HDD bad sectors/clusters

[rh71]

I was able to restore a 120gb drive that had been "dead" by using HDD Regen... it repaired most of the bad sectors and I was able to hook it up as a slave on my machine and started copying the important files (albeit slowly). Is there any reason I should be worried it might "infect" my master drive ? Or is it strictly a hardware issue on the original drive ? I noticed the original drive got worse and worse so I'm just hoping things like this don't "spread" just because I'm copying its files elsewhere now.

 

[Boyo]

No, your HD is dying. Copy all the files that you can and get ready to buy another HD because it sounds like that one isn't going to last all that long.

 

[corkyg]

It is a hardware issue. Bad sectors, etc. are not copied. Only the ones that can be read. As Boyo says, get everything you can off the drive and get ready to replace it.

It is possible that a drive with bad sectors can last indefinitely. You might try low level formatting and remapping it so that the bad sectors are mapped out and you no longer see them or access them.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: corkyg
It is a hardware issue. Bad sectors, etc. are not copied. Only the ones that can be read. As Boyo says, get everything you can off the drive and get ready to replace it.

It is possible that a drive with bad sectors can last indefinitely. You might try low level formatting and remapping it so that the bad sectors are mapped out and you no longer see them or access them.

You cannot low level format ANY drive.

(Unless it's super old - RLL/MFM/ESDI etc.)

A growing media defect list is a sign of impending failure. Get what you can off the drive and toss it.

 

[rh71]

thx - I've already replaced it with a new one (the one I'm copying it onto now). It's been at least 4 months and I'm lucky this repair worked at all yesterday. Doing the copying now.

BTW, this is a good time to remind everyone... backup your $#!t. 😀