Bad sectors?

[ric]

Group,

7 year old P2/266 MHz
5.6G HD (same age)
Windows 98SE

Problem: Upon bootup, I was informed that bad sectors were possible,
and to run Scandisk. Scandisk found and "fixed" 18 bad sectors (out
of over 1.4 MILLION.) Still would not run. Wanted me to run Scandisk
again. I pressed "x" for escape, and computer booted up and seems to
be running OK, except...

Every time I boot it up it wants me to run Scandisk again, and I have
to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to StartUp screen. All programs
seem to be operating normally, and no virus can be found.

Comments?

 

[kony]

Group,

7 year old P2/266 MHz
5.6G HD (same age)
Windows 98SE

Problem: Upon bootup, I was informed that bad sectors were possible,
and to run Scandisk. Scandisk found and "fixed" 18 bad sectors (out
of over 1.4 MILLION.) Still would not run. Wanted me to run Scandisk
again. I pressed "x" for escape, and computer booted up and seems to
be running OK, except...

Every time I boot it up it wants me to run Scandisk again, and I have
to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to StartUp screen. All programs
seem to be operating normally, and no virus can be found.

Comments?

The drive is quicly failing and you have significant file
loss. Best thing to do is unplug the old drive completely,
buy a new drive and set up the system fresh on the new
drive, get it confirmed working right, and THEN reattach the
old drive and copy over any data/files that are salvageable.

That is, if you want to keep using the system, only
replacing the failing drive. If you were inclined to buy a
new system now, again you would refrain from using (or
running at all) the old drive for the time being then once
new system is confirmed working right you'd attach old drive
to new system and copy whatever-data-possible off of it.

While scandisk can find bad sectors, it's not going to
magically regain data. There's not a lot of point in
letting it try to fix 1.4 million problems, only running it
if you need some specific file and that file won't copy...
first try copying off everything that will copy ok, then
after running scandisk you will have lost parts of files
potentially and whatever's left might be a bits and pieces
salvageable.

The short of it is that there's no recovery at this point
and the drive would be a liability even if you managed to
scan it over and over till all the failing sectors were
mapped off. It simply needs replaced.

 

[S.Heenan]

Group,

7 year old P2/266 MHz
5.6G HD (same age)
Windows 98SE

Problem: Upon bootup, I was informed that bad sectors were possible,
and to run Scandisk. Scandisk found and "fixed" 18 bad sectors (out
of over 1.4 MILLION.) Still would not run. Wanted me to run Scandisk
again. I pressed "x" for escape, and computer booted up and seems to
be running OK, except...

Every time I boot it up it wants me to run Scandisk again, and I have
to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to StartUp screen. All programs
seem to be operating normally, and no virus can be found.

Comments?

Toss it and get another. You will likely need to update the BIOS or use
a PCI controller card for larger harddrives.

 

[Raymond Sirois]

Group,

7 year old P2/266 MHz
5.6G HD (same age)
Windows 98SE

Problem: Upon bootup, I was informed that bad sectors were possible,
and to run Scandisk. Scandisk found and "fixed" 18 bad sectors (out
of over 1.4 MILLION.) Still would not run. Wanted me to run Scandisk
again. I pressed "x" for escape, and computer booted up and seems to
be running OK, except...

Every time I boot it up it wants me to run Scandisk again, and I have
to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to StartUp screen. All programs
seem to be operating normally, and no virus can be found.

Comments?

Did the possibility of buying a new hard drive occur to you?
Raymond Sirois KU2S
SysOp: The Lost Chord BBS
607-733-5745
telnet://thelostchord.dns2go.com:6023

 

[Free Hui]

If you can get a copy of Sprinrite, you can use it to restore most of the
bad sectors. If the bad sectors covers over 5% of the disk, I suggested you
discard your drive. If the bad sectors are scattered over the drive,
Sprinrite can help to rejuvenate the drive. For more info of the program go
to www.grc.com
F. Hui

 

[ric]

If you can get a copy of Sprinrite, you can use it to restore most of the
bad sectors. If the bad sectors covers over 5% of the disk, I suggested
you discard your drive. If the bad sectors are scattered over the drive,
Sprinrite can help to rejuvenate the drive. For more info of the program
go to www.grc.com

Thanks. I trashed the whole computer. Nobody wanted a P2/266
without a HD. Can't say I blame them.