Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (
More info?)
"Andrew Rossmann" <andysnewsreply@no_junk.comcast.net> wrote in message news:MPG.1cd55bf9c9e3c5a69896b5@newsgroups.comcast.net
> In article kabl61l1l58in7jqf0eebc6mu1masg3eec@4ax.com, ae@invalid.email says...
> > I remember the defragger in Win98 would graphically show you where any
> > bad clusters are but the one in XP doesn't, nor does Diskeeper or
> > Norton Speedisk. Anyone know one for XP that does? Preferably free or
> > one that has a trial version.
>
> If you actually see bad clusters on a modern drive, replace it IMMEDIATELY.
Ignore the braindead idiot.
(Now watch the John Doe troll post my email address all over the internet again).
> Most IDE/SATA drives have spare sectors
> that are used to automatically replace defective ones.
Clueless.
You have been told many times how that works and it is not automatic at all
in a number of cases, one of which is unrecoverable read error 'bad' sectors.
Format and file system scanners will note those down as bad clusters.
> Only when it runs out of spares will Windows see bad sectors.
Utter nonsense again.
Unrecoverable read error bad sectors can appear at any time.
Unrecoverable read error bad sectors only get reassigned at writes.
Only recoverable read error bad sectors get reassigned automatically if necessary..
> That is a VERY bad sign.
It's a sign of the recorded ECC not being equal to the calculated ECC on a read.
That's all it means. That can happen if a sector write isn't completed and that
obviously has nothing to do with physical damage.
>
> You can do a simple 'CHKDSK x:' to see the number of bad sectors if needed.
Wrong again. That's clusters. The filesystem doesn't know about sectors.
> NT/2K/XP also have 'CHKDSK x: /R' to have it scan and look for
> anything bad, although it should only trigger the drive to replace it if
> one does pop up.
Wrong again.
Any read or write action can "trigger the drive to replace it if one pops up".
Whether that happens depends on a number of rules, not unconditionally automatic.