Bad Blocks + Locating

Dos_Box · 28-08-2008, 08:57 AM

My media PC's hard drive (750GB Samsung Spinpoint), has developed some bad blocks, I suspect from a power cut we had a couple of weeks back. I know they are there and have a copy (paid for) of HDD Restorer, an excellent app which actually repairs them. The problem is that unless you know where they are the program has to do a full surface test. You can tell it to start at a certain point, but there is no point in that unless you know where the bad blocks are located. I left it running over night and it had only managed 80GB with none found. Does anyone know of a utility which will report on the location of bad blocks so I can repair it in minutes instead of days?

ZeroHour · 28-08-2008, 12:10 PM

tbh bad blocks are not going to be caused by a powercut. That implies the disk could be failing. Data errors (aka fixed by a quick scandisk) could be expected but not creation of bad blocks.
Sadly I dont think there is a faster way to remove them really.

mac_shinobi · 28-08-2008, 12:12 PM

from what I have read you can get partition magic or ranish partition manager ( to ignore the bad sectors ) but there is no actual way of fixing them short of either replacing the drive or just carrying on using the drive but getting it to ignore the bad sectors.

Have seen a few ppl suggest low level format but i dont think that will help at all as not sure if that will do much as it sounds like its a hardware fault.

DMcCoy · 28-08-2008, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZeroHour

tbh bad blocks are not going to be caused by a powercut. That implies the disk could be failing. Data errors (aka fixed by a quick scandisk) could be expected but not creation of bad blocks.
Sadly I dont think there is a faster way to remove them really.

Bad blocks could be caused by a power failure depending on the method used to park the drive heads, some do park without power, some don't.

However they got there, there is only one choice with a disk with any dead sectors, bin it, quick. Also, as only the drive controller knows the physical layout of the sectors a starting address and ending address may not correspond to the actual locations of the damage.

I'd make a backup and replace it asap.

ricki · 28-08-2008, 02:51 PM

hi

Bad blocks can definately be caused by power outages or should I say the power surge when it comes back on. I had it with a server once but the files that were damaged were not critical well not to the os at least. The users at the time did not quite see it that way but as that was backed up that was not the end of the world.

I know it was a power surge because it took out the power pack and the nic card completely.

Richard

PeterW · 28-08-2008, 03:07 PM

Have you tried the sammy diag tool? it may be somewhat quicker SAMSUNG Hard Disk Drive - support - utilities I have not used it myself but it may be worth looking at.

DMcCoy · 28-08-2008, 05:13 PM

Argh!

Revenge of the spinpoints. It has only one file I really wanted on it, but it's completely dead

Dos_Box · 29-08-2008, 08:32 AM

Just a quick not on the software I have been using from a reply I just gave to a PM.

Quote:

HDD Restorer (actually it's called HDD Regenerator)is a paid for utility I found out about from PC Pro, and it really does work at removing bad blocks (not if the drive is failing BTW as the blocks come back). But for a drive which may have been dropped or suffered a sudden shock it gets rid of bad blocks by doing very technical stuff I don't even pretend to understand!
You can get it from here: Dmitriy Primochenko Online

Some reviews here: HDD Regenarator | SoftwareJudge.com

And yes, it IS slow, but it does work too

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28-08-2008, 08:57 AM	#1
Dos_Box Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Preston, Lancashire Posts: 3,618 Thanks: 7 Thanked 110 Times in 53 Posts Blog Entries: 6 Rep Power: 37	Bad Blocks + Locating My media PC's hard drive (750GB Samsung Spinpoint), has developed some bad blocks, I suspect from a power cut we had a couple of weeks back. I know they are there and have a copy (paid for) of HDD Restorer, an excellent app which actually repairs them. The problem is that unless you know where they are the program has to do a full surface test. You can tell it to start at a certain point, but there is no point in that unless you know where the bad blocks are located. I left it running over night and it had only managed 80GB with none found. Does anyone know of a utility which will report on the location of bad blocks so I can repair it in minutes instead of days?

28-08-2008, 12:12 PM	#3
mac_shinobi Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 1,634 Thanks: 10 Thanked 26 Times in 25 Posts Rep Power: 14	bad sectors from what I have read you can get partition magic or ranish partition manager ( to ignore the bad sectors ) but there is no actual way of fixing them short of either replacing the drive or just carrying on using the drive but getting it to ignore the bad sectors. Have seen a few ppl suggest low level format but i dont think that will help at all as not sure if that will do much as it sounds like its a hardware fault.

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Bad Blocks + Locating

28-08-2008, 12:10 PM	#2
ZeroHour Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Aberdeen, Scotland Posts: 1,923 Thanks: 91 Thanked 196 Times in 84 Posts Blog Entries: 1 Rep Power: 45	tbh bad blocks are not going to be caused by a powercut. That implies the disk could be failing. Data errors (aka fixed by a quick scandisk) could be expected but not creation of bad blocks. Sadly I dont think there is a faster way to remove them really.

28-08-2008, 02:51 PM	#5
ricki Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: uk Posts: 180 Thanks: 2 Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts Rep Power: 8	hi Bad blocks can definately be caused by power outages or should I say the power surge when it comes back on. I had it with a server once but the files that were damaged were not critical well not to the os at least. The users at the time did not quite see it that way but as that was backed up that was not the end of the world. I know it was a power surge because it took out the power pack and the nic card completely. Richard

28-08-2008, 03:07 PM	#6
PeterW Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Pulborough / Portsmouth Posts: 387 Thanks: 2 Thanked 16 Times in 16 Posts Rep Power: 7	Have you tried the sammy diag tool? it may be somewhat quicker SAMSUNG Hard Disk Drive - support - utilities I have not used it myself but it may be worth looking at.

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