This information can also be used to determine which drive you are scanning. Serial Number: All drives have a unique serial number found on the outside of the casing. This will help you determine which drive you are scanning. Media Model: All drives have a model type which is usually stored on the platters. The information extracted from the hard drive will be displayed in the four columns entitled as follows:īus Type: Is basically the interface that addresses the drive, such as ‘USB’, ‘SCSI’, and the most prevalent ‘ATA’.

This list box is used for displaying all the hard drives attached to the computer. Let’s take a look at each of the five distinct areas of the display and describe how they all work together.įirst, in the upper part of the screen just below the DTI banner you see a list box labeled ‘Physical Media List’. All scans, updates, and reports will be generated and displayed on this screen. If, however, you decide you want to use the software the following screen will be displayed as depicted in Figure 2. If you click on the ‘I Disagree’ button then the software will exit. It is just a ‘protection’ mechanism for the company. This is not to say that the software is dangerous or will write random data all over your active file system. The above screen is a standard disclaimer that basically says we are not responsible for any damage that may or may not be caused by using the software.

Once the software is installed execute it and you should be presented with the screen exhibited in Figure 1. Do not install the software on the drive that you are having possible read errors, as this will only exacerbate the problem and may render the drive totally unusable. Part two will be a quick start guide for those of us who hate documentation and just want to get started.Īfter you have downloaded the software from our website install it upon the system you wish to use to examine the hard drive.

Part one will be how to use the software and how to read some rudimentary error messages. With this being said this documentation is divided into two parts. If the drive is a secondary or slave drive the drive may also be exhibited as a raw device. As an example, if a drive has an unreadable block where the Master Boot Record is located this will cause the system to hang on boot. This tool can be used to diagnose certain characteristics that may be exhibited upon boot-up or during service that are directly related to unreadable blocks on a hard drive. Windows Surface Scanner Documentation Windows surface scanner is a data recovery utility to help locate unreadable blocks on your hard drive and relate those blocks to certain parts of the file system.

If a read error occurs the error counter will increment.īe wise to contact a data recovery company about hard drive recovery. Each sector is examined for a read error. This software will read each sector of a physical drive that is currently mounted on an XP, Vista, or Windows 7 operating system.

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