo information. Prepared for operation disk surface containsservo markingsfor head positioning, so-calledlow-level formatthat includes sector markings with its addresses and identifiers, and operating system logic format. Operating system has access only to sector data fields where it organizes itslogical architecture.Storage medium’s recording surface contains several thousand (11550 in Quantum FB EX) ‘physical’cylinders(cylinder is a collection of identically distributed tracks on all surfaces of stack of disks), divided into several areas with different number of sectors per track. When working in astandard user modethe physical format is transformed by the controller into standardized logical with which BIOS and operating system works.All electronic parts of HDD, except for HSA amplifier and switch chip, are located on theprinted circuit boardof thestorage medium. Controller is a specialized computer consisting ofcontrol processing unit, ROM (often built-in in the processor), RAM and chips for controlling motor and actuator coil, data encoding and decoding, data conversion and pairing with external interface. Thismicro computeroperates under the control of its software consisting of several modules and forming a specialized operating system. Part of controller’s operating programs is stored in ROM and another part (in many HDD models) – on disks, in dedicated service area, beyond the reach of a user.Storage mediumoperating without loading these programs in the controller’s RAM is impossible. Service cylinders also contain another necessary for HDD operation information (table of surface latent defects etc.). Information reading from service area is performed at the beginning ofdrive initializationas well as on an as-needed basis during its operation.When powered on the controller automatically lands the heads – moves them to a special landing zone that is not used forrecording information, where heads lower to the disk surface. Automatic landing is performed owing to the energy of disk stack rotation and thespindle motoris used as a generator. Troubleshooting HDD IDE So, ‘the worst happened’. HDD doesn’t want to start. How to determine the cause hiding behind amalfunction? A general algorithm ofprimary diagnosticscould look the following way: Connect the drive to power cable; do not connect theinterface cable. Upon powering on you should hear the sound ofspindle motorcranking followed byactuator(initialization, initial callibration), then the sound of disks should become even and 'selectstorage medium'indicator (if it is there) should go off. If everything happens this way, then proceed to point 2. Any other behavior indicates about possible malfunction. Options of such behavior could be the following:а) Nothing happens at all. If the motor is not cranking upon powering on (no sound), then its most probably a problem withprinted circuit board. The source of malfunction could be in power supply, motor control, any chip connected with control processing unit andmicro controller(on top of everything else the processor controls motor start and stabilizing its rotation speed). Sometimes you can detect failed component visually – burnt out chip due to voltage overload or overheating might have bubbles and cracks. Similar happens most often due to incorrect connection topower supply outlet– mixed up 12 and 5 volts wires orinterface connectoroverload while connecting astorage medium‘in action’ (when computer power is on). Cases ofspindle motormalfunction are very rare (coil rupture), nevertheless the possibility of such case is not zero. You can make sure thatmotor coilsare fine by testing for continuity on the relevant connector. Coil resistance is usually around 2-3 Ω.b) Disks' spin-up doesn’t happen, but you can hear attempts to spin (buzzing). Such effect may be caused by stuck heads (particularly in old Seagates, WDs, Conners and Quantum Sirocco). In this case you can try and strongly rotate a storage medium (holding it in hands and, naturally, having disconnected all cables). It might help to ‘unstick’ heads.  Truth is, this defect can manifest itself later again and you won’t be able to get rid of tendency tosticking headsin old devices for good.Mechanical assembliestend to irreversibly wear out. You still can witness this in newHDDs, if for some reason automatic parking didn’t work or heads moved from the parking zone for some other reason – for example, due to shacking during transportation.c) Motor spins-up, then several clicks and it suddenly stops. Possible options: •    Conner drives and related Seagate (ST31276A, ST31277A, ST31722A, ST32122A and co.): motor spins-up, then stops (no clicking). And it does it many times. •    Western Digital drives: motor spins-up and you hear frequent even clicks of actuator hitting the stopper (better turn it off immediately because the reason behind it might be damaged heads and disk surfaces). •    HDDs of other manufacturers usually spin-up the motor, then you hear several clocks and it stops. After that a LED indicator might flicker (if it is there) telling the error code. Most frequentlyencountered malfunctionswith such manifestation are: head failure, concentric scratches on disks (consequence of wearing out) as well as malfunction of read/write channel chips (often as a result of different kinds of short circuits organized by amateurs who love to tinker about powered on computer). The reason behind the clicks is a head stack assembly backend hitting the stopper because of absence of reading, i.e. malfunction of head stack assembly, read channel or destructed diskservo markings: positioning system cannot find the outer track that contains relevant identification code, and after several attempts in vain the control processor stops the motor. In case with Conner and those Seagates that continue Conner model range, in case of no reading from disks, heads are not moved at all, since their operation algorithm provides for stabilization of spindle motor rotation speed according to servo markings in thelanding zoneand if servo markings are not found there, it simply doesn’t look for the track.d) Motor spins-up, then you hear several faint clicks and the motor continues spinning though the drive is not ready (busy indicator doesn’t go off and doesn’t react to calls from computer). Or, it readies, LED indicator goes off but it is not recognized by BIOS and does not respond to commands. It means that the control processor ‘freezes’ due to incorrect reading of service programs stored on disks. These programs could be destructed because of drive failures (inclusive of low-level format incorrect attempts) or because the surface of service cylinders has been worn out.e) Very loud and disturbing noise upon spin-up (gritting, whistling, howling and so forth). Either the motor is faulty or disks are displaced (due to shock), or the heads moved beyond the disk surface due to stopper malfunction.In the described above cases the drive is clearly faulty and the degree of its faultiness is quite serious. In the majority of such cases it is impossible to take care of such issues at home. Deeper diagnostics and repair works usually require special equipment (oscilloscope, PC3000 complexetc.). You can localize the malfunction (circuit board or enclosure?) by replacing electronics. Please note, you can replace the board only with an identical one (same model and firmware of microprocessor), if you don’t know for sure that the models are compatible.Connect thehard driveto computer (to the primary or secondary controller). In case of correct connection of interface cable, the drive should initialize the same way as it is described in point No 1. Then you need to run BIOS Setup and check automatic parameters of HDD (reading drive’s certificate by running ‘identify drive’, see description of ATA standard), a relevant field should display its parameters corresponding to those that are written on the enclosure, or at least similar to it. If it displays something like ‘-93456 cylinders, 0 heads, 274 sectors’, or parameters are not defined at all, then you need to check all contacts and the operability of signal cable. Quite often people find loose contacts in adapters for connecting 2” drives. Better replace suchadapterwith a normal one because most probably you will not be able to squeeze normal operation and reliability from it. The first pin of 44-pinIDE interfaceof 2” form factor drive is usually the one closer to the pair of jumper wires master/slave, and the first pin of adapter is the one that is located further from thepower cable(view from the side of HDD board).If all contacts are reliable and computer cable and interface are intact and working, then incorrect parameter definition or absence of such usually indicates the malfunctioning of drive’s electronics (microcontroller chip in particular). Sometimes partial destruct ofservice informationcan lead to incorrect reaction to commands, but the likelihood of such case is rather low. WorkingIDE drivehas to be available in the system as a physical device irrespective oflogical format. You can check it, for example, with the tool like Diskedit from NU, or by running Checkit test.Diskedit in working with physical disk allows checkingdata read/write(write can be checked by filling several unused sectors with different codes on 0 side of 0 cylinder), Checkit checks the readability of sector headers (low-level formatcheck) and correctness of data fieldschecksums. Usually HDD devices are reliable enough and they rarely have hard-to-detect and unobvious defects. If read/write work on the entire disk space - the drive is nonfaulty. In this case you need to look for the problem in software or incompatibility of some devices present in the system. One of the most common and obvious malfunctions of HDD is emergence ofbad blockson magnetic surfaces – the result of normal wear or careless treatment. You can reveal defects by running tests like Checkit, PcCheck and the like. Do remember that file system check programs (Ndd, Scandisk) take initial information about surface defects from FAT, i.e. clusters marked as bad in FAT (with F7FF code), in reality can be perfectly fine, and vice verse. Delays in operation accompanied by clicks and computer ‘hanging’ when accessing HDD (in case there are no apparent surface defects) reflect anunstable read/writeon some areas. i.e. soon emergence of bad blocks.And one more note: one of the probable causes ofdrive malfunctionis a loose contact inpower connectoras well as deficient power unit that does not provide necessary stability of power voltage. It is particularly relevant for modern storage media that represent quite precise and tender electronic and mechanical devices and at the same time they consume high currents especially at the moment of stack of disks spin-up. Electricity supply instability can lead to serious damages (just remember a mass failure of Quantum HDDs of new series due to this particular reason). That is why contacts reliability testing andpower supply testinghas to be the first step taken during thetroubleshooting of issuesrelated to HDD. ...read more

Abad blockis a specific area on the disk that cannot reliably hold data. Such area can contain different information. It could beuser dataorservice information(akaservo– most probably from Latinservireand Englishserve– to deliver or present), and in such case it is rife with consequences, the severity of which varies between very wide limits, although, the best option would be the absence of any information in this area (the truth is that in all probability you won’t face bad blocks in such areas). Emergence of such sectors can be provoked by multiple reasons and it is treated depending on the requirements of eachspecific case. But first things first. Now we will bust some verycommon myths. Myth No 1:there are not bad blocks on modern hard drives. Not true, they can be there and they are there. Essentially, the technology is the same as it was years ago, onlyimproved and refined, but still not perfect (though it is unlikely that a perfect technology will be created on the basis of magnetic recording). Myth No 2:it is not relevant forhard drivesequipped with SMART (read – there couldn’t be any bad blocks). It is not true: it is relevant, not less than for hard drives withoutS.M.A.R.T.(if such are still available). The notion ofbad sectoris very native and close to it and it should have become clear from relevant articles devoted to this technology. The thing is that the majority of bad sector related troubles that were previously laid upon user have been overtaken by SMART. And often it can happen that a user is not aware at all aboutbad blockson his drive, unless thesituation is grave. I heard from some users that sometimes sellers used the aforementioned tojustifytheir refusal inhard driveexchange under warranty. A seller in this case is not right at all. SMART is not almighty, and nobody so far has cancelled bad blocks. To make sense of bad blocks and their types, let’s grab digs into theinformation storageon hard drive just for a little bit. Lets make clear here several points. 1.A unit with which hard drive operates on a low level is a sector. Not only data is recorded on a physical disk's space, corresponding to sector, butservice informationas well – identification fields, checksum, data and control code, error recovery code and so on (not standardized and depends on the manufacturer and model). There are two types of record according to identification fields – with or without identifier fields. The first one is old and yielded its positions in favour of the latter. Later it will become clear why I noted it. It is also important that there areerror control tools(that, as we will see, can become their source). 2.When working withold hard driveyou had to set in BIOS theirphysical parametersmentioned on the label and to unambiguously address data block you had to specify the cylinder number, number of sector on track, number of head, etc. Such work with disk was entirely dependant on its physical parameters. It was not convenient and stayed the hands of developers in many issues. A way out was desperately required and it was found inaddress translation. The one we are interested in is the following: it was decided to address the data on the hard drive with one parameter and a function of determining a real physical address corresponding to this parameter was laid onhard drive controller. It gave so much neededfreedom and compatibility. Real physical data of hard drive was not important any more. What’s important is that the number of logical blocks specified in BIOS does not exceed the real number. Creation of such translator has a crucial significance for bad sector issues as well, and here is why: bad sectors processing on old drives wasn’t perfect and was performed by file system tools. The drive was supplied with a label containing addresses of bad blocks detected by manufacturer. User had to manually enter these data in FAT and by doing that he/she was ruling out the possibility of operating system accessing them. The technology of producing platters was not perfect then and isn't now. There is no technique for creating a perfectbad-less surfacecontrary to popular opinion that the drive come out from the factory without bad sectors. With the increase of drive capacity the number of bad sectors right-from-the-factory also increased and it was quite clear that manual registration of bad sectors in FAT could be carried out up to a certain point; the manufacturers had to find a way of marking bad sectors despite the file system that will be later used. Invention oftranslatorallowed the manufacturers to solve these issues. A special protected area was allocated for the translator to be installed in where a relationship between every logical block of continuous chain andreal physical addresswas established. If a bad block was detected on the surface it was simply ignored and the next in chain physical available block address was assigned to it. The translator was read from the drive upon powering on. It is created in the factory and that is why new disks seemingly do not contain bad blocks, not because the manufacturer applies some sort of asuper technology. Physical parameters became hidden (and they varied too much because company’s hands were free to manufacture their ownlow-level formatsand it didn’t bother users), defects were marked on the factory,versatility levelhas increased. As good as in fairy tale. Now lets get back to bad blocks and their types. Depending on the nature of origin, all bad blocks can be divided into two large groups:logical and physical. Physical and logical defects. Surface defectscan be associated with gradual magnetic coating of disks, leaked through the filter smallest dust particles, kinetic energy of which, being accelerated inside the drive to tremendous speed, is enough to damage disk surface (although, most probably they will roll down from the disk affected by centrifugal force and will be retained by internal filter, anyway they still can damage something on the way :), result of mechanical damages on impact – small particles can be knocked out and in their turn can knock out other particles and the process will take an avalanche shape (such particles will also roll down from platters affected by centrifugal forces but in this case it will take much longer and harder, since they will be pulled by magnetic forces. It also involvesheads collisionthat floats on a very small height and will lead to overheating and performance degrading – signal alteration and as a result – read error), I have also heard (though I don’t have this statistics) that smoking near the computer can do the same effect because tobacco tars can penetrate viaair filter(if it is there) and lead to heads sticking to platters (surface and heads damage), by simply accumulating on the surface and changing performance capabilities and so forth. Such sectors become inaccessible and should be excluded from addressing to.Recovery of such sectorsis not possible eitherat homeor inservice centres. It would be great if at least information can be recovered from them. The speed of such surface destruction process varies from case to case. If the number of bad sectors isn’t growing or it is growing but slowly, then there is no need to worry (although it is still better tobackup your data), and if the growth is fast, then you will have to replace the drive and do it quickly. In case of these particular bad blocks you can remap blocks to spare surface: it makes sense subject to absence of progressing. But it is not the subject of our discussion for now. It is if we will talk about data area. As it has been already noted, platters also store service information. When using it, it can be destructed as well, and it can be much more painful than the destruction of anordinary user surface. The thing is thatservo informationis being actively utilized in the course of operation: disk rotation speed is stabilized according to servo markings, keeping head over preset cylinder regardless of external influences. Inconsiderable destruction of servo information can take place unnoticed. Serious damages of servo format can make a certain part of disk or entire disk inaccessible. Since servo information is used by the hard drive’s program and it is crucial for ensuring normal operation and in view of its specific nature it becomes rather complicated to deal with it. Somehard drivesallow turning off bad servo tracks. Itsrecovery is possibleonly at the factory on special expensive andsophisticated equipment(if we estimate approximate cost of such repair of non-warranty drive, we will quickly understand why we should call this type of bad sectors as irrecoverable). We can also refer to physical bad sectors the emergence of which is caused bymalfunction of electronic or mechanical partof drive, for example, heads failure, serious mechanical damages as a result of impact – jamming of coil actuator or disks, disks displacement. The actions here may vary and depend on the specific situation, if, for example, head failure (such bad sectors appear because the system attempts to access surface that cannot be accessed (which doesn’t mean that something is wrong with the surface), it can be turned off (or it can be replaced in the environment of specialized service centres, the only think that can make you think about reasonability of such operation is the cost (in the majority of cases the answer is negative), if, of course, it is not all aboutcritical information(but this is another story:). In general, this kind ofdamage is catastrophic. I.e. as we see, physical bad blocks are not recoverable, only some ‘relief’ of their presence is possible. The situation with logical bad blocks is much simpler. Some of them are recoverable. In the majority of cases they are caused byread errors. We can outline the following categories oflogical bad blocks: 1.The simplest case:file system errors. The sector is marked in FAT as bad but in reality is not. Previously such method was used by some viruses when they had to find an ivy bush on a drive not accessible bystandard tools. This method is not relevant any more because it is not difficult to hide several megabytes inside Windows (even several dozen megabytes). In addition to that, somebody might have just played a prank on a naive user (I’ve seen such programs :). In a broad sense,file systemis a vulnerable thing; it is cured easily and absolutely consequence-free. 2.Irrecoverable logical bad blocks are typical forold hard drivesthat use recording with identifier fields. If you have such drive then you will probably face them. It is caused byincorrect physical addressformat recorded for the sector,checksum error, etc. Accordingly, it is not accessible. In reality they are recoverable, but only at the factory. Since I have already mentioned that nowadaysrecording technologydoesn’t use identifier fields, it means that this type of bad sectors we can consider as irrelevant. 3.Recoverable logical bad blocks. Not a rare type of bad blocks, especially on some types of drives. They are primarily obliged with their origin towrite errors. It is not possible to read from such sector because usually an ECC code in it does not correspond to data and writing is usually not possible because a preliminary check-up of area-to-be-written is carried out before writing, and since it already has problems, writing to this particular area is rejected. In other words, you cannot use the block despite the fact that occupied by it physical area isin perfect order. Defects of such kind can be sometimes caused by errors in drive microprocessor, can betriggered by softwareor technical reasons (for example, power interruption or fluctuation, head moves during writing to unacceptable height, etc.) But if you manage to harmonize sector contents and its ECC code, then such bad blocks disappear without leaving a trace. This procedure is not difficult and tools that can help are widely available and are overall harmless. 4.Bad blocks of this type appear on drives due to peculiarities ofmanufacturing technologies: there is no two absolutely identical devices, some of their parameters definitely differ. When drives are prepared in the factory, each gets aset of parametersthat ensure the best functioning of the particular specimen, so-called adaptives. These parameters are saved and in case for some mysterious reason they are damaged, the result of such damage could be thedrive failure, unstable operation or a large number of bad sectors appearing and disappearing in one or another part of the drive. You can’t do anything with it at home but it can be set up and adjusted at factory or service centre. So, we clarified the causes behind bad blocks emergence. We understood that this phenomenon is not the most pleasant. And, traditionally, one fights the troubles he/she faces. That is why today we are going to talk about what tools to use,how and whyyou should do it. File system errors. First and the simplest type of error that we are going to cure is file system errors. As it has already been mentioned it is only amistakenly marked sectorin the file system. The conclusion suggests itself – it has to be marked correctly. Method No 1:logical reasoning suggests that we need to create a normal file system on the disk. Such tool is available to anyone within operating system and is called format. Boot in MS-DOS and perform full (and only full) disk formatting (command format x: /c, x – disk with incorrect FAT, c – key launching check of clusters marked as damaged). Fast formatting won’t work here because it only clears the header and keeps the information about bad blocks.Formattingcan be performed from Windows as well, but as for me methods of its work still remain a mystery and sometimes the result is unpredictable (I faced such results when the status of bad was wiped off of the physically damaged sectors which leads to even more serious problems. It seems that Windows simply dumps defect status in FAT without going into details, not always though). Such thing was not observed with anordinary format. This method is simple and open, but its disadvantage is full destruction of information on disk. Yes and if the disk contains a small number of sectors, it’s like shooting at sparrows from a cannon. Method No 2consists in purchasing Power Quest Partition Magic that has a Bad Sector Retest function. It will check only marked bad sectors and leave the information on disk untouched. Moresophisticated userscan use Norton Disk Editor or any otherdisk editorand manually mark/unmark the necessary sectors. You can write a program for this purpose yourself as well. But there is not need. How to find out that abad blockyou have is of this type? No way. You can only try (if you are not confident I recommend using the first two methods because the last two methods can put into operationbad or unstable blockwhich will make the existing problem even worse). If it is this type, it will disappear and will never reappear again. If not – try other methods. Second type of curablebad clustersis logical clusters whose data do not correspond to ECC. Method of fighting this type of bad clusters is a bit difficult. This type of defects cannot be corrected by software usingstandard BIOS commands and tools. The thing is that when using such tools before writing to disk, a preliminary check of recording area is performed to make sure that it is alright, and since there is an error, writing is rejected (such check is not only a waste because data will not be recorded immediately, it will be recorded only during the second run (apparently it is one of the reasons whywrite speedis usually slightly lower than theread speed). It seems more logical to perform write with verification instead of such mechanism. At the same time you can perform write and verification by reading in thehead stack assemblywhich would give a guarantee ofcorrect data recording. And, in principle, even if it will not exclude emergence of bad sectors under discussion, then, anyway it will considerably lower it because in case of detected error you could repeat recording. Even though we have penetrated slightly deeper in the subject matter, it still didn’t become easier as we clarified that it cannot be corrected withstandard tools.Non-standard toolsare the programs accessing thestorage devicenot viaOS and BIOSfunctions but via input/output ports. In fact, there are many programs like that and in the majority of cases they perform forced recording of some content to sector (usually zeroes), and thestorage mediumcalculates and writes ECC. Having done that, you need to perform check by reading sector and if there is no error than its good, the sector is in a condition we expected it to be and it was successfully cured. Alas – it is not as good… Apparently, if its not FAT error and it wasn’t cured, it is probably of a physical nature. Tools performing such function arewdclear, fjerase, zerofill, and DFT.In most cases such tools are sophisticated because they do not utilize some specific function ofstorage medium. Working with them doesn’t require special skills as well. Usually such zeroers are distributed on manufacturer web-sites aslow-level formatprograms, although they bear no relation to it. Manufacturers recommend using them in case of problem beforecontacting service centre. If we exclude information destruction, then they areharmless. Aside from hard drive’s manufacturersservice programsare also developed byunaffiliated companiesand enthusiasts. For example, a free and very useful program isMHDD(simply type in one of the search engines and download), that can help in this situation.The mechanism is as following: write the program to system diskette and then boot from it. Study the state of SMART with external SMART monitor (for example, with free SMARTUDM) and not relying on your memory, save the result in the file. Boot MHDD and initialize the necessary disk by pressing F2. Run erase and aerase in console (they use different algorithms, aerase works slower but sometimes takes care of what erase was not able to take care of, that is why I recommend using erase at first and then in case of failure use aerase). Before commencing the procedure save all the information from thestorage mediumsomewhere else because it will be destroyed (if you have an experience you can zero the necessary part without destroying the rest of the data, but it is assumed that you don't). After completed, check thedisk surface- press F4 and in the top line select the necessaryoperation mode(most probably it will be LBA), press F4 again (you can run SCAN in console). Check for bad sectors presence. Then study SMART indications. If the number ofremapped sectorsremained the same and bad sectors disappeared, then they were of logical nature and were cured. If not – their origin is not logical. It might well be that you have a question as to why you cannot use as in the previous case format command with /c key, that performs bad sectors check? The answer to it has already been mentioned in this article: this program uses standardBIOS toolsand cannot write to bad sectors. Apparently, program writers from Microsoft didn’t want to bother themselves with it. Recovery attempt of such sector about which tells the format is only a multiple attempt to read it (no matter how many times it is read, it will not be read and controller already recognized this fact!). Format cannot perform afull checkof such bad sector because it cannot write to it. The only thing it is fit for isrecovery of bad sectorsthat are file system errors. I suppose this is the end of the part of article that could be read and used by everybody. All the information written before this wassimple and harmless. Hereafter it is not like that at all. Be careful. Physical damages of HDD If none of the above methods helped, then most probably we have the most difficult case –physical damage. Such sectors can behidden or remapped. It is commonly known thathard driveshave spare surface. It can be referred to when accessing bad sector, i.e. when it is required to access sector that is bad, it reality a sector from spare surface assigned to replace the bad one will be accessed. There are different methods. Spare sector methodimplies location of a sector on each track of the storage device inaccessible innormal mode. In case bad sector was detected, the track has another sector to replace the bad one. Advantage of this method is that it virtually doesn’taffect the performance. Disadvantage of it is that the capacity of disk is usedwastefullybecause regardless of whether there is a bad sector on the track or not, spare sector is still there. Secondly, it is effective in case of more than one bad sector on track (there are other modifications of this method in which reserve sector is allocated to cylinder, although it doesn’t make them more effective). Spare track method implies presence of a certain number of spare tracks beyond service area. In case of defects on the track, it is excluded from operation and replaced by the spare one. Limitation of method is that the space is used wastefully because even if there is one bad sector an entire track is excluded from operation and replaced by new track. Also, in order to access spare area the head has to make a considerable move that negativelyaffects overall performance. The method of skipping defect track implies a presence of a certain number of tacks beyondservice area. But the way of using it is different. In this method we observe shifting of service area towards centre because during identification of the effective track number its calculated number and number of defects that were detected before it from the defect list is combined.Advantageof this method comparing to previous is the absence of necessity to move to spare area and, accordingly, performance gain. Bad sector skipping method is similar to bad track skipping with the only difference that it is operated by tracks instead of sectors and can be applied only tohard drivesusing translator. Sector’sphysical addressis calculated according to thetranslator table. First three methods have a number of disadvantages and practically are never used during factorybad sector hiding process(and in view of peculiarities of new hard drives, some methods cannot be applied at all). As rule, the last method number four is used. It allows hiding virtually any number of bad sectors and uses the space efficiently. Factory hard drive testing aimed at revealing bad blocks is carried out onspecial equipmentunder special processing regime. At the end of such process a list of all unusable sectors is prepared. This list is registered inservice areawhere it is being kept for the time astorage deviceis used. Factory defect list is called P-list (Primary-list). After getting this P-list a translator is formed. Translator establishes correlation between logical sector numbers following continuously and in order and their physical address and at the same time it skips alldetected bad sectorsand uses the next one after it. This process is calledinternal formattingand occurs without external participation under hard drive’s program. Apart from factory’s P-list a storage device also has G-list (Grown-list) containing information about bad sectors revealed while in operation. The only thing you can do at home is to remap the revealed defect inspare areawith all that it implies (loss of performance). It would be worth mentioning several reservations about this method. Size ofG-listis not large and remap cannot continue to be saved there endlessly: only until G-list has space or until spare surface is exhausted. Also please bear in mind that the more sectors are being remapped, more often positioning in spare area will take place and subsequently the operation of the drive will become slower. Think seriously whether you should do it or not: does a little space loss and a beautiful picture in Scandisk without Bs worth atangible performanceindicators (depending on the number of remaps). Maybe it is better to leave it as it is and enjoy the life.Remapping process is irreversible. If something goes wrong or you are not satisfied with something, you will not be able to recall the changes. If the answer is negative, you need to get one of the following programs: HDD Speed, HDD Utility, or again MHDD. On top of that you will need any SMART attribute viewer: there is such in HDD Speed, but you can as well take a separate program (SMARTUDM). It is assumed that you have already tried to curelogical bad blocks, you failed and now we try to hide physical ones. Lets study again an example of MHDD. Mechanism of actions would be almost the same as previously. Having booted from the diskette we examine the state ofS.M.A.R.T.Then start MHDD and select the drive required. It is not required to save the drive’s information (though it can be done), because it won’t be destroyed. Initialize the drive by pressing F2. Then press F4 and select the necessary parameter in the top line, LBA or CHS, and then turn on remap function and startdisk surface scanby pressing F4 (or by runningSCANin console). Then you need to check for presence of bad blocks.Remapped bad sectorsare replaced with[ok]. After the first scan, in which remapping was done, launch another scan. If nothing about remapping was informed, then no need to launch it once again. Having done that, study SMART indications.The following options are possible: remapped sectors indicator increased, bad sectors disappeared – it means that we have achieved what we wanted andbad sectorshave been replaced with spare ones; number ofremapped sectorsremained unchanged, bad sectors didn’t disappear: it can happen due to the following reasons – the nature of bad sectors is not what we assumed or sector cannot be replaced; controller didn’t see that that was really a bad sector (and there is no way to point it out to the controller in user mode, you can just try to hint about it by trying read/write of the necessary sector), G-list is full (it should be visible in SMART indications), the drive defies remapping. In the first case all you are left with is to dig further. If G-list is full, then just put up with non-remappable sectors orcontact specialists, who can launch the formatting from inside a drive: in this case the existing bad sectors will be added toP-list, andG-listwill be clear. This is the best option because in this case there are noside effectsfrom remapping. You won’t be able to launch it at home and the probability of ditching hard drive is too high in case formatting will be interrupted (drive will be left withouttranslator, it can be helped but still) – or power failure or fluctuation (according to the Murphy’s Law it always happens at the worst possible moment), that is why drive manufacturers try not to give such functions to ordinary user. If the drive doesn’t yield to remap at all, nothing can be done about it, but ifremap functionis turned off in itself, then simply turn it on with vendor tool (you can find it on manufacturer’s website). The majority of users who have heard/read something somewhere think of low-level disk formatting as a solution to fight bad sectors. There is even a legend that this special kind of formatting allowscuring bad sectors, and many devoted forums from time to time have question of the following type‘please tell where can I get a tool for low-level drive, I have bad sectors’. Lets see what it is and whether it is so useful in reality. Low-level formattingis connected with 50h command of ATA standard, that came from ST506/412 interface. It should perform track formatting with set physical parameters. However, allmodern hard drivesdiffer on the low level, because this level is fully developed by manufacturer. Translator hidesinternal structureand that is why there is no sense in this command. The majority of modern hard drives support it for compatibility. But since its primary function is not relevant any more, therefore they react to it in different ways. Firstly, the command can be completely ignored. Secondly, in some old drives the command is able to zapservice data areas(apparently this is where rumours about Low Level Format damaging effect). Thirdly, it can zero all user data and fourthly, it can remap sector which is important for us in the context of this article. Talks about magic formatting apparently take roots in the fact that sometimes it is possible to curelogical bad sectorsor remap physical ones. This is the essence of such formatting-treatment. No more, no less. But we already have the necessary tools. Why look for adventures? I think these are all operations that could be performed by naïve user. In case of some other defect one can think of other ways oftreating and eliminatingthem. For example, ifbad sectorsappear as one compact block inside the disk or at the beginning of it, you can divide it in such a way that they would constitute inaccessible partition, or in case bad sectors are at the end, you can usespecial programs(the same MHDD, for example), or cut the drive’s tail: capacity will shrink but at the same time bad sectors will be removed from operation; in case of bad sectors caused by head crash, it can be simply disconnected (although this is not user operation). Generally speaking, the space for creativity outpour is huge. But try not to indulge too much and do not forget that sometimes it is better tocontact specialists. ...read more

Today I would like to talk aboutSMART technologyand also clarify the issue of appearance of bad sectors during surface checking with special programs and exhaustion of spare surface forremapping. Short historic background for starters. A great importance is always given to the reliability ofhard disk drive(and any other storage device for that matter). And the matter is not in its price but in value of information that it takes to another world when it leaves this one and inprofits lossconnected withdowntimein case of failure or crash, if we are speaking about business users, even if the information is still there. It is natural that one wants to know about such unpleasant moments beforehand and be prepared to face them. Even simple chit-chat suggests that observing the status of device can tell about such moments. Only thing left is to somehow implement this observation in thehard disk drive. The first who thought about this task were engineers of blue giant (i.e. IBM) and already in 1995 they have suggested atechnologymonitoring severalcritical parametersofhard driveand on the basis of collected data to foresee its failure Predictive Failure Analysis (PFA). This idea was picked up by Compaq and later on created its own technology called IntelliSafe. Seagate, Quantum and Conner also took part in Compaq’snovelty. The created technology was monitoring a number of diskperformance factorsthen compared them with allowable values and reported to the host system in case of any danger. This was a huge step forward if not in increasing thereliability of drivesthen at least in reducing the risk ofdata loss. First attempts were successful and showed the necessity to move forward with developing the technology. Only in association of all major manufacturers appeared aS.M.A.R.T technology(Self Monitoring Analysing and Reporting Technology), based on IntelliSafe and PFA (talking about PFA, it still exists as a set of technologies for manitoring and analysis of different IBM servers’ subsystems, including disk sybsystem, themonitoringof latter is based on SMART). So, SMART. It is the technology of HDDinternal status assessmentand mechanism for foreseeing possiblecrash or failureof thehard disk drive. It is important to note that the technology in principle does not solve appearing problems (main of them are displayed in the picture below), it is only capable of warning about the already existing problem or expected one in the nearest future. It should be noted that the technology is not able to foresee absolutely all possible problems and it is reasonable: electronics failure as a result ofpower surge, head and surface damage resulting from shock and the like – no technology will be able to foresee such things. Foreseeable problems are only those that are connected withgradual degradationof any specification or component. Technology development stages In its development SMART has passed through three stages. First generation included monitoring of a few parameters. No self-activity of drive was envisaged. It was launched only by running interface commands. There is no specification fully describing the standard and, accordingly, there is no precise outline about what kind of parameters should be controlled. Moreover, thedefinition of parametersand the level of reduction is in the hands of the manufacturers (which is because the manufacturer knows better what is to be controlled in its hard drive, since all drives are too different). And software written as rule by third companies was not heavy duty and could mistakenly report about future crash (the confusion appeared becausedifferent manufacturersregistered different values for the same parameters). There have been many complaints that the number of cases of detecting pre-crash state is too low (peculiarities of human nature: you want to get everything and at once; no one even thought of complaining about suddendrive failuresbefore SMART was introduced). Situation got even worse because in most cases the minimum requirements for normal SMART functioning have not been met. Statistics shows that the number offoreseeablecrasheswas less than 20%. The technology at this stage was far from perfect but still was a breakthrough in this field. There is not much known about the second stage of SMART - SMART II. Essentially same problems have been observed as in case with the first stage. Innovations were the following: possibility ofbackground surface checkperformed by the drive in automatic mode, error logging, enlarged list of controlled parameters (but again depending on the model and manufacturer). Statistics shows that the number of foreseeable crushes reached 50%. The modern stage is represented bySMART III. Here we will dig deeper and try to make sense of how it works and what and why we need it or in it. We already know that SMART monitors main key features of the drive. These features are called attributes. Necessary for monitoring parameters are determined by the manufacturer. Each attribute has a certain value. Usually it is measured within the range form 0 to 100 (though it can be within the range up to 200 or 255), its value is the reliability of a certain attribute relative to somereference value(determined by the manufacturer). High value indicates that there are no changes of this particular parameter or, depending on the value, about slow worsening. Low value indicates about fast degradation or possible soon crash, in other words the higher the value the better it is. Some monitoring programs displayRaw or Raw Value, this is the attribute’s value in internal format (that also varies from model to model), the format in which it is kept on the drive. It is less informative for ordinary user and calculated from it value is of more interest. Each attribute gets a bottom possible value under which it can guaranteeflawless operationof the device – the so-called Threshold. If attribute’s value drops lower than the Threshold there are high chances of upcoming failure or crash. Another thing to mention is that attributes can be critical and not critical. If a critical parameter drops below the threshold it means crash, if non-critical parameter drops below threshold is indicates of a problem but the drive still can maintain its operability (although some performance factors could worsen). Most frequently observed critical parameters are the following: Raw Read Error Rate– error rate at data reads caused by hardware part of the drive. Spin Up Time– time of stack of disks spin up from the state of repose to working speed. When estimating normal value, the practical time is compared with a certain reference value, set at the factory. Not deteriorating not maximal value during Spin Up Retry Count Value = max (Raw = 0) doesn’t tell of anything bad. Time difference from the reference time can be caused by the number of reasons, for example, power supply unit failed. Spin Up Retry Count– number of disk spin up retries to reach working speed in case first try failed. Zero Raw value (accordingly not maximal Value) indicates about problems in mechanical part of the drive. Seek Error Rate– head stack positioning error rate. High Raw value indicates about presence of a problem, that can be the following: damage of servo markings, excessive thermal expansion of disks, mechanical problems in positioning block, etc. Permanent high value speaks of good condition. Reallocated Sector Count– number of sector reallocation operations. In modern drives SMART can analyse sectors for operation stability ‘on the fly’ and in case it recognizes sector as bad, it can reallocate it. Below we will discuss it in details. The following are non-critical, informative attributes that are monitored: • Start/Stop Count– full number of spindle starts/stops. Under the guarantee the disk motor can bear only a certain number of starts/stops. This value is selected as threshold. First drive models with rotation speed of 7200 RPM had unreliable motors that could handle only a small number of starts/stops and failed very soon. • Power On Hours– number of on hours. The threshold value for it is Mean time between failures (MBTF). Considering that usually these accepted MBTF values are practically impossible, it is unlikely that the parameter will ever reach the critical threshold. But even in this case failure is not necessary. • Drive Power Cycle Count– number of full drive power on/off cycles. According to this and previous attribute one can assess, for example, how many times the drive was used before it was purchased. • Temperature– clear and simple. It contains the readings of built-in thermal sensor. Temperature has a great affect on drive’s operating life (even if it is within tolerable limits). • Current Pending Sector Count– it contains the number of sectors pending for replacement. They have not yet been recognized as bad, but reading from them differs from reading the stable sector, so called suspicious or unstable sectors. • Uncorrectable Sector Count– number of addressing sector errors that have not been corrected. Possible reasons could be mechanical part failures or surface damage. • UDMA CRC Error Rate-  number of errors appearing during external interface data transfer. Could be caused by poor cables, abnormal modes. • Write Error Rate– shows write error rate. Can serve as a quality indicator for surface and mechanics. All errors that occur as well as changing parameters arelogged inSMART. This possibility has appeared already in SMART II. All log parameters, designation, size and their number are determined by the drive’s manufacturer. What we are currently interested in is the fact of their presence. No details. Information contained in logs is used for condition analysis and projection.If you do not get into details then the work of SMART is pretty simple – when the drive is on, all errors and suspicious phenomena reflected in relevant attributes are tracked. Additionally, starting form SMART II, many drives have self-diagnostics functions. Launching SMART tests is possible intwo modes, off-line – test is performed in background becausethe driveis ready to receive and execute the command and burst mode under which when command is received testing is completed. Three types of self-diagnostics tests are documented: off-line data collection, short self-test and extended self-test). The latter two can be performed in both off-line as well as burst mode. The set of tests included is not standardized. Test timing can vary from seconds to minutes and hours. If you are not addressing the drive and it still makes sound like during normal working load, it seems like it is busy withself-analysis. All data collected as a result of such tests will also be saved in logs and attributes. Oh, these bad sectors... Now lets get back to where it all started, i.e.bad sectors. SMART III introduced a function allowing to the user to transparently remap bad sectors. The mechanism operation is quite simple, when sector reading is unstable or reading error, SMART registers it into the list of unstable sectors and increase its current pending sector count. If upon repeated reading the sector will be fine, it will be removed from this list. If not, then upon the first possibility and whenthe hard driveis not busy, the drive will start surface checking and suspicious sectors will come first in to-check list. If sector will be marked as bad, it will be remapped with sector from spare surface (accordingly, RSC will increase). Such off-line remapping leads to the fact that bad sectors are practically not visible on modern drives by service programs. At the same time, in case there is a high number of bad sectors, theremappingcannot be performed forever. The first limit here is clear – it is the volume of spare surface. Second is not as clear – the thing is that modern drives have two defect listsP-list(Primary, factory) andG-list(Growth, formed when in operation). And in case of a large number of remaps it can happen that there is simply no space in G-list to make a record about new remap. This situation can be detected by high value of remapped sectors in SMART. In this case all is not lost, but this is beyond the present article. So, using SMART data you can tell what is the problem with no need of taking it to the service centre. There are various technologies-add-ons over SMART, that allow you to determine thedrive conditioneven more precisely and practically for sure the reason behind its malfunction. You need to keep in mind that buying drive with SMART technology is not enough to be well aware of all problems occurring to it. The drive, of course, can monitor its condition without third party interference, but it will not be able to warn you in case of approaching danger. You need something that will warn you on the basis of SMART data. (regular chain is displayed in the image below). BIOS could be an option, which, upon booting and if relevant option is on, checks drives’ SMART condition. And if you want to perform a permanent monitoring ofhard disk drivecondition, you need to use some kind ofmonitoring program. Then you will be able to track all information in details and in auser-friendly style. SmartMonitor from HDD Speed working under DOS SIGuiardian, working from Windows All these programs worth a separate article. This is what I meant when talking about initial non-fulfillment of necessary requirements during SMART-enabledhard drivesoperation. ...read more

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