Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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.
Article C2239 - December 11, 2004
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
>> There is no way to fix a bad sector. A bad sector is like a scratch on a cd that can't be fixed.
You *can* fix bad sectors in some cases, and scratches on CDs can also be fixed in many cases. HDD Regenerator will repair bad sectors on hard drives. I talk about this in greater detail on another tech blog. As for repairing scratches on CDs, that I go over in detail on my actual website. www dot paulronco dot com/cleancd.htm
Posted by: Paul Ronco at June 18, 2011 10:40 PMmy laptop hard drive have 8kb bad sector
Posted by: Syed Mahboob Ali Shah at September 27, 2011 11:55 PMwhow i can solve this problem
Hi
Posted by: Caroline at November 16, 2011 10:56 PMI've tried chkdsk as per your instructions on a Hitachi 320gb external Harddrive (I have Windows 7) but get the response 'the type of the file is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives. Is there anything else I can try please? Thank you either way
Hi Again
Posted by: Caroline at November 16, 2011 11:05 PMI've just discovered the harddrive is in NTFS format. I have been asked to format it - I haven't, hence trying chkdsk. Fingers crossed I have a friend in need!!
Thank you again your time is appreciated.
Does reinstalling os again and again affects harddrive?
17-Mar-2012
Posted by: Paul at March 14, 2012 3:42 AM