Bad Cluster Question

[flumixt]

Ran Defrag a month ago, first time in years, it said there was 1 bad cluster and implied the HD was therefore at death's door. Is it? One bad cluster out of (I think)40,000?

I don't have the exact message anymore. This is W98. Fujitsu 10.2GB.

 

[micker377]

Depends why it is bad. Could have been there for years (a bad cluster could be from damage when the computer was jarred, and the head touched the platter), or the surface is starting to flake off. Keep back-ups of any needed data. Run defrag once a week, if it stays at one bad cluster, just use it as normal. When it starts showing more bad clusters when you run defrag, plan on replacement. You should also see more and more errors as the platter gets more bad spots.

 

[flumixt]

DCliff817: Thanx

I started Defrag at 5:30 am. At 9:30 am it had done 70%. Ridiculous. I figured out a quicker way to inspect the HD;

Start Defrag then after a few minutes click Details > Pause. Next page down thru the field and you can spot any bad clusters because they have a red diagonal thru em. In my case 12 hits on the Page Down key and there it is. Continuing on showed no others.

Defraging probly doesn't do me significant good anyway. I've 10 GB with 5 GB free and don't do multimedia, games, photos or sound.

 

[flumixt]

Well Micker377 I don't know where DCliff817 came from. Sorry about that. -Flumixt

 

[micker377]

Yeah, scrolling on down would just show the results of the previous defrag, not if any new ones were there.

 

[flumixt]

Thot I was cuttin a fat hog, guess not.