Fixing HDD Logical Bad Sectors?

[ErS]

Hi,

I have 4k (2 sectors) of bad logical sectors that I'm trying to take care of
in WinXP.

HDD checks out 100% clean with manufacturer's Drive Fitnest Test, S.M.A.R.T
test, Spinrite, and HDD Regenerator -- but WinXP is seeing two "bad"
sectors.

Chkdsk, run as reboot startup process and from the recovery consule (with
appropriate parameters, /f for reboot and /r for RC), hasn't been able to
take care of them.

In the past, Norton Disk Doctor 2002 has worked well for clearing bad
logical sectors (Win98), but with WinXP it is able to do all the functions
except the scan surface area test. For that, it relies on Microsoft's
chkdsk as a reboot startup process.

Anyone using Norton Disk Doctor 2005? Does it rely on chkdsk for the
surface test or does it have it's own surface testing now?

Even better, anyone know of a software that not only finds bad logical
sectors but can also tell you which actual files are associated with them?
If I knew what file it was, I'd simply erase and restore it from original
source. If that doesn't work, then just fill these two sectors with zeros.

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Bad sectors can't be fixed. Error Checking (chkdsk) tries to recover
whatever data it can, and then Windows no longer records data in those
sectors.

If you find that you are continuing to get bad sectors it's time to replace
your disk.

Ted Zieglar

 

[ErS]

Bad sectors can't be fixed. Error Checking (chkdsk) tries to recover

whatever data it can, and then Windows no longer records data in those
sectors.

If you find that you are continuing to get bad sectors it's time to replace
your disk.

Physically bad sectors, obviously, can't be fixed -- but logical bad sectors
can.

Logical bad sectors aren't physically damaged. They appear to the OS when a
particular sector's ECC (Error Check) value differs from the value of the
data stored within. The most common way they occur is when there is a power
interruption during a write sequence.

This particular drive is 100% physically fine, as reported by the DFT,
S.M.A.R.T., Spinrite, and HDD Regen tests. If I were to format the
partition that is showing these two 'bad' sectors, re-install XP, and then
run chkdsk again it would show 0 bad sectors.

I don't want to reformat. Fixing the 'bad' sectors could be as easy as
simply just deleting the file (probably only one file) that are part of
these two sectors and copying it back from original source. I'm looking
for software that not only finds these sectors but identifies which sectors
they actually are (chkdsk doesn't). If it could even identify which file is
composed of these sectors, even better.

If they were physically bad sectors, the HDD would've just re-mapped the bad
sectors to two sectors in the HDD's reserve cache -- and probably wouldn't
be giving any problems right now. (I'm trying to get this partition
completetly error-free so Partition Magic can work with it.)

I agree with once you start seeing physically bad sectors then you want to
be ready to replace the drive though. I wouldn't replace it just because of
2 physically bad sectors, but would keep a careful eye on it -- and replace
it once the number of bad sectors began to grow.