How do I fix a bad sector on my hard drive?

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HELLO -THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP SERVICE
WHEN I START MY PC IT IT SHOW EROR BAD CLUSTER -PLEAS HELP ME -WHAT IS BAD CLUSTER SAME BAD SECTOR OR ANOTHER -AND HOW I CAN SCAN MY PC-BECAUSE IT CANt FORMAT FO INSTALL WINDOWS

For practical purposes, bad cluster is roughly the same as bad sector. The article you just commented on has my recommended steps to take.

I fixed my bad sector on my HD. I did this by reading what you put in the main comment, unlike some people who obviously cant be bothered to read up.

This is what I did...

TIP! I use drive D as egsample. Replace capital D with the letter of your drive.

1. "Start" "Run" type COMMAND click "ok".
2. In new window, type D: (D: is the drive that failed in my case - eg. type C: if drive C is failing with you, or F: if drive F etc) and press "return" or "enter".
3. Where it says D:\> type CHKDSK /R {eg; D:\> CHKDSK /R) press "return" or "enter".
4. Wait.
5. If this has not worked, quick format drive, then go to step 1.
6. If still does not work.... good luck in future

Thank you helping me fix my drive Leo.

Hi,

I have just had the same problem with an 80 Gb Seagate drive.

Do the following to fix it:

1. Go to http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/ and download the desktop version.
2. Create a boot CD using the ISO.
3. Back up all the data you want to keep on the old hard drive (this won't matter if you are perfoming a clean install).
4. Boot the computer with the SeaTools CD just created.
5. Select all of the tests and make sure you select the Advanced test. It will go through and find the bad sectors.
6. Once it has found the bad sectors, it offers to recitfy them by activating spare sectors on the HDD. Do it!
7. When done, format the HDD and re-install Windows.

This process will guarantee that you lose data if you don't back it up initially as sectors containing data are replaced and there is no chance of recovery.

Please note: Most HDD manufatcurers have a diagnostic utility for their HDD. I have Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital so far in my collection. Have a look on the manufacturers web site for a utility before throwing the HDD away.

Have fun!

I have an ADI early to mid 90's computor with win.98 on it. all of a sudden my computor won't boot up and it says bad sectors. How do i fix the bad sectors if I can't get it to boot up. Somebody told me you can't fix it, but i don't believe that. What do you think?

SpinRite, mentioned in the article, is it's own boot disk, so the hard disk doesn't have to be working for SpinRite to try and fix it.

Good luck!

if the hard driver can't boot and hard drive got bad sector how to fix it's

Thomas: you'll have to boot from something else - a floppy or a CD-ROM with the appropriate repair utilies. SpinRite, mentioned in the article, comes on bootable media.

Hi,

I have a Maxtor Hard drive. I was hoping, Leo that you would be able to find me some softwares that can remove my bad sectors without wiping the drive's information.

Thankyou

The article you commented on has my primary recommendations. You can also check with Maxtor.

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