format a harddisk with a bad sector

[Dirkie]

Hi ,

Perhaps someone can help me?
Starting up my laptop is a long way to go! It takes half an hour to
start up.
I want to format my harddisk but it doesn't work! When analysing the
disk, I get always a error! There is no space enough. There is a bad
sector on that disk. What can I do?
Is there a program, so I can format the disk and the bad sector will
be ignored? Thanks a lot!

Dirk

 

[Rod Speed]

Hi ,

Perhaps someone can help me?
Starting up my laptop is a long way to go! It takes half an hour to
start up.
I want to format my harddisk but it doesn't work! When analysing the
disk, I get always a error! There is no space enough. There is a bad
sector on that disk. What can I do?
Is there a program, so I can format the disk and the bad sector will
be ignored? Thanks a lot!

The hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic should be able to do that.

You can work out the hard drive manufacturer using Everest.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

 

[kony]

Hi ,

Perhaps someone can help me?
Starting up my laptop is a long way to go! It takes half an hour to
start up.
I want to format my harddisk but it doesn't work! When analysing the
disk, I get always a error! There is no space enough. There is a bad
sector on that disk. What can I do?
Is there a program, so I can format the disk and the bad sector will
be ignored? Thanks a lot!

Dirk

It's time to buy a new drive. Drives have spare sectors
such that once you start seeing any, there were already
quite a few and likely more to come. It's not worth the
hassle, just stop using the drive NOW, so you won't put any
more wear on it till you get a chance to copy off anything
salvagable onto a new drive.

 

[philo]

It's time to buy a new drive. Drives have spare sectors
such that once you start seeing any, there were already
quite a few and likely more to come. It's not worth the
hassle, just stop using the drive NOW, so you won't put any
more wear on it till you get a chance to copy off anything
salvagable onto a new drive.

That's exactly right!

A drive with a few bad sectors, though not good...is usually formatable...
if the drive is so bad that it cannot be formatted...it's a *sure* sign that
it needs to be replaced

 

[jaster]

Hi ,

Perhaps someone can help me?
Starting up my laptop is a long way to go! It takes half an hour to start
up.
I want to format my harddisk but it doesn't work! When analysing the disk,
I get always a error! There is no space enough. There is a bad sector on
that disk. What can I do?
Is there a program, so I can format the disk and the bad sector will be
ignored? Thanks a lot!

Dirk

Wow, off-hand I'd say if the disk is full or nearly full that's why it
takes 30min to boot. Some free space is needed by most OS.

Google for "Ultimate Boot CD" which has a number of utilities for viewing
and fixing files, hard disks, etc. It has a couple of vendor HD
utilities, like DiscWizard from Seagate. Running the Vendor utility will
flag bad sectors on the HD. However if your HD has a large number of bad
sectors it's time to backup your data and buy a new HD.

 

[Rod Speed]

It's time to buy a new drive. Drives have spare sectors
such that once you start seeing any, there were already
quite a few and likely more to come.

Its more complicated than that. Hard drives dont automatically
reallocate all bad sectors, particularly ones where the contents
dont change. They only do that on writes, not reads, essentially
so you can attempt to recover the data from the bad sector.

 

[Rod Speed]

That's exactly right!

Fraid not.

A drive with a few bad sectors, though not good...is usually
formatable... if the drive is so bad that it cannot be
formatted...it's a *sure* sign that it needs to be replaced

 

[Rod Speed]

Dirkie wrote

Wow, off-hand I'd say if the disk is full or nearly full that's why it
takes 30min to boot. Some free space is needed by most OS.

Mindlessly silly, any decent OS will just give
up if there isnt enough free space to boot.

Its almost certainly retrying on bads and eventually succeeds.

 

[meow2222]

Mindlessly silly, any decent OS will just give
up if there isnt enough free space to boot.

Its almost certainly retrying on bads and eventually succeeds.

for half an hour? HDDs usually give up within a minute, so it would
have to be retrying many times on different stuff. HDD sounds real
screwed.


NT

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Rod Speed wrote

for half an hour?

Yep, with more than one sector that needs to be retried.

HDDs usually give up within a minute, so it would
have to be retrying many times on different stuff.
Yep.

HDD sounds real screwed.

Or something else is producing that result.

It certainly wont be due to the lack of free space.