Can't reinstall XP because of bad sectors on disk.

[Allen]

I can not load XP because there are bad sectors on the
disk where the prior XP install was. The installation
hangs while checking for prior versions of Windows and the
disk heads just rattle over the bad sectors.
How do I get around this to load XP in a good area of the
disk?

Booting in MS DOS works fine and I can read the disk
without any problems.

I have tried running ghost 2003 to clone the disk, but it
keeps crashing when it tries to read the directory.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

With the price of hard drives at a low price, I would suggest replacing the
one with bad sectors.

 

[Guest]

I bought a new drive. I just want to clone the old one
over to it.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

There is a parameter in Ghost which will force the cloning to complete even
with the bad sectors. However, the new drive still will have problems with
the software because to bad sectors will not be copied. Any software stored
on the bad sectors could be lost.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

I can not load XP because there are bad sectors on the
disk where the prior XP install was. The installation
hangs while checking for prior versions of Windows and the
disk heads just rattle over the bad sectors.
How do I get around this to load XP in a good area of the
disk?

Booting in MS DOS works fine and I can read the disk
without any problems.

I have tried running ghost 2003 to clone the disk, but it
keeps crashing when it tries to read the directory.

Run CHKDSK /R on the disk with bad blocks. It will mark the bad spots as
unusable and the OS should leave them alone.

Steve

 

[Steve Nielsen]

I should think you need to boot from CD into the recovery console and then
do a:
chkdsk /f
on the drive.

This should mark the bad sectors. Having done this try repairing the current
installation, or get your data off the disk (if it isn't already backed up)
and reinstall.

No. CHKDSK /F only fixes file system errors. CHKDSK /R checks for bad
blocks as well as the file system check.

You could try cloning the disk. I don't know how the software will deal with
the bad sectors once they are marked.

Once the blocks are marked unusable the OS and software will leave them
alone.

Steve

 

[Dave]

I can not load XP because there are bad sectors on the
disk where the prior XP install was. The installation
hangs while checking for prior versions of Windows and the
disk heads just rattle over the bad sectors.
How do I get around this to load XP in a good area of the
disk?

Booting in MS DOS works fine and I can read the disk
without any problems.

I have tried running ghost 2003 to clone the disk, but it
keeps crashing when it tries to read the directory.

I should think you need to boot from CD into the recovery console and then
do a:
chkdsk /f
on the drive.

This should mark the bad sectors. Having done this try repairing the current
installation, or get your data off the disk (if it isn't already backed up)
and reinstall.

You could try cloning the disk. I don't know how the software will deal with
the bad sectors once they are marked.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Replace the hard drive.

Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH

 

[Alex Nichol]

I can not load XP because there are bad sectors on the
disk where the prior XP install was. The installation
hangs while checking for prior versions of Windows and the
disk heads just rattle over the bad sectors.
How do I get around this to load XP in a good area of the
disk?

Booting in MS DOS works fine and I can read the disk
without any problems.

From a MSDOS boot, eg a Win98 startup floppy you can run the DOS
SCANDISK to check a FAT 32 drive - it will find bad sectors and mark
them as such, at hardware level, so that nothing will then try to use
them