Method 1: Check bad sectors with DiskGenius Free Edition

Step 1. Start DiskGenius Free Edition on your computer, select the disk that needs

checking bad sectors, and click item "Verify or Repair Bad Sectors" under "Disk"
menu, as below:

If you want to check bad sectors for a USB drive, such as an external hard drive,
please connect it to the computer and make sure it can be recognized by the
software.

Step 2. Click Start Verify button on the "Bad Track Verification" dialog box, and

DiskGenius starts to perform a surface scanning to find bad sectors.

Before you get started, you can set timeout value or scanning cylinder range by
entering exact value. If you are not an expert and have no ideas about these settings,
you can just follow default configurations.

Step 3. While verifying bad sectors, DiskGenius displays detailed information of

sector health conditions. Sectors marked by red blocked means damaged, and these
are bad sectors. Severe does not mean bad sector, but it is likely to turn to bad
sectors in the future.
The bad sector checking process may take some time to finish, especially for larger
drives or those with severe bad sectors. Be patient and let the tool complete the task
to get a reliable test of the disk’s health and find out any potential bad sectors.

Step 4. When scanning completes, DiskGenius reports how many bad sectors are

found. You can click Save Report button to save the scanning result.
Note: If you want to check bad sectors for the system disk which installs Windows
operating system, you should use DiskGenius WinPE edition to complete the task in
order to get a more accurate test result. This ensures that there are no active
processes locking or accessing the drive during the bad sector checking. To access
DiskGenius WinPE Edition, you can either boot to WinPE from Windows directly
(click "File" menu > choose "Reboot to DiskGenius WinPE version") or create a
bootable USB disk.