MHDD program - detailed instructions for use. Recovering a Hard Drive Using mhdd

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

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

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

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

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

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

INIT Reset and recalibration

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

SMART / Control the SMART system and view attributes

STOP / Stop spindle

I/ Send ID commands, then INIT

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

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

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

TOF Reading disk sectors to a file

MHDD Program

MHDD is a small but powerful free program designed to work with hard drives at the lowest level (bypassing the BIOS). It can diagnose drives, read and write random sectors, manage the SMART system, and much more.

The program distribution can be found on the developer’s website http://www.ihdd.ru. You can download MHDD as a CD image (mhdd32verx.x.iso file) or a self-extracting floppy image. On the same site there is a new version of the documentation for the program. By default, the program works with a hard drive connected to the Secondary IDE channel as the first device (Master). It can also work with SATA or SCSI drives. The MHDD program has many functions. Here are just a few steps.

Get disk information.

Scanning the disk surface.

Saving a disk image to a file.

These operations are united by the fact that they are not associated with writing data to the disk being checked, that is, they are non-destructive. There is no point in doing anything else with the disk from which the user intends to recover information. The main task is only to assess the situation, and not to check the disk, which is the main purpose of the MHDD program.

1. Burn the program to a CD, and then boot your computer from it. The drive selection menu will appear on the screen (Fig. 2.6). Select the drive you want to examine and enter its number from the list. You can call this menu at any time by pressing Shift+F3.

Rice. 2.6. Disk selection

2. After specifying the drive (for example, 3), press Enter. The program is ready to work with this hard drive. At the top of the screen are registers, or flags. Any IDE or SATA device must display a “DRIVE READY” and “DRIVE SEEK COMPLETE” message, that is, the DRDY and DRSC flags must be highlighted. The BUSY flag signals that the drive is performing some operation, such as reading or writing.

You can get help about commands at any time by pressing the F1 key. Nevertheless, many people prefer to print out the list of commands in advance and place this sheet of paper next to the computer - it’s more convenient.

All commands are entered from the keyboard; case does not matter. Entering any command is completed by pressing the Enter key. To cancel or interrupt the execution of a command, use the Esc key.

3. To obtain disk information, enter the ID command. Another command, EID, displays more detailed information (Figure 2.7).

Rice. 2.7. Disk information

4. To scan the surface, press F4 or enter the SCAN command and press Enter. A menu will appear where you can change some settings. By default, the starting sector number is zero (start sector). The ending sector number is equal to the maximum possible (end of the disk). All functions that can change or destroy data on the disk (Remap, Erase Delays) are disabled by default. To start scanning, press F4 again.

MHDD scans drives in blocks. For IDE/SATA drives, one block is equal to 255 sectors (130,560 bytes). As you scan, a map of blocks is built on the screen (Fig. 2.8). To the right of it is a “legend”. The shorter the block access time, the better. If problems arise when accessing a block, the time increases; if an error occurs, the corresponding symbol is displayed on the map.

Rice. 2.8. Surface scanning

Everything that is listed in the legend below the question mark (exceeding the permissible access time) is different variants of unreadable blocks. The interpretation of these errors is as follows:

UNC – Uncorrectable Error, uncorrectable error;

ABRT – Abort, command rejected;

IDNF – Sector ID Not found, sector identifier not found;

AMNF – Address Mark Not Found, address mark not found;

T0NF – Track 0 Not Found, it is impossible to find the zero track;

BBK – Bad BlocK, a “bad” block without specifying a reason.

The main thing here is to understand that all these are the results of physical defects inside the HDA. It is important to decide how to save data, not how to repair the hard drive. The caution when scanning is not to get carried away with diagnostics. However, the appearance of the map may suggest some conclusions.

Regularly repeating blocks with increased access time are the result of positioning the heads on the next cylinder. This is completely normal.

Randomly scattered blocks with various types of defects are a sign of general degradation of the drive. Plates, bearings or heads are worn. Perhaps the hard drive was “beaten” or overheated.

A “spot” in the middle of which there are completely unreadable blocks surrounded by blocks with increased access time is a sign of an increasing defect on the wafer. We urgently need to extract the image.

Strictly and regularly repeating identical groups of inaccessible blocks is a sign of a faulty head. If you wish, you can even calculate this head based on the physical geometry of the disk. If the surface of the plate served by this head contains the most important data, the hard drive must be repaired under special conditions. Perhaps the plate is not completely scratched yet.

A useful feature is acoustic noise control (Acoustic Management). The noise, of course, does not bother the user. However, the noise level produced when the heads move is reduced by reducing the speed at which they move. For a faulty hard drive, this may be a measure that can facilitate its operation.

1. Type the AAM command and press Enter. Here you can see the possible parameter values supported by this hard drive.

2. Enter the value corresponding to the quietest operation and press Enter. This will help the hard drive a little, especially the head block, during further manipulations.

With these steps, the diagnostics ends and data recovery begins. The MHDD program is capable of copying individual sectors or an entire disk to a file or set of files. The program skips defective unreadable sectors.

The TOF command copies a specified range of sectors (by default, from sector zero to the last sector of this disk) into a single file. The image file size cannot exceed 2 GB. If the user decides to create a disk image larger than 2 GB, then it is better to use the ATOF command, since it can automatically divide the images into separate files.

1. Type the TOF command and press Enter. The Fast Disk Image Creator prompt will appear (Fig. 2.9).

2. Enter the starting sector number and press Enter.

3. Enter the last sector number and press Enter.

Rice. 2.9. Creating an image with the TOF command

4. Enter the path and name of the image file to be created. The name is arbitrary, and the file must be created on another physical disk.

5. To start copying, press the Enter key.

Once the copying is complete, you can disconnect the problematic disk and work not on it, but on the file - its sector-by-sector copy. This will protect the disk from further damage: if the hard drive starts to malfunction, every extra minute of operation can add new bad blocks to the platters or permanently damage the damaged head. The user should begin his communication with the problem disk with copying, and postpone diagnostics.

Which program to make the copy with is an open question. There is no definitive answer to this. The MHDD program and the Victoria program, which is very similar to it, create fewer problems when reading hard drives with numerous physical defects. Such problems may be the program itself or the entire computer freezing when trying to read some bad sectors. On the other hand, the R-Studio program is somewhat more convenient, especially since you still need to extract data from the image using this program. Conclusion: you can try using several programs.

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From the book Windows Vista author Vavilov Sergey

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From the book Anonymity and Security on the Internet. From the “teapot” to the user author Kolisnichenko Denis Nikolaevich

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

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Copyright and Disclaimer

You can distribute MHDD without restrictions. You may disassemble and examine the MHDD code for educational purposes without restriction. You cannot sell MHDD.

Disclaimer of Warranties:
Use this software "as is". MHDD is very powerful and, at the same time, very dangerous program. No one can be held responsible for any harm caused by the MHDD program.

About the MHDD project

MHDD is a small but powerful free program that is designed to work with storage devices at the lowest level (as possible). The first version was released in 2000 by me, Dmitry Postrigan. It was capable of scanning the surface of a drive with an IDE interface in CHS mode. My main goal is to develop diagnostic software for drives that people can trust.

Now MHDD is much more than a diagnosis. You can do anything you want with MHDD: diagnose drives, read/write random sectors, manage the SMART system, password system, noise management system, and also change the drive size.

If you have the opportunity to financially help the project, here are the wallet numbers of the author of MHDD in the Webmoney system: Z681153514525; R131877337643.

Where to get MHDD

Whenever you need a fresh copy of MHDD, please always use the site. You can download MHDD as a CD image, as a self-extracting floppy disk image, or as an archive.

Documentation is constantly updated and is therefore only available at the current address.

What's inside the MHDD

mhdd.exe Executable program mhdd.hlp This file is used by the SMART command help system cfg/mhdd.cfg MHDD stores configuration in this file

During the first launch, the program will create a file log/mhdd.log. This is the main log file. All your actions and test results will be recorded in this file.

How it works

Let's imagine how the MSDOS operating system works when it needs to read a sector from a drive. MSDOS will simply "ask" the BIOS to do this. Then, the BIOS looks in its tables for the port addresses of the desired drive, performs the necessary checks, and then begins communicating with the drive. After everything is finished, the BIOS returns the result to the operating system.

Let's look at the diagram. Here's how a regular DOS program works with a drive:

Program<--->MSDOS<--->BIOS<--->IDE/SATA controller<--->Storage device

Now let's take a look at how MHDD works:

MHDD<--->IDE/SATA controller<--->Storage device

Main difference: MHDD does not use BIOS functions or interrupts. Thus, you don't even need to define the drive in BIOS Setup. You can even turn on the drive after MSDOS and MHDD have loaded, since MHDD works directly with the drive's registers and does not pay attention to such “little things” as, for example, partitions, file systems and BIOS restrictions.

Attention:
Never run MHDD from a drive that is located on the same physical IDE channel (cable) to which the drive under test is connected (cable, channel). You will have significant data corruption on both drives! In this regard, by default, MHDD does not work with the PRIMARY channel, since most users have MHDD there. To unblock the Primary channel, run MHDD, then exit, then edit the MHDD.CFG file. Or use the command line switch /ENABLEPRIMARY.

MHDD uses a DOS ASPI driver to access SCSI devices. If you do not plan to work with SCSI drives, then you do not need any drivers.

Hardware requirements and supported hardware

Platform:

Intel Pentium processor or better
4 megabytes of RAM
DR-DOS, MSDOS version 6.22 and higher
Any boot device (USB, CDROM, FDD, HDD)
Keyboard

IDE/SATA controllers:

Any integrated into the northbridge (port addresses: 0x1Fx for the primary channel, 0x17x for the secondary channel)
PCI UDMA controllers (automatically detected): HPT, Silicon Image, Promise (not all), ITE, ATI, possibly others. Even some RAID controllers are supported (in this case, MHDD works with each physical drive separately)
UDMA/RAID controllers integrated into the motherboard as a separate chip

Drives:

Any IDE or Serial ATA with a capacity of at least 600 megabytes. LBA mode is fully supported, however, I removed the CHS code from MHDD in versions 3.x
Any IDE or Serial-ATA with a capacity of no more than 8388607 terabytes. LBA48 mode is fully supported
Any SCSI drive with a sector size from 512 to 528 bytes

Diagnosable IDE drive must be switched to MASTER mode. All SLAVE devices must be disabled.

Other devices

Any SCSI removable media device, for example, CDROM, tape. Maximum supported sector size is 4096 bytes

Downloading the MHDD installation package

You need to decide which package you need: a CD image, a floppy image, or just an archive. Visit the website to download the appropriate package.

You can burn a CD image using any software that supports burning ISO images. Your CD will be bootable.

First start. Important information

Some people believe that MHDD is a very difficult program. They assumed that MHDD should be very simple, but when they ran it for the first time without reading the documentation, they were disappointed. MHDD is very difficult and dangerous program. It is much easier for those who are familiar with the internal structure of drives to master MHDD. If you want to gain relevant knowledge, you can start exploring this site: http://t13.org.

It is very important to understand that you will have to spend several hours, and possibly days, before you get meaningful results from MHDD. I highly recommend trying to test several drives without defects before you start working with faulty ones.

When you launch the program for the first time, it will create a new file./cfg/mhdd.cfg. The IDE Primary channel is disabled by default. If you really want to “turn it on”, please do so.

You will see a drive selection menu. Choose any device you want. You can call up this menu at any time by pressing SHIFT+F3.

Now you can click F1 and use any MHDD commands. Please, be extremely attentive when working with MHDD the first few times.

I would recommend starting with the EID, SCAN, STOP, CX and TOF commands. Some of them have keyboard shortcuts assigned to them, e.g. F4 for the SCAN command.

Take a look at registers. Any IDE or Serial ATA device must report DRIVE READY and DRIVE SEEK COMPLETE, so you should see the DRDY and DRSC flags. The BUSY flag signals that the drive is performing some operation (for example, reading or writing). Some flags such as WRITE FAULT and TRACK 0 NOT FOUND are deprecated and you should never see them. The INDEX flag is also obsolete, however, it may occasionally blink. The DATA REQUEST (DREQ) flag indicates that the drive is requesting data transfer.

If you notice the ERROR flag, look at the error register. You will be able to determine the type of error that occurred. See ATA/ATAPI standard
for further information about instructions and registers.

Using MHDD Commands

Surface scanning

Scanning any device is only possible if it can be identified using the ID or EID commands (or by pressing F2). To scan, type SCAN and press ENTER, or use F4. You will see a menu where you can change some settings. By default, the starting sector is zero (start sector). The final sector is equal to the maximum possible (end of the disk). All functions destructive to user data (Remap, Erase Delays) are disabled by default.

Press F4 again to start scanning. MHDD scans drives in blocks. For IDE/SATA drives, one block is equal to 255 sectors (130560 bytes).

How scanning works

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

MHDD repeats steps 1-5 until the final sector. If you need a scan log, you can always find it in the log/mhdd.log file.

If the scan reveals errors, the first thing to do is copy all the data from the drive. You then need to perform a full surface erase using the ERASE command, which erases every sector on your drive. The drive will recalculate the ECC fields for each sector. This helps get rid of the so-called “soft-bad” blocks. If erasing does not help, run the scan with the REMAP option enabled.

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

Viewing SMART Attributes

You can dial SMART ATT or click F8 to view attributes. What do they mean?

Perhaps the most important attribute for a modern drive is the “Reallocated Sectors Count” (Raw value). This value tells you how many remapped sectors there are on the disk. A normal drive has a raw value of zero. If you see a value of more than 50, the drive has problems. This could mean a defective power supply, vibration, overheating, or simply a defective drive.

Take a look at attribute 194 - temperature. Good values lie between 20 and 40 degrees. Some drives do not report temperature.

The UDMA CRC error rate attribute means the number of errors that occur when transmitting data over an IDE/SATA cable. The normal raw value of this attribute is zero. If you see a different value, you need to replace the cable immediately. Also, overclocking greatly affects the number of errors of this type.

Other attributes are usually not so important. See ATA/ATAPI standard
for more information about SMART attributes and tests.

Drive identification commands

Try the commands ID And EID to view information about your drive.

Reading sectors into a file

You can read just a few sectors or an entire disk into a file or set of files. Try the TOF command. The program skips bad sectors. If you plan to create an image larger than 1 gigabyte, it is better to use the ATOF command, as it can automatically “slice” the images.

Writing sectors from a file to disk

Use the FF command to write sectors to disk. You will be asked to enter the number of the first sector to record and the number of sectors to be recorded in a row.

Managing the noise characteristics of the drive

Almost all modern drives support Acoustic Management. You can reduce the noise level made when the heads move by reducing the speed at which they move. Use the AAM command to configure.

Drive configuration

Using the CONFIG command, you can view and change the drive configuration, for example, maximum UDMA mode, support for Security, SMART, AAM, HPA systems, support for LBA48 mode. It is also possible to change the disk size. Some manufacturers reduce the disk size by changing the configuration; you have the opportunity to restore the original capacity.

Batch running commands

You can write a very simple batch file (see the BATCH directory for an example) where you describe everything you want to do. Press F5 when you want to run such a file for execution.

Other commands

Click F1. You will see quick help for all MHDD commands. For more detailed information, please use the MAN command.

Command Line Options

/NOPINGPONG Mute some sounds /DISABLEBIOS Disable erasure (ERASE) through BIOS /DISABLESCSI Disable SCSI module /ENABLEPRIMARY Connect the Primary IDE/SATA channel /RO This key is used to run MHDD on write-protected media. It disables attempts to create temporary files, and also disables logging.

Frequently asked questions and answers

A list of frequently asked questions and their answers can be found at this address:

In this article, ABC PC publishes official documentation for the utility for testing MHDD hard drives. All rights to this MHDD documentation belong to the author of the program, Dmitry Postrigan. Thanks to this MHDD documentation, you can independently test your hard drive, perform low-level formatting, erase hard drive sector groups, manage the SMART area of your hard drive, and much more.

What's inside the MHDD

mhdd.exe- executable program

mhdd.hlp- this file is used by the SMART command help system

cfg/mhdd.cfg- in this file MHDD stores the configuration

During the first launch, the program will create a file log/mhdd.log. This is the main log file. All your actions and test results will be recorded in this file.

How does MHDD work?

Let's look at the diagram. Here's how a regular DOS program works with a drive:

Program<--->MSDOS<--->BIOS<--->IDE/SATA controller<--->Storage device

Now let's take a look at how MHDD works:

MHDD<--->IDE/SATA controller<--->Storage device

Main difference: MHDD does not use BIOS functions or interrupts. Thus, you don't even need to define the drive in BIOS Setup. You can even turn on the drive after MSDOS and MHDD have loaded, since MHDD works directly with the drive's registers and does not pay attention to such “little things” as, for example, partitions, file systems and BIOS restrictions.

Attention: Never run MHDD from a drive that is located on the same physical IDE channel (cable) to which the drive under test is connected (cable, channel). You will have significant data corruption on both drives! In this regard, by default, MHDD does not work with the channel PRIMARY, since most users have MHDD there. To unblock the Primary channel, run MHDD, then exit, then edit the file MHDD.CFG. Or use the command line switch /ENABLEPRIMARY.

MHDD uses a DOS ASPI driver to access SCSI devices. If you do not plan to work with SCSI drives, then you do not need any drivers.

First launch of MHDD. Important information

Some people think that MHDD is a very difficult program. They assumed that MHDD should be very simple, but when they ran it for the first time without reading the documentation, they were disappointed. MHDD is a very complex and dangerous program. It is much easier for those who are familiar with the internal structure of drives to master MHDD.

When launched for the first time, the program will create a new file ./cfg/mhdd.cfg. Channel IDE Primary disabled by default.

You will see a drive selection menu. Choose any device you want. You can call up this menu at any time by pressing SHIFT+F3.

Now you can click F1 and use any MHDD commands. Please be extremely careful when working with MHDD the first few times.

I would advise you to start getting acquainted with the commands EID, SCAN, STOP, CX and TOF. Some of them have keyboard shortcuts assigned to them, e.g. F4 for the team SCAN.

Take a look at the registers. Any IDE or Serial ATA device must report DRIVE READY And DRIVE SEEK COMPLETE so you should see the flags DRDY And DRSC. Flag BUSY signals that the drive is performing some operation (for example, reading or writing). Some flags like WRITE FAULT And TRACK 0 NOT FOUND are obsolete, you should never see them. Flag INDEX is also outdated, however, it may blink sometimes. Flag DATA REQUEST (DREQ) means the drive is requesting to transfer data.

If you notice the flag ERROR (ERR), look at the error register. You will be able to determine the type of error that occurred. Look ATA/ATAPI standard for further information about instructions and registers.

Using MHDD Commands

Surface scanning in MHDD

Scanning any device is only possible if it can be identified by the commands ID or EID(or by pressing F2). To scan, dial SCAN and press ENTER, or use F4. You will see a menu where you can change some settings. By default, the starting sector is zero (start sector). The final sector is equal to the maximum possible (end of the disk). All functions destructive to user data ( Remap, Erase Delays) are disabled by default.

Click F4 again to start scanning. MHDD scans drives in blocks. For IDE/SATA drives, one block is equal to 255 sectors (130560 bytes).

How scanning works

MHDD sends the command VERIFY SECTORS with number LBA(sector number) and sector number as parameters

The drive raises the flag BUSY

HDD starts timer

After the drive has executed the command, it lowers the flag BUSY

MHDD calculates the time spent by the drive and displays the corresponding block on the screen. If an error occurs ( bad block), the program displays the corresponding letter that describes the error.

MHDD repeats steps 1-5 until the final sector. If you need a scanning protocol, you can always find it in the file log/mhdd.log.

If the scan reveals errors, the first thing to do is copy all the data from the drive. Then you need to completely erase the surface using the command ERASE, which erases every sector on your drive. The drive will recalculate the fields ECC for each sector. This helps get rid of the so-called “ soft-bad» blocks. If erasing does not help, start scanning with the option enabled REMAP.

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

Viewing SMART Attributes in MHDD

You can dial SMART ATT or click F8 to view attributes. What do they mean?

Perhaps the most important attribute for a modern drive is “ Reallocated Sectors Count" (meaning Raw). This value tells you how many remapped sectors there are on the disk. A normal drive has raw value, equal to zero. If you see a value of more than 50, the drive has problems. This could mean a defective power supply, vibration, overheating, or simply a defective drive.

Take a look at the attribute 194 - temperature. Good values lie between 20 and 40 degrees. Some drives do not report temperature.

Attribute UDMA CRC error rate means the number of errors that occur when transmitting data over IDE/SATA cable. The normal raw value of this attribute is zero. If you see a different value, you need to replace the cable immediately. Also, overclocking greatly affects the number of errors of this type.

Other attributes are usually not so important. Look ATA/ATAPI standard for more information about attributes and tests SMART.

Drive identification commands in MHDD

Try the commands ID And EID to view information about your drive.

Look ATA/ATAPI standard for more information.

Erasing sector groups or an entire disk in MHDD

You can use the command ERASE. If your drive was recognized in BIOS Setup (or POST), MHDD will attempt to use BIOS features to erase the drive in UDMA. If you don't want MHDD to try to use the BIOS, use the option /DISABLEBIOS.

Reducing storage capacity in MHDD

Use the command HPA to limit storage capacity. The program will ask for the new number of available sectors. To remove the restrictions set, use the command N.H.P.A.. Perform a power cycle on the drive before using the command N.H.P.A.. In accordance with ATA/ATAPI standard, you can change the storage capacity only once per drive cycle.

Managing password protection in MHDD

Use the command P.W.D. to lock the drive using a user (USER) password. In accordance with ATA/ATAPI standard, you need to turn off and on the drive for the changes to take effect.

MHDD has two commands to unlock drives: UNLOCK And DISPWD. UNLOCK Unlocks the drive before the first shutdown. In order to disable the password system, you need to first use the command UNLOCK, and replace the command DISPWD(the password must be known).

The master password is set by the manufacturer and can be used for unlocking.

Reading sectors to a file in MHDD

You can read just a few sectors or an entire disk into a file or set of files. Try the command TOF. The program skips bad sectors. If you plan to create an image larger than 1 gigabyte, it is better to use the command ATOF, since it can automatically “cut” images.

Writing sectors from a file to disk in MHDD

Use the command FF to write sectors to disk. You will be asked to enter the number of the first sector to record and the number of sectors to be recorded in a row.

Controlling drive noise characteristics in MHDD

Almost all modern drives support Acoustic Management. You can reduce the noise level made when the heads move by reducing the speed at which they move. Use the command A.A.M. for settings.

Drive configuration in MHDD

Using the command CONFIG you can view and change the drive configuration, for example, maximum mode UDMA, systems support Security, SMART, AAM, HPA,mode support LBA48. It is also possible to change the disk size. Some manufacturers reduce the disk size by changing the configuration; you have the opportunity to restore the original capacity.

Batch running commands in MHDD

You can write a very simple batch file (see example in directory BATCH), where you describe everything you want to accomplish. Click F5, when you want to run such a file for execution.

Other commands in MHDD

Click F1. You will see quick help for all MHDD commands. For more detailed information, please use the command MAN.

Command line options for MHDD

/NOPINGPONG Mute some sounds

/DISABLEBIOS Disable erasure (ERASE) through BIOS

/DISABLESCSI Disable SCSI module

/ENABLEPRIMARY Connect the Primary IDE/SATA channel

/RO This key is used to run MHDD on write-protected media. It disables attempts to create temporary files, and also disables logging.

All options are closed.

MHDD is a program known for its power, designed to interact with drives at low levels. The program was created fourteen years ago by Dmitry Postrigan and since then it has become much easier to use MHDD.

MHDD is capable of scanning the surface of a drive that has an IDE interface in CHS mode. The creator dreamed of personal diagnostic equipment that would inspire confidence in users.

Today, the capabilities of the MHDD program are not limited to diagnostics. When using the MHDD utility, you can:

Read;
Write arbitrary sectors;
Manage the SMART system, the password system, the system that controls the noise characteristics;
You can even change the drive format.

On the website http://www.ihdd.ru you can find a copy of MHDD. You can download the program for use in different forms: archived and as a floppy disk with a self-extracting function.

Log/mhdd.log— the main log file created when the installed program is launched for the first time. Your future actions will be recorded on it.

So that the MHDD program reads information from some element located on the drive, you need to send a BIOS request. And the BIOS begins searching for the ports of the required drive, checks the data, and exchanges it with the drive. Then the data is returned to the operating system.

You cannot run MHDD from a drive located on an IDE cable, to which the drive under test will be connected. Data corruption will occur on both sides. Therefore the program does not interact with PRIMARY. If you need to unblock the PRIMARY channel, you need to run MHDD, exit, edit the MHDD.CFG file. (command term with the ENABLEPRIMARY key).

The program imposes certain requirements for the operation of the software:

To the processor: Intel Pentium or the latest developments in the world of computers;
RAM of at least 4 megabytes;
MSDOS must be at least version 6.22;
Boot device required (USB, HDD, CDROM, FDD).

Requirements for IDE/SATA controllers:

Must have integration into the northbridge; PCI UDMA have automatic detection; certain RAID controllers are supported; UDMA/RAID controllers are present in the form of a microcircuit.
Requirements for drives: IDE or Serial ATA, the volume of which exceeds 600 megabytes, but does not exceed 8388607 terabytes; SCSI drive having a sector size limited to 512 and 528 bytes.
The drive being tested must be switched to MASTER mode.
You can scan a device if the process is supervised by ID or EID commands (the F2 key is responsible). Type SCAN, press ENTER (F4 key). You can change settings in the menu.
You can view the attributes by pressing SMART ATT (F8 key). You can find out the number of remapped sectors. A value greater than 50 should be alarming. You can look at the attribute showing temperature values. UDMA CRC error rate will show how many errors there are when data is transmitted over the cable.
The HPA team is able to limit the storage volume.
The PWD command locks the drive by setting a password.
Using the AAM command, you can adjust the noise characteristics.
CONFIG allows you to change the configuration.

If you want to see help on using MHDD, dedicated to all program commands, press F1. If this program does not help, try the Victoria program to analyze the disk.