install vista over hdd with bad sectors

[Neerav Kothari]

there are some bad sectors on my 160gb hdd at the beginning. i want to
remove xp and install vista. is there a way that vista can mark the bad
sectors and avoid them during installition itslef so there there are no
issues after installition.

xp didnt do that. it ran chkdsk after installition and while it works fine
it is damn slow and booting also takes a lot of time.

i know hdd replacament is the right thing but it takes a month here for
seagate hdd replacments under warranty.

thanks in advance.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

No, there is nothing you can do ahead of time. Personally, I wouldn't even
risk it with a drive that I know is bad.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Dustin Harper]

You might download the Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/). It
has a few different hard disk utilities that might do what you want.
Although, I probably wouldn't chance it. I'd wait, myself.

 

[Curious]

Almost all drives today have some bad sectors and a complete full
reformatting normally takes care of this by remapping the true bad sectors
to other sectors transparent to the OS.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Almost all drives today have some bad sectors and a complete full
reformatting normally takes care of this by remapping the true bad sectors
to other sectors transparent to the OS.

If a drive has enough bad sectors that Windows sees them the drive should be
replaced. Current hard drives have spare sectors that the drive's firmware
maps in when a bad sector is encountered. If Windows is seeing bad sectors
all the spare sectors are already used up. All manufacturers will warranty a
drive if there are bad sectors.

 

[Andy]

Create a small partition that "covers" the bad sectors, and either
don't use that partition or hide it using something like MBRWizard.
Use the rest of the disk to install Vista.

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

Get a new drive.

You'll be soooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrry.... ;-)

I wouldn't be surprised if VISTA refused to load after a failed disk check.

Even a bloated XP should boot in less than 60 seconds. You have
issues with maintenance that supercede your automatically over-
looked bad sectors.

Are you telling me you didn't get $69 for Christmas ?? (Avg. selling price of 160 G)

Keep your XP and do a clean install of it on a nice clean hard drive. You will be
shocked at the speed and happiness of your like-new XP computer.

If your VISTA is an 'upgrade,' you will lose your license to run XP.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

there are some bad sectors on my 160gb hdd at the beginning. i want to
remove xp and install vista. is there a way that vista can mark the bad
sectors and avoid them during installition itslef so there there are no
issues after installition.

xp didnt do that. it ran chkdsk after installition and while it works fine
it is damn slow and booting also takes a lot of time.

i know hdd replacament is the right thing but it takes a month here for
seagate hdd replacments under warranty.

thanks in advance.

A great way to end up with an unstable OS is to install it on instable
hardware. What are you thinking?!!!

Wait until you get the replacement hard drive.

 

[philo]

there are some bad sectors on my 160gb hdd at the beginning. i want to
remove xp and install vista. is there a way that vista can mark the bad
sectors and avoid them during installition itslef so there there are no
issues after installition.

xp didnt do that. it ran chkdsk after installition and while it works fine
it is damn slow and booting also takes a lot of time.

i know hdd replacament is the right thing but it takes a month here for
seagate hdd replacments under warranty.

thanks in advance.

There would be no sense to use that drive...
(In addition to the bad sectors, you mentioned that the drive was very
'slow'...which means that it probably has read/write errors and is probably
near total failure)
It make sense to install Vista on it..

You need to get a new drive and install Vista on that...
if it takes a month to get the original drive replaced under warranty...
so be it.
Not a bad idea to have a spare

 

[Neerav]

Get a new drive.


You'll be soooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrry.... ;-)


I wouldn't be surprised if VISTA refused to load after a failed disk
check.


Even a bloated XP should boot in less than 60 seconds. You have
issues with maintenance that supercede your automatically over-
looked bad sectors.


Are you telling me you didn't get $69 for Christmas ?? (Avg. selling
price of 160 G)

Keep your XP and do a clean install of it on a nice clean hard drive. You
will be
shocked at the speed and happiness of your like-new XP computer.

If your VISTA is an 'upgrade,' you will lose your license to run XP.

"Keep your XP and do a clean install of it on a nice clean hard drive. You
will be
shocked at the speed and happiness of your like-new XP computer.

If your VISTA is an 'upgrade,' you will lose your license to run XP."

I INSTALLED VISTA! AND IT INSTALLED FINE! RUNS FINE!
is smoother and faste the xp and i never want to look back.

i think the bad sector issue was a false alarm. the seagate website mentions
that even if the sata cable go loose at times windows reports bad sectors.
and i replugged them and everything seems fime.

thanks for ur help guys.

 

[Neerav]

There would be no sense to use that drive...
(In addition to the bad sectors, you mentioned that the drive was very
'slow'...which means that it probably has read/write errors and is
probably
near total failure)
It make sense to install Vista on it..

You need to get a new drive and install Vista on that...
if it takes a month to get the original drive replaced under warranty...
so be it.
Not a bad idea to have a spare

thats because i installed linux on one of the partition and got everything
wrong. now i got rid of that stupid unprofessional os and now things are
like before.

 

[philo]

thats because i installed linux on one of the partition and got everything
wrong. now i got rid of that stupid unprofessional os and now things are
like before.

No, Linux did not create bad sectors on the drive...
they would have been there prior to the installation.

If the drive is bad, you will save a lot of trouble
if you replace it now