Summary: You should try to fix bad sectors on your hard drive before trashing it. Starting with "chkdsk" may help.
I recently tested my hard drive. The test revealed that I had a sector or partition that had failed and I was told I should look at replacing the hard drive because it may be catastrophic failure and crash. Should I replace the hard drive, can I repair my exsisting drive, if I do replace it can I then do some repairs and still use a portion of the drive?
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Before you replace, I always like to try for a repair. Most hard disks actually have some spare sectors they set aside for exactly this purpose.
You could get lucky and be able to save a few bucks.
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On Windows XP, I'd start with a "chkdsk/R". (/R: "Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information"). Fire up a Command Prompt to run that command. You can access Command Prompt by going to Start, Programs, Accessories, and then click on Command Prompt.
Under Windows 9x (95, 98 and Me), I believe scandisk has an option to do a surface scan and repair as well.
Another highly regarded option is a product called "SpinRite" available at Gibson Research which may also do the deed.
If those options both fail you, well, new hard disks aren't that expensive these days.
Related:
How can I reuse or erase a dead hard drive? Your options for what to do with a dead hard drive depend on the cause of death, and the possibility of resuscitation.
How do I fix bad sectors on a flash drive? Once a flash drive starts to show wear by having errors, you shouldn't treat it like a hard disk. You'll be much safer replacing it.
How do I fix errors on my hard disk? Hard disk errors come from several different sources, and as a result there are several different approaches to resolving them.
Article C2239 - December 11, 2004
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Posted by: Aied at March 7, 2009 4:43 AMHi,
I couldn't copy the Outlook.pst file because bad sectors on the hard disk and I copied the file successfully after I used "chkdsk /R".
Thank you very much for your help!
Posted by: Luis Tito at March 30, 2009 1:16 PMpleas tel me how can i fix mycomputer
Posted by: Qaisuddin at May 24, 2009 5:22 AMwhen i install yahoo sadnly mycomputer get badsector when i boot com/ system Root\system32\ntdll.dll