Bad Sectors

[Truthpursuer42]

I have discovered many bad sectors on my HDD. In an effort to repair these sectors, I've executed diagnostics software (which then froze and could not complete the scan) and have formatted the HDD...but I can't correct them. Knowing the general location of the corrupt sectors, I tried using Partition Magic to resize my Primary partition and leave the bad sectors in unallocated memory. Unfortunately, P. Magic runs into these sectors and aborts the entire process.
How can I isolate this area?

 

[Roshi]

Seriously, if you have "many" bad sectors, your drive is at the end of its life and should not be trusted. HDD's are very inexpensive these days, do yourself a favor and get a new one!

 

[Truthpursuer42]

Haha, I've been told that many times...well, this is one strike against TigerDirect.com

 

[mudskipper]

Strike two. I would have posted the same thing, but Roshi pretty much said it all. Being that you have had some conflicting info from your vendor, I'll go ahead and include my two cents.

Although some companies try to get you to low-level format (or whatever) to "solve" your bad sectors, it usually doesn't help.

Out of hundreds of RMAs to hard drive manufacturers themselves, I have NEVER had them refuse warranty replacement on a drive with bad sectors.

Bottom line? Back up your data and then (especially if it is under warranty), get a replacement. Don't be too discouraged. If your hard drive is not covered under the vendor's warranty, then check with the hard drive manufacturer. I have never seen a drive that carried a manufacturer's warranty of less than 1 year. Most (until recently) have 3 year warranties. Mudskipper
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Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[firewolfrl]

who is the Manufacture of the drive?
Partition magic has (ignore bad cluster) setting in the files menu .... I doubt that will help if you have alot of errors.

 

[nightowl17]

Why dont you do a lowlevil format to correct the flaws ,You can get a lowlevil format at

http://www.maxtor

.com and look for PowerMax .I have fixed many a hard drive with this tool.Bad sectors do not necessarly mean the HDD is going bad I have had Norton give me some bad sectors while running speed Disk
nightowl17

 

[Truthpursuer42]

The manufacture is Western Digital.
Nightowl, I tried low-level formatting the entire drive, but it didn't help.

 

[firewolfrl]

RMA the drive
otherwise you wont get any sleep trying to fix a dead drive

 

[Truthpursuer42]

The drive is a little over 1 year old. I don't believe it's still under warrenty.

 

[firewolfrl]

call the manufacturer and see if the drive is in warranty
if it's not then you have a paperweight.

 

[Grenage]

after 1 year it probably wont be under the retailers warranty but almost always still under the manufacturers. Get a contact number and ring them up for an RMA number and send it off.

 

[mudskipper]

It probably is still under warranty. Check it out here by puting the serial number in. Western Digital will check it for you. If it is, then you can start the RMA process from the same page. See below:

Go to

http://www.westerndigital.com

, then hover your mouse over support (at the top), select "warranty services". Now select "End User". Click on "Product Warranty Check". Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"