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Free Harddrive but has bad sectors help!!!

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by scoops01, Mar 29, 2005.

  1. scoops01

    scoops01 Member

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    i have been given a free harddrive from my mate but he has told me it has some bad sectors if i install this as a backup hdd what will i do to make sure the bad sectors aren't used
     
  2. haimback

    haimback Regular member

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    There are a couple of things you could do to try fix thoose sectors,go into the properties of the drive then select tools - click the check now button under Error Checking Status.Then select scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. I think there are also programs that can do this but iv never used them so cant really recommend one (maybe someone else can).
     
  3. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    goto the hd manufacturer to download their diagnostic program that also does low level format to possibly correct the bad spots. did that with a 40gig with 3meg bad than did a format after running the program with 0 bytes bad
     
  4. Liez4Love

    Liez4Love Regular member

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    What kinda hardrive is it?
     
  5. scoops01

    scoops01 Member

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    cheers for the info guys

    haimback this sounds like a plan but may require info on house to instal it first if you could help

    ddp will def try your idea but again after installation but it is a 60gig and my mate thinks that only 40 of it works is this too much for your idea

    Liez4Love it is an IBM deskstar

    my main query has been answered i think and that was whether i should install this at all, but if yous think it is a bad idea let me know. Even if i can't fix them i've told i can stop them being used so that it will just be a 40 gig hdd
     
  6. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    will only take longer to do a low level format which might either recover the bad spots or put them aside so info can't be put on them. it could take a couple of hrs or more or less depending on how bad the spots are whether physical or software
     

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