# Solved: Bad Sectors on a Hard Drive



## The_AcE (Oct 12, 2003)

Ok well here's my problem:
I got a 2 years old 40GB HardDrive. It probably has like 50 bad sectors.
Now i tried HDD Regenerator version 1.51 but it kept freezing when it reached 103 MB (212000 sectors).
So i guess there is a bad sector on the 212000 sectors.

Now how do i do so that whenever my HardDrive reads the 212000 sectors it just skips that sector so it becomes unreadable/unwritable/unusable.
I heard this can be done by modifiying the BIOS S.M.A.R.T to include the bad sectors.

Also if that's possible is there a program just to scan all the bad sectors without taking no actions?

thank you.


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## imidiot (Dec 2, 2005)

bad sectors are highly unlikely/impossible to repair. i know, i had bad sectors. no matter what i tried, it just got worse. to where my system just completely froze. i think a new hard disk is in order.


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## buddhafabio (Aug 5, 2002)

imidiot said:


> bad sectors are highly unlikely/impossible to repair. i know, i had bad sectors. no matter what i tried, it just got worse. to where my system just completely froze. i think a new hard disk is in order.


EXPECIAALLY IF THE AMOUNT OF BAD SECTORS KEEPS GROWING


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## qldit (Mar 18, 2005)

G'day Ace, when you get HDDRegen freezing like that it is indicative of a severe drive surface problem. Sometimes repeatedly restarting it close to that area will eventually fix one small bit after another and may eventually pass over to complete the scan. Some drives have hundreds of bad spots. There is the odd drive that will not clear and even if set up as fat, scandisk will not pass it. I have a drive here that is like that (damnit!) it is a 40 gig also. Keep a record of the cluster count where the problem happens. Sometimes it may appear to be frozen but is still trying to fix obstinate problems.
Most drives simply are repaired and appear to be able to be used as if they were normal with normal good drive characteristics, I am surprised, they don't appear to fail afterward, I have been running several for months now with no problem.
Interesting stuff. The theory involved with this is quite interesting.
Cheers, qldit.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Time for a BACKUP now!


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## The_AcE (Oct 12, 2003)

okay well did you know that before S.M.A.R.T. drives on the hard disk was wriiten all the bad sectors and you had to enter them yourself on the B.I.O.S. or whatever it was called before.

So that's what i am trying to do. I need a program that will only find all the bad sectors on my hard drive.
I will then take note of it and modify the S.M.A.R.T. so that it adds all the bad sectors on my hard drive. That way everytime it writes/read/use those sectors, it will just skip them.

Anybody know how to do this ?


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## imidiot (Dec 2, 2005)

> bad sectors are highly unlikely/impossible to repair.





> EXPECIAALLY IF THE AMOUNT OF BAD SECTORS KEEPS GROWING





> Time for a BACKUP now!


and if you do not believe the above. you may want to check the following in another forum i found. they may answer your question about bad sectors.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic9854.html


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## DCM1519 (Mar 8, 2005)

Is Hard Drive Regenerator about the same as SpinRite?


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## qldit (Mar 18, 2005)

G'day dmullen, as far as I can see they achieve similar results.
Spinrite has a lot more bells and whistles and magical screens but if you run either on similar problem drives the results are comparable.
With a drive with irretrievable problem area, such as a surface scratch neither has retrieval ability. 
It is quite amazing to experiment with them, and it you have a fat 32 system, you can repeatedly do fdisking and scandisking and actually observe cleared problem drives. It takes a lot of time, I played with them for weeks and found them both to be extremely decent repair programs. With failed drives due to bad cluster problems that have untouched data still in place, they both allow drive reinstatement to the point where data can be removed normally using normal slaving. Regenerated drives generally certainly keep operating as the advertised stuff indicates. That is my findings, I do suggest any interested person do their own investigation, from my point of view the regeneration system works extremely well and the drive I am currently using had a gaggle of bad clusters that were regenerated and have been operating normally for that past few months. 24/7.
It is common for blue-screening seagates or other drives in the 40 to 80 gig bracket, to show one or two bad clusters in the first 20 or so gigs, these problems are also addressed and don't appear to return. The major problem is scandisk storing bad cluster info even though the problem is fixed. (with fat) Fdisking naturally removes this "logging" but the drive then has to be reloaded, so keeping notes after fixing these kinds of problems attached to the drive becomes necessary. (Sector XXX has been repaired, bad indication not reset.)
I have formed the opinion that when servicing a problem machine it is a good idea to run the shareware HDDRegenerator, rather than any scandisk program, because it has the ability to repair one bad cluster if detected and also gives a good idea that the drive is good. It runs on any drive format or file system without affecting any data that might exist on that drive. 
Of course it is pertinent to backup important stuff as Johnwill suggests.
As drive sizes and linear read speeds increase, the possibility of cluster problems also increase, so the way I see it is that these kind of programs where magnetic domain restoration is possible, will progressively become more popular.
I think everyone might find having a CD with the HDDRegenerator as a bootable CD may find running it occasionally just as an experiment if they might have an odd hint of a BSOD. You may obtain a free trial of HDDRegen here http://www.dposoft.net/ Give an opinion.
Cheers, qldit.


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## DCM1519 (Mar 8, 2005)

qldit

Thanks for responding. I did download it this afternoon and ran it for a couple of hours. 

It appeared to be doing about the same thing as my Spinrite program and that is what prompted my question. 

Occasionally, I run SpinRite just in case there is a problem that I haven't noticed yet but luckily, to date, nothing has shown up.


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## qldit (Mar 18, 2005)

Yes my opinion was that the end product is similar. Spinrite can be set for fast scan which is helpful. HDDRegen just slugs along, sometimes taking days to complete a restoration. Spinrite has a load of magical images and screens even sounds, but really I suspect it is all a bit dramatic. I really could not see any appreciable difference in the end product.
The fact that HDDregen is functional shareware is a big plus even though it only fixes one bad spot, but it can be rerun.
As you will appreciate many drives have countless bad sectors so it is very helpful knowing if any might be repaired before purchasing the program.
They are quite expensive. 
I came across a problem similar to ACES, and tried both programs but neither had a fix. When I inspected the drive there was a minute mark on a platter surface.
You might try obtaining a really bad clustered drive and trying either program, it certainly is an interesting exercise, but if anything it would appear to me that the HDDRegen program is more persistent with repeated tries to recover really bad spots. Spinrite did appear to try to recover them then list them as bad and move on. That was my only major observational difference noted. I had a feeling the "fix" rate might be better with HDDRegen but couldn't positively confirm it.
Certainly interesting stuff.
qldit.


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