External harddisk has bad block

[Guest]

The event viewer shows me that I do have a bad block on my external harddisk
which is connect via usb 2.0.
The external disk is not visible in the disk manager/explorer.
The external disk is visible in the device manager.
So xp recognizes my external disk only, I only can not approach it.

Normally I can fix bad blocks by using chkdsk. It requires a volume, but i
don't know what volume i must take?
Some help would be welcome?

 

[Guest]

Your USB connection to the External drive is secure? I have two drives (G
a ZIP drive and (K an External hard drive. Neither shows in Windows
Explorer, because they are not connected to the computer.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your answer, but that's not the problem. All worked well before.
The cause probably is that my system administrator assigned the logical
drive letter to another drive during the time that the external disk was
connected via the drive, corrupting the external harddisk filesystem.

I someone can give me some help, it will be highly appreciated.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

You cannot "fix" a bad block, because a bad block is a physical defect
and as such, a sign that things could get worse. All ChkDsk does is
apply make-up over the bullet holes so it's less obvious you're dying.

Like bullets, bad sectors do not always miss vital organs.

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[Guest]

Hoi cquirke,

Thanks for your reply. And of course your right. I know that the real bad
blok will not be fixed. Chkdsk detects these bad blocks and adds these to the
bad block list, meaning that they will not be used anymore. After that it's
fixing all references is several tables. So from the user's point of view the
disk is made.
The event viewer informs me that my external drive has a bad block.
My question was: How to use chkdsk for external disks or is there anay other
tool
that functions the same for external disks?

 

[Kerry Brown]

You are playing with fire. All modern drives have spare sectors that are
automatically mapped in as needed by the drive's firmware. If Windows or any
other OS is seeing bad sectors this means all the spare sectors have been
used. This also means the drive is on it's way out. It will bite you when
you least expect it. Replace the drive or live dangerously. It is your
choice.

Kerry

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 01:21:02 -0800, "Toine"

Hoi cquirke,
Haai!

Thanks for your reply. And of course your right. I know that the real bad
blok will not be fixed. Chkdsk detects these bad blocks and adds these to the
bad block list, meaning that they will not be used anymore. After that it's
fixing all references is several tables. So from the user's point of view the
disk is made.

That's the problem - the user also thinks there's no more problem,
whereas by the time ChkDsk sees one bad cluster, the HD's firmware may
have already "fixed" 50 of them and still show SMART = "OK", because
SMART may allow 80 bad sectors before saying "hey, this HD sucks" (and
that's assuming you ever get to hear from SMART, given that most BIOSs
default to disabling SMART reporting on POST and/or hide POST).

The event viewer informs me that my external drive has a bad block.
My question was: How to use chkdsk for external disks or is there anay other
tool that functions the same for external disks?

I'm using HD Tune these days for such purposes (www.hdtune.com), and
if it can see the HD, it can test it. So it depends on whether it can
see the external disks, and that in turn depends on how these are
interfaced. As it sees SD cards in USB card readers, prolly will.

What's nice about HDTune is:
- it shows temperature in real-time
- it shows SMART detail in real-time
- it surface scans the whole drive, irrespective of partitioning
- it doesn't try to "fix"anything (though HD firmware will)
- it runs from Bart PE CDR(W) with no drama
- it's free

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