how to recover badclusters?

hi everyone. i just ran perfect disck 7 on my dell xp home pc. i noticed it reported some bad clusters. the last time i found i had bad clusters was on my old win3.1 pc. if i recall scandisk would fix the problem. i searched this forum and read that xp can't use scandisk. how can i recover some bad clusters?
thanks,
joe

 

In Windows XP you attempt repair on bad clusters/sectors by doing this.

Go to My Computer
Right Click on the drive you want to do this on, and choose Properties
Go to the Tools tab.
Go to Error Checking and click the Check Now button
You have an option there to Attempt recovery of bad sectors.

Note: In most cases bad sectors or clusters are not recovered but marked as bad so the system avoids them in future. Recovery of bad sectors mainly will attempt to move or recover any data kept in the bad sectors, not actually fix the sector. That is usually impossible.

This is as bad clusters/sectors are usually physical damage to the disk surface/s. When you have bad sectors they often grow in number progressively and you should replace the disk or at least backup up a lot if you have them, as the disk will likely fail at some time soon or get an area corrupted you dont want, like a FAT table or data area. You can lose the lot if you arent careful!

Some people get lucky and the bad area doesnt grow and it works for years afterwards, but risking this should not happen if the PC is important or contains critical data.

The most common cause of bad sectors is an aging hard disk, as the Read/Write heads in the disk can dip and hit the disk surface, when normally they do not ever touch the disk/s. This happens because the head arms and mechanisms loosen and/or lose alignment. They wear out. The actual disk surfaces (there are multiple disks in a hard drive) are very durable and would last decades if the heads didnt wear out. But they do.

So do what i describe at the top about scanning and attempting repair on bad sectors, but also start backing up anything you dont want to lose, and do it more than ever, and if you can afford it, buy a new hard disk ASAP.

 

dez-
thanks for the clear and detailed post.

i followed your instructions and then re-ran perfect disk. i didn't get any fixed or recovered msgs when the repair on bad clusters/sectors ended. i still show 2 bad clusters in the grey metadata section of the hd.

i have drive image7. is it useful to make an image of this hd incase i have to replace it?

-joe

 

JoeD - there should be an entry in your event logs from when you ran the chkdsk. click on start => run key in eventvwr.msc and look around.

Note that when disk sectors have once been marked as bad, they are not checked again and most programs seem to assume you know about them and may not report seeing them.

 

If the program lets you image your drive, sure do so, it wont hurt. I have found some imaging software will have trouble imaging a drive with bad sectors on it, but that is usually when there is heaps of bad sectors or bad sectors in the data area. So give it a try, sure.

More importantly, and something you will surely be able to do is back up your data. And do so regularly. If you want help with what to back up, or where certain data is kept like address books, email boxes etc, ask.

 

ok, i checked the 3 logs in the event viewer. the 'application' log was the only log with a 'find' selection for chkdsk/disc in the drop down menu. no entry was found. i swear i ran chkdsc and it took about 20 minutes to finish.

 

ok, i'll make an image of my hd. should i store it on my second hd or copy to a cd or dvd?

i've heard about backing up files but i haven't a clue as to what to backup or what to do with the backup if i need it. kinda clueless here.

 

JoeD - the event you are looking for is from the application log and is an informational event. I just ran one on my PC and here is what it should look like - although the top pieces of information are in various blocks on a GUI window when you open the event.

Type: Information
Source: Winlogon
Event ID: 1001
Event Time: 11/16/2004 10:10:34 PM
User: n/a
Computer: PMUUSWXPLH0NMP
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Local.
A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 36 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 36 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 36 unused security descriptors.
39070048 KB total disk space.
5465664 KB in 68077 files.
20320 KB in 5298 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
and some more lines of information

The Screen you see will look more like this picture

 

Common Data Locations to Back Up are Below

Note these are DEFAULT locations and if you changed these locations through options they wont be as below.

MS Office Documents, Pictures, Music

c:\Documents and Settings\[ProfileName]\My Documents or
c:\My Documents

Outlook Express Email

C:\Documents and Settings\[Profile Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{Lots of random numbers}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

Note: The Local Settings folder is a hidden folder. To see it go to the Tools menu in My Computer or Windows Explorer and Folder Options, then View tab and there is an option on this page to Show Hidden Files or Folders you must check.

Outlook Express Address Book

C:\Documents and Settings\[Profile Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book

Microsoft Outlook Data File

(Outlook.pst includes mail, calendar and contacts and anything else in Outlook but account settings)

C:\Documents and Settings\[Profile Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.pst

Internet Favorites

C:\Documents and Settings\[Profile Name]\Favorites

MS Office Templates You Have Created

C:\Documents and Settings\[Profile Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

Other programs may have thier data in thier program folders, where they are installed. Commonly they are under c:\Program Files and if you dont know which file/s are actually data and which are program files, back the whole folder up.

You dont usually back up programs themselves, as they need to be installed to work and you do that how you did originally, ie from CD.

You can back up to various media, depending on what you have available and the volume of your data. I will list a few common media.

Floppy Disks

Only good for low volume backups and least reliable media there is

CD Writer

Most common backup media, good for most volumes of data

DVD Writer

More expensive media and best for volumes of data that dont fit on 1 CD.

Tape Drive

The most expensive media, and best for very high volumes of data

Another hard disk drive

If the drive is ok, a very good place to back up, as it offers high amounts of space to copy to, and can work in nearly any PC.

Hope this helps you