Bad Sectors on new HDD

N

news.ntlworld.com

I've just installed a Seagate Barraacuda 120Gb Hard Drive as a slave. After formating I ran Scan
Disk (Win 98) and it found Bad Sectors on the disk.
Is it normal for a new disk to have Bad Sectors or is this a faulty disk?
Should I just mark the bad sectors and start using the disk?

Thanks for your advice.
 
K

kony

I've just installed a Seagate Barraacuda 120Gb Hard Drive as a slave. After formating I ran Scan
Disk (Win 98) and it found Bad Sectors on the disk.
Is it normal for a new disk to have Bad Sectors or is this a faulty disk?
Should I just mark the bad sectors and start using the disk?

Thanks for your advice.


Run the manufacturer's utility floppy... if you don't have it then
download from their website. A new drive should not have bad sectors
"showing", they should be remapped invisibly so you'd never know
unless it has gross defect and has ran out of spares or there is some
other problem.

You might also check the power supply voltage, cabling, jumpers, etc.
If nothing resolves this then return the drive to seller or Seagate if
necessary.


Dave
 
N

news.ntlworld.com

Sun said:
Run the manufacturer's utility floppy... if you don't have it then
download from their website. A new drive should not have bad sectors
"showing", they should be remapped invisibly so you'd never know
unless it has gross defect and has ran out of spares or there is some
other problem.

You might also check the power supply voltage, cabling, jumpers, etc.
If nothing resolves this then return the drive to seller or Seagate if
necessary.


Dave
I just did that, and no problem was found.
Norton disk doctor (Norton Utility 2000) will not run on the disk, it states "The disk may not be
configurated properly".
 
A

Alien Zord

kony, (e-mail address removed) escribió en el mensaje,
Sun said:
Run the manufacturer's utility floppy... if you don't have it then
download from their website. A new drive should not have bad sectors
"showing", they should be remapped invisibly so you'd never know
unless it has gross defect and has ran out of spares or there is some
other problem.

You might also check the power supply voltage, cabling, jumpers, etc.
If nothing resolves this then return the drive to seller or Seagate if
necessary.


Dave
I just did that, and no problem was found.
Norton disk doctor (Norton Utility 2000) will not run on the disk, it states
"The disk may not be
configurated properly".There's a known FDISK problem with Win95/98 and HDDs larger than 64GB. Fix
here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q263044&
 
N

news.ntlworld.com

news.ntlworld.com, (e-mail address removed) escribió en el mensaje,
I just did that, and no problem was found.
Norton disk doctor (Norton Utility 2000) will not run on the disk, it states "The disk may not be
configurated properly".
Im sorry Scan Disk is reporting Bad clusters Not Bad Sectors
 
M

MyndPhlyp

news.ntlworld.com said:
Im sorry Scan Disk is reporting Bad clusters Not Bad Sectors

It is not unusual for a new drive to contain bad tracks, sectors and/or
clusters.

Typically, as part of the quality control at the factory, the drive will go
through rigorous testing and any bad tracks or sectors are "spared out."
Since the drive has spares built into it for just such a purpose, a certain
number of defects can be corrected without affecting the advertised storage
capacity. If all the spares are taken, the drive doesn't make it to market.

Norton's discovery of bad clusters may, or may not, be the sign of a
borderline drive. If there is a large number of bad clusters and they are
all grouped together, I would consider returning the drive. If there is only
a few bad clusters widely scattered, it is probably not worth the effort.

I have seen (years ago) drives with consecutive bad spots run for years, and
I have seen them fail within a matter of months. The problem is that you
don't really know if the drive is in the process of failing unless you
monitor it over an extended period of time to see if a trend develops. (By
that time, the warranty will probably run out.)

FWIW - It has been a very long time since I have seen Norton detect a bad
cluster on any of my drives - new or old. I am not sure how prevalent bad
clusters are in drives these days.
 
J

John E. Carty

Alien Zord said:
kony, (e-mail address removed) escribió en el mensaje,

I just did that, and no problem was found.
Norton disk doctor (Norton Utility 2000) will not run on the disk, it states
"The disk may not be
configurated properly".
There's a known FDISK problem with Win95/98 and HDDs larger than 64GB. Fix
here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q263044&

The older versions of FDISK merely do not correctly report the size of these
larger drives, but can still be used on them :)
 

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