Bad Sectors - cant backup - please help!

Babbler

Anyone know of any good software (preferably free) that can repair bad sectors? I have about 8 consecutive ones and its preventing Acronis from backing up my hard drive. Am a bit worried.

Its only a 6 month old hard drive too. Windows is still running fine on it and I havent (touch wood) noticed any problems yet! Want to back things up and maybe get it replaced/format it.

TIA!

slimzee

Are you using windows xp? I think if you run err scandisk, defrag cant remembe exactly which, the bad sectors should get isolated and they should not be in use, therefore should not affect any live programs or stop you from backing up.

robredz

open a command prompt if it is XP and enter CHKDSK /F windows will run a diagnostic check next time you boot, Bad sectors are areas that are damaged and will then be marked as bad so no more data will be stored in them they are not repaired per se. Google scandisk to look for disk checking utilities and I'm sure other suggestions will be forthcoming soon. Windows and DOS up to Win 200 had Scandisk to check and mark bad sectors but it was not in XP for whatever reason.

Babbler

Thanks - I did run checkdisk /f and if found the bad sectors - assumed it "fixed" it. However, the scan in windows still wont work and acronis doesnt like something either. Could just "ignore" I guess when Im creating an image but that would worry me that Im not going to be able to recover the drive back...

It is windows XP - 1TB disk (3 partitions)!

robredz

CHKDSK should have marked the bad sectors so they don't get used they can't be repaired. All hard disks may contain some bad sectors and many will carry on for years without developing any more, they become a problem if they develop at the boot sector of the drive. others will know more.