Does reformatting mark bad clusters?

I have a laptop with Windows 98. On my last trip I couldn't start it; scandisk would start, get stuck and give me an error message that I had an invalid long file name. When I returned home I started with a startup disk and was able to run scandisk. So far it has found numerous bad clusters. I have a backup of most of the disk so I don't mind just reformatting, but I want to make sure that it will mark and not reuse bad clusters.

Thanks.

rusty2

 

Yes, formatting will mark bad sectors as unusable. The problem is that once you start getting bad sectors they start multiplying like rabbits, you keep getting more and more. Essentially your hard drive is on it's way out, you may be able to use it for a while but I wouldn't trust it. You would be better off replacing it.