Any way to really FIX bad sectors?

[bluemax]

Well, I recieved two hard drives in a trade gone bad. One I was able to RMA, the other had about 5-10MB worth of bad sectors.

Is the bad-sector drive COMPLETELY worthless (cannot be RMA'd) or can some kind of low-level format maybe fix it?
It's a Western Digital Caviar 17.2 GB

[sigh]

Bad traders suck. :|

 

[thorin]

If the drive is too old to be RMA'd you're likely SOL

Formatting the drive will only map out the bad sectors but nothing can keep the drive from degrading and more bad sectors from appearing.

Thorin

 

[bluemax]

Looks like I'm SOL. Just got off the phone from WD support. It's not even a north american drive, it's far east. I can't even get a discount on a new drive.

So even low-level formatting won't help, eh? Oh well...........

Beware Lawrence Ko from Ontario, Canada. :|

 

[spanky]

i tried low-level formatting a 3gb seagate that had some bad sectors. it took forever to finish. the bad sectors were gone, but only to return shortly after.