Any way to fix bad sectors on a hd?
- Thread starter Stiler
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MacaroneePenguin
Senior member
- May 12, 2001
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cholley
Senior member
he just got the computer not even a year ago, i'm not sure what kinda of hard drive it is, its 40gigs i know that. for no reason it jus up and got bad sectors somehow, he tried to format and deleted his partiation and whenever he tries to format he gets to 11% and it flucks up because of "bad sectors"
Is he starting from scratch by using fdisk to create a partition, then format to format and verify?
As Cholley said, virtually all drives have some bad sectors. The format and verify process is designed to map out the bad ones. If it doesn't verify, then he really has a bad disk (even if it's only a year old).
As Cholley said, virtually all drives have some bad sectors. The format and verify process is designed to map out the bad ones. If it doesn't verify, then he really has a bad disk (even if it's only a year old).
If your friend is not afraid of losing his information, you can try a low-level format. You can do that off the disk that came with your hard drive. You can get it off the hard drive manufacturer's website if he/she doesn't have it. Hope this helps.
Was this new system a major brand? it doesn't matter what brand, but if it was an HP or IBM or anything like that, it probably has a restore disk shipped with it as well. Backup all personal data (burn it to a CDRW if available, so it can be easily retrieved) and then low level format the drive.
Several years ago, I worked for a company where a girl brought in her Compaq system because her hard drive was failing. (To tell you HOW long ago, it was a 270MB drive...heh heh) we determined the computer was out of warranty, so she just bought a new hard drive to replace it. We were going to throw out the old drive because she didn't want it, so i took it and looked at it more closely. The drive was full of flagged bad sectors. I low leveled the drive, fdisked it, and formatted it, and then found that I didn't have ANY bad sectors. I used that drive for a quite awhile after that as a primary slave drive. (That was in the days when you 1GB drives were considered huge and probably needed a drive overlay so the system would see the full drive!)
In other words, don't give up on the drive if you don't have to. But...with that size drive, you should also check to see if it is under warranty. If it came in a system, it may be.
Several years ago, I worked for a company where a girl brought in her Compaq system because her hard drive was failing. (To tell you HOW long ago, it was a 270MB drive...heh heh) we determined the computer was out of warranty, so she just bought a new hard drive to replace it. We were going to throw out the old drive because she didn't want it, so i took it and looked at it more closely. The drive was full of flagged bad sectors. I low leveled the drive, fdisked it, and formatted it, and then found that I didn't have ANY bad sectors. I used that drive for a quite awhile after that as a primary slave drive. (That was in the days when you 1GB drives were considered huge and probably needed a drive overlay so the system would see the full drive!)
In other words, don't give up on the drive if you don't have to. But...with that size drive, you should also check to see if it is under warranty. If it came in a system, it may be.
If he is having problems detecting other IDE devices, it sounds like the IDE channel may be dying. That, in turn, could be causing eroneous errors on his hard drive. Sounds like a mobo problem. If the system is under warranty, cool. otherwise, he should look for an IDE card to add to the system and disable the onboard IDE channels, or just buy a new mobo.
A word of advice:
This isn't necessarily directed to you, and it may not even apply in this circumstance, but as a general rule, when you go to a computer show, you should be careful when you buy equipment. I personally always look at a vendor and see where they are located. If they are not local, I don't even consider dealing with them. If they are local, I decide if they are local enough to deal with if I have a problem. I used to work in South Jersey and worked with a guy that bought a mobo-combo from a show. He got it home, plugged it in, and it was dead. he called the company, and he found he had to ship it to them. they were in NY. Obviously, he was not going to take a day off work to drive 3 hours each way to deliver the system to their store, so he had to ship it. He also had to insure it when he shipped it. I also think he had to pay return postage, so by the time the process was complete, he had actually spent a couple of bucks more than he would if he had just bought it outright from a local shop without going to a show. So, for anyone reading this thread, a little advice to be careful about who you buy from at a computer show.
A word of advice:
This isn't necessarily directed to you, and it may not even apply in this circumstance, but as a general rule, when you go to a computer show, you should be careful when you buy equipment. I personally always look at a vendor and see where they are located. If they are not local, I don't even consider dealing with them. If they are local, I decide if they are local enough to deal with if I have a problem. I used to work in South Jersey and worked with a guy that bought a mobo-combo from a show. He got it home, plugged it in, and it was dead. he called the company, and he found he had to ship it to them. they were in NY. Obviously, he was not going to take a day off work to drive 3 hours each way to deliver the system to their store, so he had to ship it. He also had to insure it when he shipped it. I also think he had to pay return postage, so by the time the process was complete, he had actually spent a couple of bucks more than he would if he had just bought it outright from a local shop without going to a show. So, for anyone reading this thread, a little advice to be careful about who you buy from at a computer show.
Outkast4eva
Member
- Mar 27, 2001
- 119
- 0
- 0
I used to have a couple of WD harddrives that had bad sectors on them and I used this program called Spinrite 5.0 to fix the bad sectors. I was amazed at how it fixed all of the bad sectors and made those areas writeable again. You should consider trying that program. Note that it does take forever to fix a drive because it does some long & extensive testing on the drive. Good luck!
Linky
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