smart bad sector marking tool

Hi.

My disk has some bad sectors which are stable during last half year. Most of
them are marked as bad (FAT32)
Under Win2000 I have permanent bad sector problems.

I need to scan my disk and mark all bad sectors and mark in addition few
preceding and following good sectors wchich may
become bad in the future. Due to quite big number of bad sectors it can't be
done manually. (I tried, but it costs a lot of time and patience: check
where is bad sector and then find proper mapping place inside FAT structure
and then mark.)

My problem is: during normal scandisk work some bad sectors are read
succesfully after few rerties (i guess: taken by diskcontroller or O.S.) and
they are NOT marked as bad.
Of course during normal operation (due to "Murphy laws") O.S. many times
encounterr "almost bad sector" and wastes more than 5 secs on retries.

I also tried format but effects are the same.


I need such a tool which scans surface and when encounters one (or two)
unsuccesful sector read - decides to mark this sector. (At this time I do
not care about data on that partition - I have backup)

--
best regards

Bazic
Remove xx from my email address (antispam)

Bazic wrote in message
...

My disk has some bad sectors which are stable during
last half year. Most of them are marked as bad (FAT32)

Under Win2000 I have permanent bad sector problems.

I need to scan my disk and mark all bad sectors and mark
in addition few preceding and following good sectors wchich
may become bad in the future. Due to quite big number of
bad sectors it can't be done manually. (I tried, but it costs a lot
of time and patience: check where is bad sector and then find
proper mapping place inside FAT structure and then mark.)

Its a VERY bad idea to be using a drive with that many bads.

My problem is: during normal scandisk work some bad
sectors are read succesfully after few rerties (i guess: taken
by diskcontroller or O.S.) and they are NOT marked as bad.

Of course during normal operation (due to "Murphy laws") O.S. many times
encounterr "almost bad sector" and wastes more than 5 secs on retries.

I also tried format but effects are the same.

I need such a tool which scans surface and when encounters one
(or two) unsuccesful sector read - decides to mark this sector. (At this time I do
not care about data on that partition - I have backup)

Bazic wrote in message
...

My disk has some bad sectors which are stable during
last half year. Most of them are marked as bad (FAT32)

Under Win2000 I have permanent bad sector problems.

I need to scan my disk and mark all bad sectors and mark
in addition few preceding and following good sectors wchich
may become bad in the future. Due to quite big number of
bad sectors it can't be done manually. (I tried, but it costs a lot
of time and patience: check where is bad sector and then find
proper mapping place inside FAT structure and then mark.)

Its a VERY bad idea to be using a drive with that many bads.

My problem is: during normal scandisk work some bad
sectors are read succesfully after few rerties (i guess: taken
by diskcontroller or O.S.) and they are NOT marked as bad.

Of course during normal operation (due to "Murphy laws") O.S. many times
encounterr "almost bad sector" and wastes more than 5 secs on retries.

I also tried format but effects are the same.

I need such a tool which scans surface and when encounters one
(or two) unsuccesful sector read - decides to mark this sector.

The best tool to use in that situation is the one
provided by the manufacturer of the hard drive.

(At this time I do not care about data
on that partition - I have backup)

The best tools do it at the physical drive level, not the partition level.

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 02:31:22 +0200
"Bazic" wrote:

Hi.

My disk has some bad sectors which are stable during last half year.
Most of them are marked as bad (FAT32)
Under Win2000 I have permanent bad sector problems.

I need to scan my disk and mark all bad sectors and mark in addition
few preceding and following good sectors wchich may
become bad in the future. Due to quite big number of bad sectors it
can't be done manually. (I tried, but it costs a lot of time and
patience: check where is bad sector and then find proper mapping place
inside FAT structure and then mark.)

If you have "quite a big number of bad sectors" then you should replace
the drive. IDE drives have automatic sparing--if they are showing a
large number of bad sectors then they have used up all of their internal
spare sectors already and are well on the way to total failure.

My problem is: during normal scandisk work some bad sectors are read
succesfully after few rerties (i guess: taken by diskcontroller or
O.S.) and they are NOT marked as bad.
Of course during normal operation (due to "Murphy laws") O.S. many
times encounterr "almost bad sector" and wastes more than 5 secs on
retries.

I also tried format but effects are the same.


I need such a tool which scans surface and when encounters one (or
two) unsuccesful sector read - decides to mark this sector. (At this
time I do not care about data on that partition - I have backup)

--
best regards

Bazic
Remove xx from my email address (antispam)




--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Uzytkownik "J.Clarke" napisal w wiadomosci
...
[...]
If you have "quite a big number of bad sectors" then you should replace
the drive. IDE drives have automatic sparing--if they are showing a
large number of bad sectors then they have used up all of their internal
spare sectors already and are well on the way to total failure.
[...]

Uzytkownik "Rod Speed" napisal w wiadomosci
...

[...]
Its a VERY bad idea to be using a drive with that many bads.
[...]
The best tool to use in that situation is the one
provided by the manufacturer of the hard drive.

There is no such a tool for my HDD (TravelStar IBM DARA-20600)
DDD-SI does not help (there is no such options for marking bads)
DFT utility does not support these drives.

[...]
The best tools do it at the physical drive level, not the partition level.

I realize what means "big number of bad sectors" and moreover I know what I
should do, but at this moment I can not not change HDD (it is 2.5") so I
must deal with this what I have.
I am aware of data loss possibility so I do daily backup of my HDD.

Forgive me both, but I asked as precise question as I could and I tought I
will get proper answer...

best regards

Bazic
Remove xx from my email address (antispam)

Bazic wrote in message
...
J.Clarke wrote in
...

If you have "quite a big number of bad sectors" then you should replace
the drive. IDE drives have automatic sparing--if they are showing a
large number of bad sectors then they have used up all of their internal
spare sectors already and are well on the way to total failure.

Rod Speed wrote in
...

Its a VERY bad idea to be using a drive with that many bads.

The best tool to use in that situation is the one
provided by the manufacturer of the hard drive.

There is no such a tool for my HDD (TravelStar IBM DARA-20600)

DDD-SI does not help (there is no such options for marking bads)
DFT utility does not support these drives.

What makes you think that ? The documentation says that it doesnt
currently support the Travelstar E series drives, but yours isnt one of those.

The best tools do it at the physical drive level, not the partition level.

I realize what means "big number of bad sectors"
and moreover I know what I should do, but at this
moment I can not not change HDD (it is 2.5")

Nothing to stop you changing 2.5" hard drives.

so I must deal with this what I have.

Nope.

I am aware of data loss possibility so I do daily backup of my HDD.

Forgive me both, but I asked as precise question
as I could and I tought I will get proper answer...

You got that.

"J.Clarke" wrote in message
On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 02:31:22 +0200 "Bazic" wrote:

Hi.

My disk has some bad sectors which are stable during last half year.
Most of them are marked as bad (FAT32)
Under Win2000 I have permanent bad sector problems.

I need to scan my disk and mark all bad sectors and mark in addition
few preceding and following good sectors wchich may
become bad in the future. Due to quite big number of bad sectors it
can't be done manually. (I tried, but it costs a lot of time and
patience: check where is bad sector and then find proper mapping place
inside FAT structure and then mark.)

If you have "quite a big number of bad sectors" then you should replace
the drive. IDE drives have automatic sparing--if they are showing a
large number of bad sectors then they have used up all of their internal
spare sectors already and are well on the way to total failure.

Ignore Johnny Clueless. IDE drives do NOT 'spare' bad sectors at all times.
Unrecoverable read bad sectors are only reassigned on writes.
Recoverable read bad sectors are only reassigned after a certain number of
retries has been exceeded. If none of these 2 situations occur, bad sectors stay.

So a "large number of bad sectors" doesn't necessarily reflect a drive out of
spare sectors.


My problem is: during normal scandisk work some bad sectors are read
succesfully after few rerties (i guess: taken by diskcontroller or
O.S.) and they are NOT marked as bad.
Of course during normal operation (due to "Murphy laws") O.S. many
times encounterr "almost bad sector" and wastes more than 5 secs on
retries.

I also tried format but effects are the same.

Format doesn't do any writing, so that's expected.



I need such a tool which scans surface and when encounters one (or
two) unsuccesful sector read - decides to mark this sector. (At this
time I do not care about data on that partition - I have backup)

Svend's Findbad utility.


--
best regards

Bazic
Remove xx from my email address (antispam)




--