Easy Disk Checker: Disk and Flash Drive Utility

The Easy Disk Checker program is an easy-to-use utility for Windows 10 and later, designed for working with disks and flash drives at the "physical" level, regardless of the file system or lack thereof.

The application is packaged as a single executable EXE file. It requires no installation, leaves no traces in the system, does not install drivers, and does not alter the registry. It's ready to use right after unpacking from the ZIP archive.

version 4.8.9

💻 Supported Hardware:

   
• USB, NVMe, SATA, and PATA controllers
• Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Solid State Drives (SSD - SATA/NVMe)
• External USB drives
• USB flash drives and memory cards

📊 Diagnostics:

• Viewing the drive's logical structure
• Displaying disk parameters (LBA count, sector size, firmware version, RPM, etc.)
 
• Viewing S.M.A.R.T. attributes and Seagate FARM logs
• Detecting HPA (Host Protected Area) and ATA passwords
• Identifying the internal model of external HDDs (bypassing the USB bridge)
• Displaying VID and PID for flash drives, along with microcontroller details
• Output SMR and TRIM support information for external USB HDD drives*
• Reading and outputting NAND ID via microcontroller techno-commands*
• Identifying drives that are part of Microsoft Storage Spaces

🔬 ️Testing:

• Surface Test: Full scan for bad blocks
• Fake Check: Identifying flash drives with a fake capacity
 
• Benchmark: Measuring average read speeds

🛠 Repair:

   
• Quick Erase: Forced "zeroing" of the MBR record to fundamentally fix any logical problems with the drive
• Fixing Bad Blocks: Full sector-by-sector writing to fix soft bad sectors or initialize the built-in defect reallocation function where possible

💾 Backup:

• Reading and writing sector-by-sector disk images without modification (*.bin)
• Creating dynamic VHD/VHDX images and "deploying" them to a physical disk
• Creating a partition (volume) image
• Disk-to-disk cloning
• Opening an image file in the built-in file explorer with an option to extract files and folders

📤 Data Recovery:

   
• Viewing and editing the HEX contents of sectors
• Recovering corrupted MBR/GPT records for lost or deleted partitions
• Viewing and copying files from FAT, NTFS, exFAT, Linux (Ext2/3/4), Mac (HFS+ and APFS), BTRFS* partitions
 

* - implemented in version 4.8.x

Upon startup, the interface language and light/dark theme are configured according to your Windows language and graphical settings. It also checks for a new version, prompting you to download the update if one is found on the server.

Getting Started and Interface

When you launch the program, the main window opens with an active "Disk List" button. Clicking it initiates a scan of the buses (SATA, USB, NVMe) and displays a list of physical devices available in the system. For each disk, it shows the model, serial number, firmware version, physical capacity, LBA addressing, and the volume label assigned in the operating system.

Important: For the program to work correctly (to access physical devices and read S.M.A.R.T. data), it must be run with Administrator privileges for direct hardware access. When run in virtual machines, the application has limited functionality.

When a disk is selected, its logical structure (MBR/GPT partitions, file systems) is displayed at the bottom of the window. If there's an error reading the 0-th sector (Master Boot Record), it provides information about the specific issue detected among several possible ones.

Right-clicking here brings up a context menu from which you can launch the hex editor functionality to visually assess the sector contents and edit them while saving the changes.

WARNING: Incorrect modification of data in the HEX editor (e.g., in the partition table or MBR) can result in the loss of logical partitions and an unbootable OS.

Disk Partition Recovery

If selecting a disk automatically determines that there is no layout due to a logical failure or accidental/intentional deletion of partitions, the user is offered an option to scan and recover the volumes.

Based on the found partitions, you can generate an MBR or GPT layout and get standard access to the files within the recovered volumes. This function is not destructive to your data; even in the event of user error, only the first few sectors of the disk will be overwritten.

Copying Files from a Disk Without Mounting It to the System

Upon successful layout analysis, recognized partitions appear in the "Logical structure of selected disk" window, along with details about their parameters and file system. Right-clicking brings up a context menu where you can open the built-in file explorer. This allows you to view the contents of the selected partition and copy specific files and folders to a designated location on the "host" system.

Thus, using Easy Disk Checker, you can view and copy data while bypassing the OS for the following file systems: FAT16/32, exFAT, NTFS, Ext2/3/4, and HFS+. Additionally, clicking the exclamation mark icon lets you view advanced details about the opened volume.

After the physical disk list is populated and a disk is selected, the following buttons become active:

• "Check Disk"
• "Disk Image"

Disk Checking

Selecting the desired drive for testing in the "Detected Disks" window and clicking "Check Disk" opens a summary window divided into functional blocks:

• Device Information — model, serial number, firmware version, capacity, and if supported, the RPM (revolutions per minute) value, the internal model of an external disk, VID/PID of flash drives, and the suspected microcontroller model (which helps in finding service utilities to "flash" the drive), along with the buttons:
  "Benchmark"
  "Fake Test" (available only for flash drives and memory cards).
• Current Status — an express read check of the disk in LBA areas at the beginning, middle, and end of the disk, along with the buttons:
  "Full Read"
  "Full Write"
• Security and Features — if available, displays information about ATA passwords, HPA (Host Protected Area), and Seagate FARM (available only on modern Seagate drives).
• S.M.A.R.T. Self-Test Table Output — collapsed by default, not supported on USB Flash drives and memory cards.

Working with Images

• "Create Image"
• "Write Image"
• "Clone Disk"
• "Open Image"

This process creates a complete sector-by-sector image of the selected disk without compression or modification (*.bin), or a dynamic compressed image that can be mounted natively in Windows (*.vhd, *.vhdx). Image files created this way can be mounted in Windows as virtual disks using the standard right-click context menu in Windows File Explorer. The file size of an image from a disk with few sectors occupied by data (filled with zeros) can be significantly smaller than the total capacity. All you need to do is select the save path and filename; the extension will be assigned automatically.

Pressing the "Cancel" button interrupts the process, but the partially read image file is not deleted. The Windows "sleep mode" is blocked during reading. Additionally, there is an option to create images in VHD/VHDX formats with support for compression and dynamic expansion.

Writing an Image

Use with caution! Writing an image to the selected disk is functionally no different from reading. The only difference is that two warning windows are displayed before starting, because mistakenly writing an image to the wrong target disk will result in the irreversible overwriting of the written sectors. It supports both writing binary images and "deploying" VHD/VHDX files.

Disk Cloning

Performs sector-by-sector disk-to-disk transfer, which can be used as a backup method for system drives, work disks, and flash drives.

Opening an Image File

Allows you to open any unmodified binary image (bin, img, etc.) or VHD/VHDX image, automatically detecting its partition structure. You can then open the partition structure via the context menu or by double-clicking it in the built-in "explorer", allowing you to select multiple items for extraction.

Benchmark

Runs four reading iterations across different areas of the selected disk, outputting information about the calculated average speed in Mbps.

Fake Test

This function becomes active if a USB flash drive or memory card is selected.

This is used for the so-called "Aliexpress flash drives" or drives from OZON. The algorithm identifies flash drives with artificially "inflated" capacities via software. If the actual capacity matches the advertised one, it displays an appropriate message:

Full Read

The utility performs a linear read to search for bad blocks and bad sectors, sequentially reading every sector of the disk from start to finish. For better visualization, sectors are grouped into dynamic blocks.

During the disk test, the left part of the window populates a block map according to the legend, while the right side shows details about the automatically selected block size, current sector address, instantaneous and average read speeds, and the estimated time remaining.

Full Write

Identical to reading, but before the test begins, a prompt warns about the irreversible loss of the contents in the overwritten sectors.

WARNING: DESTRUCTIVE FUNCTION! All sectors on the selected disk will be irreversibly overwritten with the 00h pattern.

A brief execution of the write test can resolve issues where partitions cannot be deleted using standard Windows tools.

Removing Microsoft Storage Space Device (Microsoft Storage Pool)

Following requests from colleagues and users, the utility now includes the ability to remove the "Microsoft Storage Space Device" (also known as Microsoft Storage Pool or Msft Space Device) flag from HDDs or SSDs. This pool is created by Windows in the respective wizard, and it cannot simply be removed from Disk Management.

The key change to the logical structure of the drive occurs in the second sector (at offset 0x400), where the pool layout is written.

Taking a pool of two physical disks as an example, the utility will display it as two physical disks and one logical virtual overlay (the MsftStorage Space). All you need to do to delete it is identify the array disks by matching lines in the MBR analysis window, start a full write test on each one, and abort it right after it begins.

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