2022-10-30
Victoria HDD software is designed for full-featured, comprehensive testing, analysis and troubleshooting of HDD (i.e. hard disk) of the computer, SMART data extraction and other useful information. This diagnostic and testing software was developed by Sergey Kazansky. In this publication we will look at the basic functions of Victoria and at how to use the program toolkit to detect errors, various problems on the hard disk.
Victoria software interface: all the information about your HDD device is available
Victoria HDD has established itself among the Russian-speaking audience as a program for diagnostics of the computer and HDD in particular, although it has not been updated by developers for a long time. The Victoria HDD utility is free, available for free download for Windows but with closed source code.
You can download and install Victoria software for Windows XP and higher. The interface is available in the Russian language. Also the Victoria program can be operated without problems in the command mode, in the DOS environment and therefore can be operated in the "field" if the operating system is not loaded. Accordingly, the console version of the program is called Victoria DOS and is as free as the Windows edition. Included with Victoria there is a detailed manual on how to use this program for HDD diagnosis and error checking your computer.
The last version of Victoria HDD was released back in 2008 and was primarily designed for the then-current operating systems of the Windows line. At that time, say, Victoria HDD version for Windows 7 was up-to-date. Today, however, this seemingly obsolete tool works perfectly, without crashes or conflicts, on a Windows 10 PC. Therefore you can easily download Victoria for almost any Windows version from the official developer website, from a torrent or from Softdroid - as I would do :).
Download Victoria HDD
Hard drive inspection and error diagnostic functions
- Low-level drive scanning. Finds bad sectors, read errors, bad blocks, chips and other physical damage that often cause HDD failure on your computer
- Disk speed test: Read and write data to the disk. Usually this function is useful not only for measuring hard disk performance, but also for detecting various defects of HDD
- Noise coefficient change. The function decreasing the rotational speed of the hard disk spindle head, useful for low-noise devices
- Safe and irrecoverable data destruction in Victoria via cyclic, multiple overwrites
- Reading S.M.A.R.T data and providing user information for further problem fixing and possible error prevention
So the main advantage of Victoria HDD is the low access level operation: the HDD structure and its surface analysis are done via the ports. This means that the efficiency of the approach is very high, although you will need experience in hard disk repair and troubleshooting to use such a tool.
In other words, Victoria application is most useful for hard disk recovery specialists as a professional high quality hard disk checking utility via Victoria, servicing hdd and other solid state drives. However, it can also be used outside the service: PC users can easily install the program on their Windows PC to diagnose HDD and fix possible HDD errors or, in some cases, prevent HDD failure.
Another significant advantage of Victoria utility is its versatility. In fact, it is suitable for diagnosing most HDD models, while similar software from hardware vendors is strictly bound to the models of specific storage devices. In other words, Victoria HDD contains practically all possible diagnostic tools and, unlike brand-name utilities provided with a specific hard drive model, it has no limitations for supported models.
Other advantages of the Victoria HDD application:
- The Victoria application is distributed free of charge
- The utility works in portable mode
- Operfect performance and HDD speed testing
- Detailed, exhaustive information about S.M.A.R.T on the disk
- Possible to "regenerate" the HDD surface after HDD diagnosis and error checking
- Universal and functional HDD testing methods
- Performs with AHCI interface at a low access level
Diagnostic process: Running the hard disk through the speed tests in Victoria HDD
How to use Victoria HDD software: quick guide
Let's have a quick look at the Victoria application interface, what are the tabs, functions and parameters useful when diagnosing your hard disk in the first stages of getting to know the program. Read on to learn how to use this application. By the way, I suggest you download Victoria (for DOS or Windows) and install it on your computer to have everything I tell you about at hand.
Get information about the HDDs available
The tab Standard displays the device passport - i.e. general diagnostic information about the HDD, such as:
- HDD model
- firmware version
- device serial number
- presence of SMART information, sector data
- cache size and technology support on HDD
- security and other technological features of the selected hard disk.
To the right of this information the choice of the hard disk to check and retrieve in Victoria is available.
How to learn the SMART hard disk and the sector errors in Victoria
The most useful diagnostic information regarding the computer hard disk and its status can be retrieved from the tab SMART . From the information provided by SMART from the disk firmware you can quickly understand if everything is ok with the selected HDD.
What does it look like in practice for the "Victoria"? In front of each parameter there is an indicator like Health (wear rate). If there are 5 green circles (out of 5 possible) it means that there is nothing wrong with the hard drive at this level. If in any column there are 2 red circles or less it is time to pick up the alarm and deal with HDD troubles.
In my case SMART shows that Power-on time (hours of work on computer) is equal to 36671 hours, which is a lot, in this case. The Number of Spin-Up Times shows a total of 6223. That's too much too... And so on. It is not difficult to understand SMART, all the definitions are available on the Internet, look here for example.
Information about SMART on the storage device
What is SMART and one should trust the HDD readings?
Testing the hard disk in Victoria (HDD error testing and diagnosis)
Finally the Tests tab allows to evaluate the practical benefit of the Victoria HDD application by performing a full hard disk test. So, the user can run the whole hard disk through the test, specifying the number of blocks to scan and test. While running the test, one can control the program (e.g. turn off the PC when the test is finished). Keep in mind that the Victoria test can take anywhere from half an hour to several hours to complete. So you can run the test at night on your PC, select the action at the end and go to bed and in the morning you can read the results, check the Victoria HDD log and make conclusions.
It is also possible to quickly monitor the HDD test status in real time. Next to the diagram on the right side you can see the colour marks with the number of read sectors, problem areas and at the same time to check the hard disk for the so called bad blocks etc. Each sector of the disk has its own color which symbolizes its current state.
Other sections in Victoria HDD
Some words about the other sections in Victoria HDD, also useful for testing. They are not of special interest for NON-Edge users and the risk to screw up and damage the hard disk by making a diagnostic error is high for others.
So Victoria has a very functional partition editor (tab Advanced ) as well as setup ( Setup ) where the access protocol settings, timeouts, display options options and setup windows interface of Victoria for Windows are available. It is important to note that here you can also enable the log (Log settings section) to record all the events occurred while working with the program and diagnosing the hard disk. Victoria program is quite serious in its functions, its tools are indispensable for HDD inspection, HDD diagnostic and SMART data retrieval. This data will be useful for a computer user for detecting and timely fixing HDD read and write errors. I only briefly described how to use Victoria and listed the most important, in my opinion, options and parameters. At last I would like to remind you that you can download Victoria for free in any file archive or from developer's site (for the moment it is unavailable), in dos- and windows- editions. There is a manual in Russian language in the archive with the utility, namely the readme-file, I advise you to read it to avoid mistakes during independent hard disk analysis and testing.
If you do not obtain what you want from the program, you will be interested in our review of HDD Regenerator, the program for testing your hard disk which has some very similar functions and a set of exclusive features which you do not find in Victoria.
See also other programs for checking your computer (its components) for performance.
