Bad sectors on hard drive

[kcornod]

What would be the causes of bad sectors on a hard drive that is only 3 months old..The computer is a Hp6646c,the new had drive is a maxtor 20gb.is it improper shut down? or power surge?

[LagMonster]

Bad Sectors are created as soon as the hard drive is manufactured.

To get a more in depth read about it goto <a href="http://www.grc.com" target="_blank">www.grc.com</a> and click on the spin right section. It shows you some interesting things there.

[Mayhem]

Had the same thing happen with two 40 GB IBMs on a RAID 0 a couple months ago. When I called IBM they told me the problem was mostlikely software related, and that a low level format would fix the drives. I thought the guy was completely out of his gourd, but he insisted so I gave it a shot. haven't so much as heard a stray "click" since.

Might be worth a shot for you.

[geeksRus]

had the EXACT same thing as Mayhem had...low-level format fixed it.
i never believed in low-level formatting fixing hard drives until fairly recently.

[AlienDyne]

The following factors may cause bad sectors:

1. HDD shock.
2. Power surge.
3. Improper shutdown.
4. Factory fault (in other words "Dead-On-Arrival).

Things you can do to deal with it:

1. Low Level Format
2. Fdisk using the /mbr parameter (fdisk /mbr)
3. If it's under warranty, RMA the drive to get a new one.

3 LLF utilities can be found on my Yahoo Briefcase here:

<a href="http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/alienhardware/lst?.dir=/Utilities/HDD+Low+Level+Format+Utilities&.order=&.view=l&.sr c=bc&.done=http%3a//briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/alienhardware/lst%3f.di" target="_blank">http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/alienhardware/lst?.dir=/Utilities/HDD+Low+Level+Format+Utilities&.order=&.view=l&.sr c=bc&.done=http%3a//briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/alienhardware/lst%3f.di</a> r=/Utilities%26.src=bc%26.view=l

Good luck!

[kcornod]

Thanks AlienDyne for the utilities.I'll give them a try.

[deh1217]

Hi,
Just thought I'd add I had the same problem. I encountered during a Format.
I went to Maufacturere's web site and downloaded disk utilities. The disk Failed the quick test and advanced. I then used the low level format and voila went back in passed the tests and then I went on my merry way and reformatted the HDD.

This HDD is nearly 4 years old. Could this indicate a future problem that is bound to happen though? I.e. Crash


D

[Ruslan]

<a href="http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum3/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=001019" target="_blank">Here</a> I have posted small info about "howto" fix bad sectors and what it all means...

[AlienDyne]

[quote]Originally posted by kcornod:
<strong>Thanks AlienDyne for the utilities.I'll give them a try.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Anytime!

Also try Ruslan's utility. Another great one!