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
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).
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
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
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
