Do not interrupt the process. If the drive stops responding, wait 5 minutes. If it hangs, reboot and try resuming from the last LBA.

A 500GB drive with minor bad sectors may take 2–3 hours. A 2TB drive with heavy damage could take 10+ hours. Do not interrupt the process. A power failure during regeneration can worsen the damage.

The remains a powerful arrow in the quiver of any tech professional, system administrator, or DIY data rescuer. By creating a bootable USB, you free yourself from Windows limitations and can tackle bad sectors at the hardware level.