How to mark bad sectors on hard drive?

[Rudolf Ladyzhenskii]

Hi, all

I have this hard drive in a customer machine that has 1 bad sector. It
manifests itself by randomly bringing up blue screen in Windows, saying "Can
not write to drive c:".
Apart from that it works fine (for now). This bad sector is in unused area
on diskm so problem does not happen too often.
They do not want to replace it yet, so the easiest way is to mark this
sector as bad and then PC will not use it.
Normally, this would be done by formatting the drive, but this is something
I would like to avoid.
Norton Disk Doctor used to do this in the past, I have heard it is not doing
it in newer versions.

I have run scandisk and this wonderful program does not detect any problems
on disk. Another diagnostic software found the problem right away.

So, is there a way to mark sectors as bad without reformatting drive?
Hard Drive is 20G Fujitsu, PC is running Windows 98, so file system is
FAT32.

Tahnks,
Rudolf

 

[Rod Speed]

Rudolf Ladyzhenskii <rudolf.ladyzhenskii@REMOVEopennw.com.au> wrote
in message news:jT1ic.17666$V_3.6189@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

I have this hard drive in a customer machine that has 1 bad sector.
It manifests itself by randomly bringing up blue screen in Windows,
saying "Can not write to drive c:".

Apart from that it works fine (for now). This bad sector is in
unused area on diskm so problem does not happen too often.

They do not want to replace it yet, so the easiest way is
to mark this sector as bad and then PC will not use it.

Yep, and its not necessarily that risky. Some drives will produce
a bad sector if the power fails when writing. Completely safe to
map those bads away so they dont get used.

Normally, this would be done by formatting the drive,

Its actually better to use the hard drive manufacturer's
ute that adds it to the list of bad sectors.

but this is something I would like to avoid.

Its not that hard to ghost the drive, format it
or run the hard drive manufacturer's ute on
the drive and then restore it from the image.

Norton Disk Doctor used to do this in the past,
I have heard it is not doing it in newer versions.

So why dont you use an older version ?

I have run scandisk and this wonderful program does not detect any problems
on disk. Another diagnostic software found the problem right away.

So, is there a way to mark sectors as bad without reformatting drive?

Gibson's Spinrite will certainly do that, but its not free.
http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

Hard Drive is 20G Fujitsu, PC is running
Windows 98, so file system is FAT32.

 

[Rudolf Ladyzhenskii]

but this is something I would like to avoid.

Its not that hard to ghost the drive, format it
or run the hard drive manufacturer's ute on
the drive and then restore it from the image.

The only reason is my lazyness, really. I have to take hard drive out, take
apart my machine, connect it, etc..

Norton Disk Doctor used to do this in the past,
I have heard it is not doing it in newer versions.

So why dont you use an older version ?

It only works up to 8G hard drives

I have run scandisk and this wonderful program does not detect any
problems
on disk. Another diagnostic software found the problem right away.

So, is there a way to mark sectors as bad without reformatting drive?

Gibson's Spinrite will certainly do that, but its not free.
http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

Thanks, I'll take a look at it.

Rudolf

 

[Rod Speed]

Rudolf Ladyzhenskii <rudolfl@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:4088d63d$0$20219$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...

but this is something I would like to avoid.

Its not that hard to ghost the drive, format it
or run the hard drive manufacturer's ute on
the drive and then restore it from the image.

The only reason is my lazyness, really.

Yeah, thought so.

I have to take hard drive out, take apart my machine, connect it, etc..

You dont have to do that if you get an external drive
with a USB interface. Ghost supports imaging to those.

Its not that much harder to image over a network too.

Norton Disk Doctor used to do this in the past,
I have heard it is not doing it in newer versions.

So why dont you use an older version ?

It only works up to 8G hard drives

Havent used it for years, its got a reputation for
completely fucking the hard drive in some situations.

I have run scandisk and this wonderful program
does not detect any problems on disk. Another
diagnostic software found the problem right away.

So, is there a way to mark sectors as bad without reformatting drive?

Gibson's Spinrite will certainly do that, but its not free.
http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

Thanks, I'll take a look at it.

 

[Patrick Dunford]

Rudolf Ladyzhenskii

Hi, all

I have this hard drive in a customer machine that has 1 bad sector. It
manifests itself by randomly bringing up blue screen in Windows, saying "Can
not write to drive c:".
Apart from that it works fine (for now). This bad sector is in unused area
on diskm so problem does not happen too often.
They do not want to replace it yet, so the easiest way is to mark this
sector as bad and then PC will not use it.
Normally, this would be done by formatting the drive, but this is something
I would like to avoid.
Norton Disk Doctor used to do this in the past, I have heard it is not doing
it in newer versions.

I have run scandisk and this wonderful program does not detect any problems
on disk. Another diagnostic software found the problem right away.

So, is there a way to mark sectors as bad without reformatting drive?
Hard Drive is 20G Fujitsu, PC is running Windows 98, so file system is
FAT32.

Check if it is one of the Fujitsu models that was recalled worldwide,
then replace it as soon as possible.