Will Windows' format mark bad sectors?

[Bert Hyman]

The external (USB connected) hard drive I use for backups apparently has
developed some bad spots. Formatting the drive starts producing System
Event Log entries at about 12% into the format, with the decription being
"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk3\D."

If I allow the format to continue, will it eventually plow its way through
the bad area and mark those sectors as bad, or is this whole exercise a
waste of time?

 

[Chuck]

Waste of time would by my feeling!
When a "modern" drive has enough errors, it runs out of reserved (by the
drive controller) spare storage, and starts showing errors to external
software and so forth.
I'd strongly suggest that you copy any important data, etc to another drive
as soon as possible. The errors usually spread, and make the drive
unreliable.

When the copying has been acomplished, see if you can obtain the mfrs
utilities for the drive. They may help you to make the salvage or replace
decision.
Given the current low cost of drives, I'd likely just replace it.

Since the drive is a USB drive, this is both a blessing and a curse.
Easier to replace, perhaps harder to dignose, due to the USB interface.

Today's price for a 1.5Tb drive are far less that the price I paid for my
first 40Meg drive.

 

[Bert Hyman]

Given the current low cost of drives, I'd likely just replace it.

That's the conclusion I reached too; the new one's already on order from
NewEgg.

I have a spare drive that's just big enough to hold one full backup and
a few days of incremental backups that should hold me 'til the new one
arrives.

 

[Alias]

The external (USB connected) hard drive I use for backups apparently has
developed some bad spots. Formatting the drive starts producing System
Event Log entries at about 12% into the format, with the decription being
"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk3\D."

If I allow the format to continue, will it eventually plow its way through
the bad area and mark those sectors as bad, or is this whole exercise a
waste of time?

If you download the tools from the hard drive manufacturer's web site
and do a long format, it may very well clear up the bad sectors and may
not. If you decide to do that, be prepared for it to take HOURS.

 

[none]

Today's price for a 1.5Tb drive are far less that the price I paid for my
first 40Meg drive.

Had to chuckle when I first read this. It's SOOO true! I remember in the
early 90's when SCSI became 'somewhat' affordable, buying a Micropolis 2217
1.7GB HDD for around $700 (yes, SEVEN HUNDRED dollars). It's still here,
being used as a bookend on shelves in the den !!! (LOL)

 

[SC Tom]

Had to chuckle when I first read this. It's SOOO true! I remember in the
early 90's when SCSI became 'somewhat' affordable, buying a Micropolis
2217
1.7GB HDD for around $700 (yes, SEVEN HUNDRED dollars). It's still here,
being used as a bookend on shelves in the den !!! (LOL)

I remember running out of space on my 80MB HDD and got a deal(!) on a 600MB
HDD for ~$550. I can remember thinking that it would be the last hard drive
I'd EVER have to buy!! ROTFLMAO!! That was probably 1990 or 1991, running
DOS4.0, then a little later, Windows3.0. I think that drive lasted until I
upgraded to Windows 95 and started buying 95 compatible programs. That 600MB
filled up pretty rapidly after that!

 

[Ken Springer]

Bert Hyman wrote on 06/04/2010 10:59 ET :
Try <A href="www.goodlucksoft.com">PBD(Partition Bad Disk) to
locate, isolate bad sectors and fix the bad sector problem.</A>

WOT, Web of Trust, a site that rates web locations based on user input,
rates this site as Poor in all categories.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 15.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.6.2

 

[glee]

WOT, Web of Trust, a site that rates web locations based on user
input, rates this site as Poor in all categories.

Bert's original question is from over two years ago.... the reply with
the untrustworthy link is just spam, so no wonder that WOT gives it a
bad rating.