3 Possible Things You Can Do to Repair Hard Drive Bad Sectors

Traditional hard drive carries multiple mechanical parts which degrades over time and affect its standard operation. Hard disk platter is one such equipment which plays the crucial role in saving and transferring the stored data. Due to its magnetic nature, the surface of the platter starts wearing out more often than normal. Once the magnetic area of the hard disk platter becomes damaged, it can’t be used by the system to store further data as well as the existing data become corrupt or damaged. Damaged area on the platters are known as Bad sectors of hard drive which will result in data loss of that particular area.

                          

Bad sectors can also surfaced by physical damage delivered by dropping or throwing it on the floor. It is impossible to repair the damaged sectors physically, there are still some way out to repair it if the corruptions are logical (soft bad sectors) by running disk error checking tool in Windows or running disk utility in Mac. These utilities are designed to cooperate bad sectors smoothly so that it won’t hamper the saved data consistency and not damage its nearby sectors.

There are specially two types of bad sectors on the hard disk which may ends up in making your data corrupt or unreadable. 

Soft bad sectors: Such problems arises due to software malfunction, read/write head problems which scratched the data area of the hard drive and makes data become unreadable by the operating system. These bad sectors are fairly common and can happen with hard drive of any age. The easiest possible solution to get rid of the soft bad sectors is by completely formatting or erasing the hard drive. Formatting will fill zero bytes on each and every sectors of the hard drive and make it ready to be used once again.

Hard bad sectors: Any mechanical problems with the hard drive itself can result in hard bad sectors. Such bad sectors has tendency to damage its nearby sectors and soon, makes the entire hard drive with loads of bad sectors enough for making it completely failed. Hard bad sectors can’t be repaired and the best bet is to copy/move all your data immediately and purchase another hard drive to continue using your system without any trouble. Using hard drive recovery software will not help at all in such circumstances as the drive already becomes unreable by the BIOS and therefore, recovery software too can't read it anymore.

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Investigating Bad Sectors

 
There are few simple steps to find out whether your hard drive having bad sectors; however we suggest you to follow the extensive method of pin pointing the bad sectors on your hard drive.

Disk error checking: Windows have inbuilt utility that performs detailed analysis for files and folders and check for their consistencies. In case you’re experiencing problem with scan such as crashing, showing error while checking disk, freezing etc. , it might be a sign of failing hard disk as the bad sectors might preventing the normal operation of disk error checking operation.

Surface scan test: This test is performed on the hard drive with suspected with bad sectors symptoms. While checking, it’ll check and mark the bad sectors and use spare sectors to replace them.

SMART Tool:It performs the series of test on the problem hard drive and gives exact record of health status of problem hard drive including the bad sectors count.

Once you found that the hard drive has fairly large number of bad sectors, you should immediately start seeking for alternative options to repair it or replacing the whole hard drive (if your budget allows).

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Repairing bad sectors
Bad sectors can result in major disaster and all your hard disk data soon become inaccessible. While it’s almost impossible to get back data from the damaged sectors, you can try repairing the logically damaged bad sectors so it won’t affect the remaining area of the hard drive.

Follow steps carefully mentioned below and see if you can overcome with any or all the bad sectors you may have found during scanning.

#1. Check Disk Utility
Microsoft Windows comes with an inbuilt disk repair utility to fix minor or major problems with the system such as problems with the volume, cross linked files, bad sectors, directory related errors and more.

You can run this utility directly from ‘My Computer’ > Windows Explorer or using elevated command prompt window. Below are the steps to run this utility from ‘My computer’:

• Open ‘My Computer’ by double clicking on it or directly press ‘window’ button + E.
• Right click on desired hard disk volume/partition and choose properties for which, you want to check errors. In case you are not sure which volume to select first, start by selecting any volume and if the problem is not resolved, follow the same procedure to check errors for another volume.
• On the Tools tab, click on Check Now button located under error checking section.
• Pop up window will open and ask you to choose the desired task to perform. Ensure that you’ve check mark the two boxes stating ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ and ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’.
• Click on Start to begin the scanning procedure.

Note: This utility wants exclusive access on the volume you’ve chosen to perform disk error check function. Also, the whole procedure may takes little longer time depending on the size of the targeted volume.

#2. Utilities provided from hard drive manufacturer
Famous hard drive manufacturer such as Western Digital, Seagate or Maxtor provide their own drive check utility such as Data Lifegaurd Diagnostics, Seatools for Windows and PowerMax.

These utilities were designed to perform error check function on the hard drive of only relevant manufacturer except WD Data Lifegaurd Diagnostics which generally detects hard drive from any manufacturers and attempt to repair bad sectors.

These utilities are fairly easy to use and runs in wizard based interface. Users with basic to advanced computer knowledge can efficiently use these tools.

#3. Disk Checkup from PassMark
It is a little different and comparatively easy to use utility which clearly draws barrier between normal and problem hard drive by executing tests based on the series of attributes. It comes with prebuilt SMART diagnostic tool which fetch all the required details from the hard disk and later, compares it with any normal hard drive which has nearly new or in perfect condition.

How to repair a corrupt InDesign file on Mac OS X?

Used widely for desktop publishing, Adobe’s InDesign software is a trusted application and lifeline of many people. However, to the horror, many a times the InDesign document goes through minor or major corruption that stops the file to act as a normal InDesign (INDD) files. In case of corruption of an InDesign file, the properties of the file may act completely out of order.  An InDesign file is potentially equipped to handle power surge or sudden shutdown of the Mac by initiating ‘Automated Document Recovery’ assistance. Since, the corruption would be lighter, the INDD file will emerge through document recovery assistance.

But, talking of a much major debacle, the INDD file may end up damaged badly through application conflicts, OS X problems, and Trojans threats or poor disk spaces. 

Diagnosing the core damage of InDesign file:

Hard Drive problem: Logically speaking, the hard drive of the OS X can corrupt any application including the InDesign software. The corruption could range from being physical or logical damages to the disk, in turn damaging the InDesign. The disk may also develop some bad sectors and that too were InDesign software or files are located. Disk Utility feature of OS X Mac can prove to be of great help in curing logical damages received to the disk. To start with, use Spotlight to search and launch Disk Utility. Go to the hard drive and run ‘Repair Disk’ from First Aid Tab. Any sort of disk corruption that can be resolved with the Disk Utility will be taken care of.

If Disk Utility fails to resolve the problem or INDD has many major issues beyond the scope of D.U., then explore below procedure:

• First thing first, get backup of the partition where INDESIGN files are stored. Our efforts will require altering some properties of the INDD file. The backup will secure the INDD file in its more refreshed form.

• Make efforts to get recent updates of the installed Adobe InDesign software on OS X Mac. May be the issue is persisting in an older version of the software, which might have just corrected in the newer versions.

• The cause of the problem may lie in INDD preference file(s). OS X Mac retrieves an application’s information from these preference files. InDesign too have there own Preference files. Two of the preference file for an InDesign is the ""InDesign SavedData and InDesign Defaults files"".  Any of these couple of files going through damages will make the InDesign document behave erratically. But no worries, OS X allows to recreate the above 2 Preference files but doing so will pull back the application to default settings.

How to Recreate INDD Preference files?

• Quit the InDesign application

• Immediately press the key combination: Control + Option + Command + Shift through Mac keyboard.

• A window will appear asking you to "Delete InDesign Preference Files?”. Proceed with ‘Yes’.

• InDesign opens with newly created preference files (though custom setting will be lost).

Dedicated software to repair an INDD file: Couple of INDD repair software available for OS X Mac is:

• Stellar Phoenix InDesign Repair - http://www.stellarinfo.com/media-tools/indesign-repair-mac.php
• Markzware - http://markzware.com/products/id2q/id2q-store/

3 Major Problems Related to Windows Update and Their Relevant Solution – Windows 8

Microsoft releases updates and security patches for your Windows system to ensure its smooth functioning and protection against various type of Trojan and malware. Depending upon the settings you choose, Windows can install crucial updates automatically or you can manually start the process and then let the computer install updates for you.

P.S. Microsoft released critical updates on every second and fourth Tuesday of every month.

There are mainly three type of Windows updates provided from Microsoft, based upon their importance:

Important: Such updates are important for keeping your system safe and reliable, covering all your safety and privacy concerns.

Recommended: It is important to update installed software and drivers from time to time to achieve best performance out of your system. Recommended updates will be provided with important updates which generally download and install updates for the running programs.

Optional: These are the updates about new or trail Microsoft software which you may able to install manually.

On the darkest side, if you don’t install these updates daily or weekly (at least), your system may starts freezing, crashing or suddenly becomes inaccessible. In worst cases, user may not able to access the stored hard drive data and the only way out to recover data is by using inaccessible data recovery software.

However, there are some common problems related to Windows updates which may leave your system in unbootable state. Let us understand the problems with such updates along with subsequent troubleshooting steps to make your system working again.

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System become inaccessible after installing updates
In some cases, after installing one or two updates and security patches from Microsoft, the system was not able to start successfully and give error messages like Blue screen of death, failed start loop, stuck at booting screen etc. You’ll need to double check and ensure that the problem is surfaced after the update installation took place and you haven’t done anything else that causes system inaccessibility.

Older version of Windows such as Windows 7, Vista and XP comes with an option to start system with previously loaded system files and drivers, known as “Last Known Good Configuration”. You can use this option by continuously tapping F8 just after starting your system which will takes you to the advanced system startup options. In case you’re using Windows 8, try reset or refresh option on your computer.

Windows 7 offers various other useful tools to fix unbootable computer like startup repair, system image recovery or system restore. You can apply any or all the option and check if you may able to get into Windows once again. Once you able to access your system, you may perhaps want to look for the culprit and uninstall it if it were still there:

Under ‘Control Panel’ option, click ‘Programs’ and then click on ‘View Installed updates’ option under ‘Programs and Features’ tab. Select the update that you want to remove and click on ‘Uninstall’ option to begin removing that particular update. If you want to remove any recently installed updates, check out their details like date and time, update name and related services or programs.

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System give freezes after installing updates

After installing recently available updates, you couldn’t able to access program, play music or simply turn it off. System does nothing except to stay there forever.

                                       

These are the security updates released for keeping your files and folders safe and prevent viruses to steal confidential data. The problem surfaced when updates were not fully installed or stuck at mid of installation and therefore hamper performance of other important system files use to boot and perform read/write operation.

Once you are at mid of such tragic circumstances and puzzled could save you from this, run your system using clean boot mode. Clean boot is a special technique to start system with minimal set of drivers and programs so could you find the culprit driver or programs and later able to start your system.

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USB Device not working after installing update

Microsoft sometime releases updates for your USB ports to ensure faster and reliable performance for various type of USB Devices. These update also helps your computer in easily reading the stored content and alarms if there is any suspicious files trying to interrupt performance of your computer.

                                                 

On the other hand, sometime these updates make your system unable to detect USB devices. Moreover, it’ll make your system to freeze or hang as soon as you connect the USB device on your system. There is a special case that I’ve found where Windows 8 computer stop reading any USB device after installing update: KB2756872. Follow the steps mentioned below to free yourself from such problems:

1. Restart your computer and switch to BIOS settings.
2. Go to Advanced mode > USB Configuration.
3. Find option ‘USB Legacy support’ and ‘USB3.0 Legacy support’ and make it disabled.
4. Press F10 to save changes and exit from the BIOS.
5. Again, restart your computer.
6. Go to control panel > windows update and locate the recently installed updates after which, this all started happening.
7. Remove that updates and restart computer back again.
8. Again, in BIOS settings mode, set both the options to enable back again which we had previously set to disabled: USB Legacy Support & USB3.0 Legacy Support.
9. Save and exit from the BIOS by pressing F10 and hitting enter.

Most probably, you may now able to access USB storage device and its stored content with absolutely no problem at all.

Free Image converter for Mac OS X

Easy Image Converter:

This app can be easily downloaded from App Store for free. A look at its interface clearly suggests why it has its name as ‘Easy Image Converter’. Once the installed app is opened from the Launch Pad it takes the upper-right most position of the Mac desktop.

  

Take a look at the interface of the ‘EasyImage Converter’ app. The app uses drag & drop feature of the OS X Mac to load images ready for conversion.

Once I drop an image on the ‘Downward Arrow’ space, it shows me below options for conversion. 

This app can convert any image to 5 major image formats such as JPG, BMP, TIFF, PNG and GIF.  Once I select any of the one option, suppose ‘GIF’, it asks me for a location to save the converted file.

I choose ‘Desktop’ and click on the ‘Choose’ button. And yeah, I got the GIF version of the same image, which I selected, for conversion. All in all a good utility to start my day.

Pros:

·      Easy Interface

·      Productive

·      Supports batch conversion of multiple files

Cons:

·      Lack of more important image file formats

Pixillion for Mac

Unlike Easy Image Converter for Mac, Pixillionseems to have a heavy interface that supports more than just image conversion. It has also got more features to offer such as ‘Burn’ images to a DVD.

The interface contains major features, which can be accessed via buttons:

·      Click the large green + to add single or multiple files.

·      Add folders

·      Make selection for conversions

·      Remove an unwanted file from the conversion tray.

·      Burn images to media.

·      Choose an Output format & output folder

·      Lastly, the CONVERT button.

Below screenshot shows the selected 3 files are converted to PNG image format and saved on the same location as source.

Pros:

·      Friendly UI

·      Availability of more features

·      Can add Effects

Cons: Oops..None

Stellar Image Converter for Mac

A first glance at the StellarImage converter for Mac confuses you, as a Mac's own built in application. But it is 3rd party software for image conversion. 

 

The developer of the app has tried to make it look like Mac's own application. Just like Finder, it displays connected hard drive & main folders on the left panel of the software interface. Like Mac, it has got couple of 'View' options. Quick View & Convert button can also be seen on top of the black screen. One thing I liked about this app is to upload the images, click on any hard drive icon<<folder and it will scan, upload all images on the menu. With the help of CMD+Click, make multiple selections for file conversion. 

Once selection is done, click on the Convert Button to start the process. Select image output and destination. Press OK. 

Conversion is done and a message appears. Click on 'Click here' to view images on the saved location.

Below is the list of 14 file formats that Stellar Image Convert converts an image to.

Output at destination:

Pros:

·      Mac based UI

·      Bulk Image selection

·      14 outputs to convert for

Cons:

·      Can free convert only up to 500KB of image size.

3 Things to Do When Windows 8 Computer Won’t Boot

Windows 8 is designed to run smoother and perform better even in the critical situations. However, as like other operating system problems, it may also run into problems and might prevent you to access your computer normally.

Luckily, Windows 8 is furnished with many advanced tools and automatic repair options to heal common issues which causes defective performance, booting failure, freezing etc. Manually looking for problems with your Windows 8 computer is time consuming and comprises lot of computer knowledge.

To make the troubleshooting process simpler, Windows 8 has introduced these tools to automatically find and repair problems and let you use your computer as before. Coming straight to the point, let’s discuss about those tools and how you can use it if facing similar situations:

#1 Use Automatic Repair option
Windows will automatically launch self recovery tool like 'Automatic Repair' to address issues with your Windows 8 computer. It can repair unbootable computer, freezes, inaccessibility and thus, allows user to recover deleted hard disk partitions and data.

What it scans:

• Configuration options
• Various settings
• Corrupt system files that causes damages

What it Repairs:

• Damaged system files and registries
• Removes malware and boot sector virus
• Unwanted settings
• Makes file system stable to boot

1. To access automatic repair, simply press ‘Windows + Q’ button and type ‘Advanced’ in the search text bar. Tap on ‘Settings’ and then click on ‘Advanced Startup Options’ from the search results appear at the left side of the window.
   
                    
2. On the ‘General PC Settings’ screen, scroll down your window to bottom and locate advanced startup. Click on the restart now button placed just below the advanced startup option. Windows 8 will begin restarting and take you to the advanced startup options menu.
   
                   
3. Click on Troubleshoot from choose an option screen and then advanced options button. Next screen will open with an option to begin Automatic repair. Once you click on it, Windows 8 will prepare automatic repair environment. In between, you’ll need to enter Administrator password for your account that you’re trying to repair.
   
                     

Automatic repair will begin evaluating your computer for problems and will fix them instantly if it can.

Note: While performing automatic repair, your computer will restarts. So be calm and stay relax as it may take time, sometimes longer than expected.

Once automatic repair completed its intended tasks, you can see what it has already repaired and what it can’t. In case automatic repair can’t able to repair any problems, it’ll show you an option to shut down your computer or use even more advanced tools.

#2 Use System Restore
This is the second place you should look if automatic repair can’t find any problems. System restore works well if your PC run into unknown problems and can’t be repaired manually or by using third party tools. It’ll simply restore everything back to any previous date (known as restore point) when you know that the system was performing well. You can easily access this option from Windows 8 recovery environment.


Follow step 1 and step 2 as you did while accessing Automatic repair option to get to the ‘Choose an option’ screen. Now click on ‘Troubleshoot’ button and then ‘Advanced option’. Next screen will include ‘System Restore’ option, click on it to let windows prepare for restoring the system. You’ll reach to screen where you may require to enter administrator password. After entering the password, click on ‘Continue’ button and the system will begin ‘Restore’.


                                


Click on the ‘Next’ button and wizard will comes with list of restore points currently available. Choose any date which you think that the system was working well. Be careful to check for ‘Scan for affected programs’ which becomes visible only after choosing any date to restore your system. It’ll simply list all the programs or updates which will be removed when you choose to restore your system at that particular instant of time.

                          

If you’re satisfied with it and wants to continue, click on ‘Next’ to begin restoring your system to that particular date. Click on ‘Yes’ when the confirmation box appears to ask you about confirmation of this task.

 

After restoring process finished, it’ll display a confirmation box stating that the restoring process has been completed successfully.

Click on the ‘Restart’ button to restart your system and see if you may able to use your Windows 8 computer as before.

#3 Refresh or Reset your Windows 8 computer
Refresh or Reset option is introduced with Windows 8 computer to address almost any technical glitches and brings back PC to perfectly working state. These are the different Windows 8 healing method from the aforementioned and may involves pros hands to care of everything and make sure that you’re not running into any additional difficulties.

Refreshing Windows 8 computer will simply revive system from freezing, booting failure and similar difficulties without removing your apps (only apps that came with Windows 8 when shipped) and files. However, you’ll need to reinstall all your desktop apps customize your PC settings. So be careful while performing this step unlike the other two mentioned previously.

In simple terms, refresh will simply removes nearly all the minor or major problems with your operating system without making it as fresh it was before. From the ‘General PC settings page’, you can find the option to ‘Refresh your PC without affecting your system files.’ Click on the ‘Get Started’ icon located just below this option and windows 8 will begin refreshing your computer. 

Next screen will simply contains each and everything you need to know about what happens if you choose to refresh your PC. Once assured, click on ‘Next’ and Windows 8 will perform refresh. 

You’ll also need to insert Windows 8 installation or recovery media to complete this task as it’s not a standalone process. At that stage, if you don’t have any such media, consider borrowing it from your friends or make one by using different Windows 8 computer. Just few more steps after inserting the desired media and you’ll ready again to sign in with your Microsoft account and begin exploring your computer as before.

Note: List of removed apps will pop up as soon as the system restarts. Here you’ll get a detailed idea about which apps you may need to reinstall and later, perform one by one installation.

Unlike refresh, resetting your PC will simply remove everything from the system and make it as fresh as when shipped. You can adopt this idea too when thinking about disposing or selling out your Windows 8 computer as it’ll make you free from any trouble of your data from being stolen or misused.

Again, from the ‘General PC settings’ screen you can find option to ‘Remove everything and reinstall Windows’. Click on ‘Get started’ button and then ‘Next’ on the blue ribbon pop up message stating further details about this process. On the next screen, you’ll get two option just remove my files (quick method) and fully clean the drive (usually takes longer time than the first one). Choose any one based on your requirement and within moments, Window will restart and asks you to follow steps exactly as you did on the first time.

Surely, this isn’t a good idea when you wants your apps and data to be intact. However, if no other ways has been left or none of them working in fixing problems with your Windows 8 computer, adopt any of these two options and it’ll do the trick for sure.

Have you faced similar Windows 8 booting failure issues in the past and was able to recover from it using different method or tools, we would love to hear!!