How to repair hard drive errors and bad sectors?

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PianoMike

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Sep 8, 2013
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I have just done a disk check for hard drive errors because I just got done talking to eMachines support about my slow computer issue, the issue was that I had bad hard drive errors and bad sectors that need to be fixed immediately. Anyways, I did the scan and checked the logs and I have several errors. I want to know how I can repair these issues. Thanks!

Computer info:

eMachines ET1810
 
Solution
Nothing you need to do, when you run chkdsk and it finds bad sectors several things happen -- there is an attempt to move any data to a good sector and the bad sector is marked in the HDD firmware as a user found bad sector so it will not be used again. The bad sectors cannot be repaired so they are mapped out and never used again. You don't need to reformat to deal with them. The data that was in the bad sectors may not have been recovered so some files may be corrupt.

But as I said, run chkdsk again in a week or so to see if there are more found -- it is symptomatic of a bad drive if they continue to be found.

RealBeast

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Chkdsk should allow the HDD to automatically map those out as bad sectors. You should not need to do anything.

I would back up my data though and run chkdsk again like next week, if you are getting a lot of bad sectors the drive may be going.
 

PianoMike

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I need this fixed immediately. How can I get rid of all those bad sectors and errors fast? Should I reformat my hard drive? Will that get rid of all of the bad sectors or will they still be there after the reformat?
 

RealBeast

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Nothing you need to do, when you run chkdsk and it finds bad sectors several things happen -- there is an attempt to move any data to a good sector and the bad sector is marked in the HDD firmware as a user found bad sector so it will not be used again. The bad sectors cannot be repaired so they are mapped out and never used again. You don't need to reformat to deal with them. The data that was in the bad sectors may not have been recovered so some files may be corrupt.

But as I said, run chkdsk again in a week or so to see if there are more found -- it is symptomatic of a bad drive if they continue to be found.
 
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PianoMike

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Alright, thanks so much. I guess I should just get a new computer shouldn't I?
 

RealBeast

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Not a new computer, but very possibly a new hard drive.

For now, back up your data and then check your drive again periodically. If any more error show up in the near future or if the drive start making any noises (clicks), I would replace it.
 
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