Faulty Disc Drive

[rogerschwartz]

I posted this before but can't find the message so am re-posting it. I have a portable external storage drive which appears to have some 'bad' 'bits' (you'll see I'm not computer literate!). Can anyone tell me how I can check for errors & correct them. I am running Vista Basic on an Acer laptop. Many thanks. Roger

 

[Lanqu]

Do you mean bad sectors?
If so, then you can try to run the Windows dick checking servies. It could be done in few ways. The easiest is to find a program in your Start-Programs-Accessories.
Also you can just make rigth click on your drive in My Computer, go to Properties and found on the tabs Disk Check utility.
Make sure that program will analyze bad sectors.

 

[Wamphryi]

The first thing to do is get all the data you can off the drive before it is damaged further. What has happened is that the heads in the drive have crashed and touched the platters destroying their surface. This will only get worse until the drive is completely unreadable. The only way to fix such a drive is to replace it after you have saved your data.

 

[Lanqu]

If heads were crashed and make scratches then it is dead hard drive. In his case it is usual bad blocks, that is a sign of dying hard drive ^_^
Any way, backing up the data will be useful.

 

[FreeDataRecovery]

I agree the first thing is to copy any valuable data. Do not use any application that writes to your drive like check disk, spinrite, etc. until after you have saved your data. As writing to a failing disk can cause more damage. Check if the drive is still under warranty you may be able to get it replaced.