Damaged Hard Drive

After experiencing error after error, I finally downloaded a diagnostic pgm. for the 4gig Western Digital drive that's been making me so crazy. Test results reported that there are one or more errors that can't be repaired, replace the drive! Well, I can't do that anytime soon, so I was wondering if there is someway I can isolate or work around the bad sectors, so I can access the drive in the meantime. I've tried running a surface scan with Scandisk and it fixed 2 of the 3 bad areas, but can't seem to get past the 3rd. Is there anything I can do?

 

Not really, and it will probably just get progressively worse. How old is the drive by the way? Most manufacturers have a 3 year warranty and even if it's not they might gve you a break on an upgrade to a larger drive. Backup everything you want to keep because it will be going bad sooner than later.

 

That's what I firgured...but it doesn't hurt to ask, right? I tried scandisk one last time and somehow it managed to get through all the damaged sectors and isolate them all (I hope) so that I was able to get back into windows. Everything "appears" to be okay, for now anyway, but I will be sure to back up all my important stuff and try to get my hands on a new drive ASAP.

Thanks anyway!

 

Do your back up stuff before anything else! Then get in contact with WD. They have a good PR reputation and I have heard of people geting breaks that Rockn spoke of (actually, I am one of them). They might let you send them the drive and you can pay a little for a much bigger one, and it beats paying $100 to $300 for a new one, depending on how much space you want. All companies rely on your continued business so if you have bought from them before, they will try to make sure you buy from them again and keep you happy. I got an 80 GB WD HD not too long ago for my P4 I built and the drive was damaged in shipping, but nothing spotted the drive until I put in the sound card, 3 weeks after having the computer running. (I ran out of money at one point) So because I waited so long, I had about 10 GB on it already (some files I had erased from the hd it was temperarlly stored on--short on space on that drive--bad mistake) and so when I put in the sound card the drive crashed. I tried to recover data and I finally got it to boot just once (a miracle) but couldn't get the data off right away. That turned out to be the only time I would get it to work and the drive was then officially pronounced dead. Well I lost all the data and went to WD to get it replaced and since this was almost 5 weeks later (the new technology was out now) they paid me $100! and upgraded it to a 100 GB 7400 rpm caviar. So this just goes to show it is worth the hassel to get in touch with intelligent life... i.e. non automated things. (it is sometimes hard at technology compaines) I'm sorry... I didn't mean to ramble like that but at first I thought you might care.

 

i've come to this thread at the right time, i fell asleep before scan disk had finished, i already had seen 2 bad sectors, how long have i got before the hard drive goes altogether? have i got to ask santa for 40 gig for xmas?

thanks wen

 

Well it depends. Have you tried fixing the bad sectors? The software you use should tell you if it is unrepairable if it can't fix it. Is it an old drive? If so I won't hold my breath counting on it. (Hummm... that dosn't make too much sense... oh well.) You could get a lot more use out of it just be careful and make sure you back up important stuff just in case. (but you should be doing that anyway. --as "what's his name says"... data that isn't backed up isn't... well, nevermind )