DTI Data is happy to announce the release of an updated version of our most popular freeware: Windows Surface Scanner!
The new version now allows for reports to be printed as to where the bad sectors are, but more impressive is the relationship section, which can tell you what file system components have been damaged. This is a full version data recovery Freeware tool that required no registration.
Often times when a computer is running slow, or having problems accessing files, the hard drive has bad sectors. Windows Surface Scanner is a free tool that will scan the hard drive, report on bad sectors and tell you what’s on the bad sectors and might have problems.
The following file system components are scanned:
- Master Boot Record – If there are any problems within the master boot records, this is where they will be.
- OS Boot Record – This will tell you if there are problems with the Operating System boot-up files.
- Master File Table – The Master File Table is the area of the drive that holds all information about the file system. It has a record for every file stored on the partition. A Master File Table Record stores file information, such as, creation, modification, and last access dates, on disk size and real size, security permissions etc. The most important information the Master File Table stores is the cluster map in the form of runlists. The cluster map stores all the information as to where the file data is actually stored and if corrupted or unreadable as in the case of a bad sector, the file becomes inaccessible. Windows Surface Scanner will alert you to the fact that the MFT is corrupt and may cause problems when accessing certain files.
- File Allocation Table – The File Allocation Table, or FAT, is the FAT32, and FAT16 file systems answer to a runlist. Although not embedded in the File Entry record data, the File Entry Record points to the first cluster in a data run which is reflected in the FAT. The FAT then uses an old school technology called single linked list using a terminator to cap off the end of the run. If the FAT has a corrupt sector then many files may be affected since a single sector in a FAT may hold several linked cluster runs for multiple files. Windows Surface Scanner will indicate that the FAT has a corrupt sector and may be affecting access to some sectors.
You can download the Windows Surface Scanner Here.
The Quick Start Guide can be found here for the Windows Surface Scanner
If your hard drive has a bunch of bad sectors, you will need hard drive data recovery. Call 727-251-2058 for more information or support on Windows Surface Scanner.
I couldn’t find an email address for contact/feedback regarding Windows Surface Scanner but here are a few things that I noticed after downloading version 2.20 today:
When I clicked on Mount nothing happened. A quick phone call to you led to discovering that the program is supposed to go to Admin mode but mine didn’t. I had to right-click the icon in the start menu and check “Run as Admin” myself.
According to the list of installed programs in the Control Panel the installed version is 2.10 although what I downloaded claimed to be 2.20.
I compared the hard drive error list to that produce by MiniTool Partition Wizard. It repeatedly found only 4 bad blocks. You found 100+. I think that you’re the accurate count. Maybe they’re doing large reads and just reporting how many failed instead of dropping back to block-at-time when the large read fails.
For the record I’m running Windows Vista with Service Pack 3.
Brian
p.s.: great little piece of software. Thanks for making it available.