how to deal with bad sectors on my wd internal hdd?

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dstubbornkanav

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i have a 160gb western digital hdd.....Recetly it started giving cyclic redundancy error...I used windows default error checking tool to check error/bad sector...It didnt show anz error....

Then i used EaseUS surface check and checked the drive...It showed some 180 bad sectors....I stopped it in the middle of the process since i knew that my hdd had bad sectors..

i searched online for solution...There were plenty...Some were saying to create a separate partition of bad sector and make it hidden...Some said about marking then as zeros...Some said they cant be fixed..

Those who said "bad sectors should be in a separate hidden partition" didn't expain "how to do that".....Right now i don't have money to buy a new hdd.....

i downloaded "western digital data lifeguard diagnostic" but don't know which option to choose, since i don't have back up and a single mistake can erase my data...

So how to fix bad sectors?
 
Solution
RetiredChief
Unless The sector is marked "Bad" ie by running checkdisk /f, windows will write to the sector. NOTE: windows can write to the sector, which is currently good, and then next day the sector goes "BAD" and that sector can not be read.

Note: A sector is 512 Bytes, Just one byte bad = the whole sector is marked bad. To compound this, the smallest amount of data is generally a cluster, typically 4K. A 4K cluster is made up of 8 sectors, so if one byte in one cluster goes bad windows will make the whole cluster unavailable.
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Freakykiwi

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Unfortunately you can't fix bad sectors, disk scanning software can mark the sectors as bad to prevent them from being used by in my experience this is a sign that the drive is failing and will only get worse. I would recommend saving your data elsewhere ASAP and getting a new drive.
 
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dstubbornkanav

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After back up, how to mark that culprit part as bad?
 
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dstubbornkanav

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i have already done that....It didn't detect any bad sector...."Easeus Surface check" showed bad sectors...
 
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rgd1101

rgd1101

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http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/disk-surface-test.htm
It can identify bad sectors by reviewing the hard drive. When it finds bad sectors, it will mark those sectors as bad with red color so that the system knows not to use them. It may allow them to be read, in case the data stored on the bad sector is still accessible, but they cannot be written to.

so it already did when you ran it.
 
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dstubbornkanav

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I didn't completed this process because i thought it will only show how many bad sectors are there.....So, should i complete this process or should i boot into recovery console and use commanz prompt (chkdisk) to format my complete hdd?
 
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RetiredChief

RetiredChief

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Above advise - Replace the HDD is GOOD advise. The drive is failing and you wil lose the drive - Just a question of when.

A little on bad sectors.
Almost ALL Brand New drives have Bad sectors. You never know it because when the drives are made, The are larger (Small prcentage) than the advertized size. A scan is run and and any "bad" sectors are remapped to the "extra" space and you then get the "advertized" space. When you run a scan latter on and if additional bad sectors are found they can also be remapped UNTILL the extra space is used up. YOU can NOT do this by moving the bad sectors yourself, ie creating a seperate partition.

When a drive starts continiually finding bad sectors it is generally an indication that the alignment is failing. Alignment data is included peridoically with in the sectors and if the "head" can not read this alignment info correctly, then it CAN not read the data correctly - This is mechanical and generally ONLY gets worse.

Added: YES 1) back up all YOUR generated data. Run checkdisk with /f and let it finish. Do not need to reformat after checkdisk is completed. But do replace this drive as soon as possible.
 
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dstubbornkanav

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I understand that its good to replace it, but right now my concern is how to tell windows to skip reading and writing those bad sectors..Appreciate ur help
 
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RetiredChief

RetiredChief

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Unless The sector is marked "Bad" ie by running checkdisk /f, windows will write to the sector. NOTE: windows can write to the sector, which is currently good, and then next day the sector goes "BAD" and that sector can not be read.

Note: A sector is 512 Bytes, Just one byte bad = the whole sector is marked bad. To compound this, the smallest amount of data is generally a cluster, typically 4K. A 4K cluster is made up of 8 sectors, so if one byte in one cluster goes bad windows will make the whole cluster unavailable.
 
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