Victoria 4.72b

Victoria is a small freeware application for low-level HDD diagnostics, designed to assess performance, test and perform minor repairs to your IDE drive and SATA HDD. Victoria designed primarily for HDD repairmen in stationary conditions and is not intended to test the system hard drive.

Victoria has a lot of useful features, including: full HDD information, disk image creation, 10 disk tests, surface scan, low-level format, Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM), S.M.A.R.T. information, ability to change disk size, and much more.

Features of Victoria:

- No CPU load at idle.
- User-friendly interface.
- Multi-tasking.
- Supports these interfaces: IDE and Serial ATA.
- View full technical information on drives.
- Manipulate SMART tests and view SMART status.
- Extensive testing and benchmarking with graphical maps.
- Low level sector viewing and manipulation.
- Much more...

Changes in recent version (change history)

The “Refresh” function has been added to the surface scan via the API: read, and if a slow section is detected, write to the same place. Previously, the program had code that responds only to a read error. Now it works on timeout set by the user or automatically. If the timeout switch is set to “never”, absolutely all blocks will be overwritten. The “Restore” function in PIO mode is saved.
Attention! The function is new and still raw. Before using it, save all important data from the media on which you will experience it. A drive with slow patches is usually faulty, and may die suddenly, simply from reading or writing.
When using Refresh under Windows newer than XP - you should disable the MBR on the drive in accordance with the answer FAQ # 3.
Added support for Windows graphics themes. Instead of the Win95 style, now your favorite theme. I had to redo the interface a bit - remove the frames, replacing them on the panel.
Work was done through the API with AAM under Windows 7 and higher. Now you can really adjust the HDD noise level on new systems, if the hard drive supports it.
I started working super-SMART on IBM / HGST HDD under Windows 7 and higher.
Added support for super-SMART HDD Toshiba 3.5 ″. While tested only on the HDWD120 model, but should also work on DT01, MG0, MD0, MC0, etc.
Now you can set the path to the log with the drive letter. For example, a program can start from a virtual “resuscitator” disk, and keep logs in a safe place.
Now you can test removable drives (USB and CD / DVD) without administrator rights - by selecting them as logical drives. Check so far only managed under Windows 7.
The ability to work in PIO without administrator rights has been made, if of course the porttalk.sys driver is already installed, and the rights verification is disabled forcibly. For this, vcr40.ini has a hidden AdminRightsIgnore key.
Added the ability to select a logical volume as an object of study in the list of API devices. To do this, on the Setup tab, you need to turn off the checkbox "Ignore HDD".
Passport API-drive supplemented by a "logical passport." This is something transitional between hardware and software. The option is activated when removing the “Ignore HDD” checkbox on the Setup tab.
Added media handle to passport for non-ATA devices. For more objective data in emergency situations.
Added button for instant copying of the current sector as a starting surface for the scan.
The reverse “fast” scan is adapted to SSD.
Fixed deficiencies, because of which on the “quick” scan for the last block, a speed of 1/2 graphic was displayed.
Fixed deficiencies: when you receive a SMART (or passport) during the scan of the surface, timings were reset, defining the colors of the grid rectangles.
Improved view of the “full” graphics on small ranges due to a more advanced interpolation algorithm.
The items “Set [number] as starting / ending LBA” are added to the drop-down menu of the log. The number is taken from the line that the cursor hovers.
The same menu has been added to the surface scan graph. The number is taken from the coordinates of the graph where the mouse is hovering. In this way, it is possible to promptly establish the boundaries of the defective areas for further treatment attempts.
Added the ability to disable HDD recalibration before scanning the surface (on the Setup tab, the “Recall HDD before Scan“ checkbox). It may be necessary if the HDD has defects on the start addresses.
Added the possibility of normal operation of the program under Windows 10 on some laptops with a built-in fixed SSD. The problem is that Windows sometimes does not allow scanning the surface if the program is started with recording activated by default. Now the removal of the “Only non-destructive functions” checkbox turns off the recording completely at the level of handlers. True, the delivery of commands to the drives ceases to work, and you will also have to forget about the full passport. But it's still better than nothing at all :).
Fixed "overflow error" when scanning disks with abnormally high speed (for example, Verify on some SSDs is only crookedly emulated, which gives a false speed above 2000 mb / s).
Fixed a bug due to which the current LBA indicator displayed 0 when the reversing surface scan was stopped.
Galka Grid on the Tests tab is no longer remembered in the settings. And then there were complaints - users forgot to return, and subsequently wondered where the familiar "rectangles" had gone.
The clock was removed from the top panel, the serial number section was expanded, splitters (movable dividers) were inserted between the sections. This is a preparation for moving to a more modern adaptive interface.
Instead of animation, the backlight of the bookmark spine, on which the active process is going, is made. Do not like it - I will return it back as it was.
Fixed division by 0 when trying to randomly read on a card reader without a card.
Finally, a terrible bug was fixed, due to which the last item in the list of API disks could not be clicked without scrolling.
The ability to set the block size, different from 256 sectors for virtual and non-standard drives.
Disabled optimization in the compiler to reduce the number of glitches. Because of this, the file size has slightly increased, but the stability of the program has increased.
I got the PocketBook 301 e-book, which in card reader mode gives away an empty passport, but without any error. After that, a test of this situation was added to Victoria, and a passport was replaced with the Windows API function, so that at least the size would be displayed and there was an opportunity to test the built-in and external memory of the book. It is possible that this will improve the work with other non-standard storage devices.
Got the Jagga Boom player on RockChip. With him, no version of the program in 2018 does not work - hangs and spits out. It turned out the player does not like trying to access the full passport via USB. I had to change the algorithm for iterating functions. However, at the same time, the e-book stopped being detected normally :) I had to add a checkbox to switch between the new and old commands for getting the size. In Setup, it is now called “Don’t get SCSI 25h” and is located on the site of the remote daw “Dont get drive type“. The result is that by default everything works with both the player and the book. But the book size is displayed incorrectly - for it, and you need to install a check in Setup. In order to avoid problems, its memorization is disabled.
Screenshots are now added to a separate SCR folder, the drive letter of which can be set in Setup, or by default it is created in the program directory.
At the request of members of the forum http://forum.ru-board.com, 2 more options have been added for finishing the surface scan: “Save screenshot” - after the scan is finished, a snapshot of the Test tab is taken as a PNG image.
“3 SS + Shutdown” - at the end of the scan, snapshots of the Tests, Smart, Standard tabs are taken and then the computer is turned off.
Asked to make a conclusion in the SSD passport the amount of recorded data. The SMART of many SSDs has an attribute of 241, which, depending on the model, may contain the number of recorded sectors or gigabytes. An automatic detection of the required value was made for the following types of SSD: Adata, Corsair, Datex, Intel, Kingston, Lite-on, LMT, OCZ Vector, OCZ Vertex 3, OCZ Vertex 2, OCZ Vertex450, Plextor, PNY, Samsung, SanDisk, Transcend 2.5 WD
For those drives in which the method was automatically incorrectly determined (the program displays incredibly large or small values), a manual switch is provided in the vcr40.ini file: [EXT PSP Button] Total WR method = 0
0 - automatically by SSD family / model. 1 - ignore model and interpret as gigabytes. 2 - interpreted as sectors.
The mechanics verification method (Seek / Verify / Read) is no longer remembered in the settings. Instead, an automatic adjustment was made to the best method for obtaining a passport and manual control was left in the current session.
The vertical scroll bar is experimentally removed from the surface scan.