WinXP logical "bad" sector errors...

Hi,

Any help will be mostly appreciated.

Relevant Specs: Toshiba laptop. 40 GB IBM Travelstar HDD. Partitioned off
for WinXP (NTFS), Linux Native, Linux Swap, Linux Home (user dirs), and a
small Win98 (FAT32) partition. Partitioning software is PartitionMagic 8.0
and boot loader on HDD MBR is BootMagic 8. LILO is in the beginning of the
Linux Native partition. All is running great, no problems with any of the
three OS's. I'm a little 'cramped', but I really do use all 3 OS's on the
road. :^)

I need to expand the WinXP partition, so I decided to steal some space from
Linux Home. (Which I had created much larger than I'd ever need anyway.) I
was successful in getting some free space out of it, and also with shuffling
the other partitions around a bit to prepare to expand WinXP into the newly
created free space. All OS's are still working perfectly fine and the
freespace is now right before the WinXP partition. (I didn't have to move
the WinXP partition to prepare it for new space.)

Now, I'm having great difficulty in trying to add the freespace to WinXP.
My attempts with PartitionMagic (installed both in the WinXP and Win98
partitions) are unsuccessful due to bad sectors on that particular
partition. Attempts from within either WinXP (doing the reboot and startup
PM process) and from within Win98 result in PM not being able to perform the
task due to these bad sectors. Naturally, I ran chkdsk several times within
WinXP (both as a "chkdsk /f" reboot and a "chkdsk /r" from WinXP's Recovery
Console), but the bad sector errors are still there. I also defragged the
partition before attempting also. I should also note that I routinetly do
surface scans and defrags, and did notice these "bad" sectors previously.
(Chkdsk is reporting 4096 bytes of bad sectors, which is, what, 8 sectors?
512 x 8? Or does chkdsk just list all the sectors in a cluster as bad if
even only is bad? My WinXP NTFS cluster size is 4096. )

My first thought was that I was probably dealing with a HDD that is going
bad. Bad sectors showing up from chkdsk, I believed, would've meant that
the entire reserve sector cache was used up due to bad physical sectors and
now the non-reserve sectors were going.

Now, after running a few other tests, to include IBM/Hitachi's "Drive
Fitness Test" and Spinrite (to include all 5 modes), I believe these "bad"
sectors aren't physically bad -- but are logically "bad" under WinXP.
Testing with these programs have reported the entire drive (and every
partition, as I checked them individually as well) to be not only
completetly healthy (bad sector free) but also still have a cache of
available reserves. S.M.A.R.T. also gives a completetly clean bill of
health.

If these are logically "bad" sectors -- how can you "fix" them? I remember
having logical "bad" sectors from time to time in the past (even in the
80's), but scandisk-type programs always fixed them. Speaking of Scandisk,
that program also seemed to do much better reporting than "chkdsk" does.
"Chkdsk" tells you have bad sectors, but doesn't say which ones they are!
(I've looked in the logs.) "Chkdsk" also reported, as stated in the log,
that fixed a cross-linked file but it didn't say which file it actually was.
It gave a "file number", but I've looked all across the web and usenet for
how to associate file numbers with file names. Nothing. This "file number"
is worthless.

If my thinking is right, if I knew exactly what file is composed of these 8
sectors (plus other sectors too, I'm sure) -- couldn't I just first attempt
to copy that file off the HDD (onto, say, a CDR), delete the file on the
HDD, and then restore it back (from either CDR or original source)? I've
done that many times in the past for "cross-linked" files. Seems to reason
that it would "clear out" the bad logic sector problem as well.

I know the best course to do would be to format the WinXP partition and
re-install WinXP. Afterwards, if chkdsk doesn't report any bad sectors then
I'll know it was definetly just a logic problem. I *really* don't want to
do this though. It would be a major pain in the ___ to get everything back
to how I have it finely configured and tuned in XP. (Not to mention all the
software, and all the customization I've done with software.)

So, question is, if these are logical "bad" sectors and not physically
damaged sectors, why isn't chkdsk repairing them? I've looked for "logical
bad sector fixer" software for WinXP, but the majority of it is crap malware
that I wouldn't let get within 500 feet of my worst enemy's laptop. (Deja
searches on these POS programs revealed what they truely do for $30 -- not a
damn thing except install spyware. Some of these crapware programs will
even "lock away" data -- and only give it back once you give them more $$!)

I've read that Ghost will allow a partition to be imaged to another drive,
even if it has bad logical sectors? Anyone have experience with this? Does
it just simply do a black box (data in, data out) copy or does it have some
intelligence that will strip logically "bad" sectors?

At the very least, I'm wanting to attempt to do the file delete/restore
thing with the file that is overlapping these "bad" sectors. I've looked,
to no end, (deja and google) for a way to determine which file actually
makes up particular WinXP NTFS sectors with no results. The question, on
usenet and the web, has been asked many times -- but no answer. The closest
I got was a reference to a Microsoft program called "diskedit" (not
Norton's) that was included on one of the Win2000 service packs. This
particular program had an "undocumented" and "internal use only" feature
that could do exactly that -- determine which file was on a particular
sector. This program, however, doesn't work with WinXP's NTFS.

How can I figure out which actual sectors that "chkdsk" is reporting as
"bad"? From there, whats the easiest way to figure out which actual file
is overlapping those sectors?

Thanks!

"ErS" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Any help will be mostly appreciated.

Relevant Specs: Toshiba laptop. 40 GB IBM Travelstar HDD. Partitioned
off
for WinXP (NTFS), Linux Native, Linux Swap, Linux Home (user dirs), and a
small Win98 (FAT32) partition. Partitioning software is PartitionMagic
8.0
and boot loader on HDD MBR is BootMagic 8. LILO is in the beginning of
the
Linux Native partition. All is running great, no problems with any of
the
three OS's. I'm a little 'cramped', but I really do use all 3 OS's on
the
road. :^)

I need to expand the WinXP partition, so I decided to steal some space
from
Linux Home. (Which I had created much larger than I'd ever need anyway.)
I
was successful in getting some free space out of it, and also with
shuffling
the other partitions around a bit to prepare to expand WinXP into the
newly
created free space. All OS's are still working perfectly fine and the
freespace is now right before the WinXP partition. (I didn't have to move
the WinXP partition to prepare it for new space.)

Now, I'm having great difficulty in trying to add the freespace to WinXP.
My attempts with PartitionMagic (installed both in the WinXP and Win98
partitions) are unsuccessful due to bad sectors on that particular
partition. Attempts from within either WinXP (doing the reboot and
startup
PM process) and from within Win98 result in PM not being able to perform
the
task due to these bad sectors. Naturally, I ran chkdsk several times
within
WinXP (both as a "chkdsk /f" reboot and a "chkdsk /r" from WinXP's
Recovery
Console), but the bad sector errors are still there. I also defragged the
partition before attempting also. I should also note that I routinetly do
surface scans and defrags, and did notice these "bad" sectors previously.
(Chkdsk is reporting 4096 bytes of bad sectors, which is, what, 8 sectors?
512 x 8? Or does chkdsk just list all the sectors in a cluster as bad if
even only is bad? My WinXP NTFS cluster size is 4096. )

My first thought was that I was probably dealing with a HDD that is going
bad. Bad sectors showing up from chkdsk, I believed, would've meant that
the entire reserve sector cache was used up due to bad physical sectors
and
now the non-reserve sectors were going.

Now, after running a few other tests, to include IBM/Hitachi's "Drive
Fitness Test" and Spinrite (to include all 5 modes), I believe these "bad"
sectors aren't physically bad -- but are logically "bad" under WinXP.
Testing with these programs have reported the entire drive (and every
partition, as I checked them individually as well) to be not only
completetly healthy (bad sector free) but also still have a cache of
available reserves. S.M.A.R.T. also gives a completetly clean bill of
health.

If these are logically "bad" sectors -- how can you "fix" them? I
remember
having logical "bad" sectors from time to time in the past (even in the
80's), but scandisk-type programs always fixed them. Speaking of
Scandisk,
that program also seemed to do much better reporting than "chkdsk" does.
"Chkdsk" tells you have bad sectors, but doesn't say which ones they are!
(I've looked in the logs.) "Chkdsk" also reported, as stated in the log,
that fixed a cross-linked file but it didn't say which file it actually
was.
It gave a "file number", but I've looked all across the web and usenet for
how to associate file numbers with file names. Nothing. This "file
number"
is worthless.

If my thinking is right, if I knew exactly what file is composed of these
8
sectors (plus other sectors too, I'm sure) -- couldn't I just first
attempt
to copy that file off the HDD (onto, say, a CDR), delete the file on the
HDD, and then restore it back (from either CDR or original source)? I've
done that many times in the past for "cross-linked" files. Seems to
reason
that it would "clear out" the bad logic sector problem as well.

I know the best course to do would be to format the WinXP partition and
re-install WinXP. Afterwards, if chkdsk doesn't report any bad sectors
then
I'll know it was definetly just a logic problem. I *really* don't want to
do this though. It would be a major pain in the ___ to get everything
back
to how I have it finely configured and tuned in XP. (Not to mention all
the
software, and all the customization I've done with software.)

So, question is, if these are logical "bad" sectors and not physically
damaged sectors, why isn't chkdsk repairing them? I've looked for
"logical
bad sector fixer" software for WinXP, but the majority of it is crap
malware
that I wouldn't let get within 500 feet of my worst enemy's laptop. (Deja
searches on these POS programs revealed what they truely do for $30 -- not
a
damn thing except install spyware. Some of these crapware programs will
even "lock away" data -- and only give it back once you give them more
$$!)

I've read that Ghost will allow a partition to be imaged to another drive,
even if it has bad logical sectors? Anyone have experience with this?
Does
it just simply do a black box (data in, data out) copy or does it have
some
intelligence that will strip logically "bad" sectors?

At the very least, I'm wanting to attempt to do the file delete/restore
thing with the file that is overlapping these "bad" sectors. I've looked,
to no end, (deja and google) for a way to determine which file actually
makes up particular WinXP NTFS sectors with no results. The question, on
usenet and the web, has been asked many times -- but no answer. The
closest
I got was a reference to a Microsoft program called "diskedit" (not
Norton's) that was included on one of the Win2000 service packs. This
particular program had an "undocumented" and "internal use only" feature
that could do exactly that -- determine which file was on a particular
sector. This program, however, doesn't work with WinXP's NTFS.

How can I figure out which actual sectors that "chkdsk" is reporting as
"bad"? From there, whats the easiest way to figure out which actual
file
is overlapping those sectors?


To answer my own question, I've downloaded a HDD raw editor and am learning
how to read and edit the meta-files in the boot sector.
($badclus and $bitmap)