Main interface of DTI Surface Scanner
DTI Surface Scanner is a software of DTIData (a well-known US company in the field of data recovery), provided free of charge here (1.78MB capacity, compatible with Windows XP / Vista / 7).
Not only the internal hard drive, DTI Surface Scanner also supports checking and detecting bad sectors for USB drives (including portable hard drives).
After installation and activation, press the I Agree button to get to the program interface. First, click the Mount button to identify and display all the built-in hardware, the USB drive is connected to the computer under the Physical Media List . Next, check the hard drive / USB drive you want to check and click the Scan button to start.
Compared to programs running in DOS environment, the DTI Surface Scanner's working speed is much faster. The number of bad sectors that the program detects will be displayed on the right of the Errors section, but if the value in the Errors section is 0, the hard drive / USB drive is completely healthy .
If the hard drive has bad sectors too much, you should back up important data in a safe place and prepare money to buy a new hard drive, because cutting bad sectors is just a temporary solution.