How to fix bad sectors from boot?

[RavenSEAL]

I'm trying to fix one of my friend's laptop and his HDD has several bad sectors on it. It will not allow me to install windows nor ubuntu, but i can run ubuntu off a live disk. Is there a possible way to fix the bad sectors from boot or should i suggest him to buy a new HDD?

 

[ModestGamer]

sounds like spiralling death, new drive most likely and even if you can get a OS to install more then likely the file system will corrupt.

 

[pitz]

New drive. Bad sectors aren't something that can be corrected with software.

 

[RebateMonger]

Get a new disk. My experience with "repairing" disks with bad sectors is not encouraging.

 

[aceO07]

Backup files ASAP.

 

[razel]

As with everyone... backup their most precious files. You can run the manufacturer's diagnosis software which usually can remap good sectors to replace the bad ones. Since it's a laptop drive, stuff it into a cheap USB enclosure and use it for throw-away media or a USB music drive for your car or even p0rn. You can then run the diagnosis after a few months to see if things get worse.

 

[taltamir]

copy what you can off of it, RMA it for warranty replacement.

 

[Rifter]

get data off and then get a new HDD in that system.

 

[kmmatney]

As with everyone... backup their most precious files. You can run the manufacturer's diagnosis software which usually can remap good sectors to replace the bad ones. Since it's a laptop drive, stuff it into a cheap USB enclosure and use it for throw-away media or a USB music drive for your car or even p0rn. You can then run the diagnosis after a few months to see if things get worse.

Completely agree. I've had good luck with hard drives with bad sectors making decent external backup drives, when thrown into a cheap USB enclosure. You don't want your operating system on it, though.

 

[KAZANI]

I had good results with HDD Regenerator (not freeware). Once you have repaired the sectors, save what you can from the disk and replace it with a new one.

 

[tweakboy]

I fixed 3 bad sectors by doing a low level format. Now I have 0 bad sectors on primary. Thank you

 

[Modelworks]

All drives have bad sectors, they are just remapped to good sectors before you get them. There is also a few hundred good sectors reserved for replacement should a sector fail. Most people don't even know their drive has replaced a sector that failed because they do it as a normal function without informing the user.

The fact it has bad sectors showing is either a firmware issue not detecting them as bad or it ran out of replacement sectors.