HDD gone bad any bad sector repair tool???

R

4 year old Samsung 80gb hdd went bad, XP could not run chdisk on it nor it could format it even in safe mode.
The disk had 2 partition & it was showing only 1 of it that to no data on it.

Is there any good freeware bad sector repair tool (though it did not report bad sector but I suspect)to repair the hdd, how effectively does this work after repair.

believe me, once an hdd has gone bad the repair is only temporarily. it'll start wid this all over again after a few dayz. its best to replace it.

there are some utilties to remap but as i said the reliability is not guaranteed.

mhdd, victoria, spinrite (paid), hdd regenerator (paid again) are some of the software.

R

Do these repair the bad sectors or recover the data??

they try to map the bad sectors to the good spare sectors and help in recovering data (not guaranteed). but repairing of bad sectors is not al all possible thru any software (neither hardware, coz for that you need to replace the platter which is not viable). one bad sector is like a rotten apple.. it'll slowly rot all the other apples!

L

use hdd regenerator which will reapir bad sectors if NOT physically bad.

R

Ok just downloading hdd regenerator...........let me try.

^^^ no software will repair bad sector. that will only REMAP the bad sectors.

R

Repair actually means remapping the data of that sector to another sector.

yes, you can try it then. but its a paid software. you may also try mhdd then. but none haf worked for my hdd which had bad sectors. mebbe coz the no. had increased substantially. hey don't the samsung hdds haf 5 year warranty? why don't you claim it then?

R

Is it???
I was thinking that it had to be 5yrs warranty...................let me call the guy & confirm this.
Thanks

L

New HDDs carry 5 years warr, previously in 2004/2003 3 years warranty and earlier 1 year warranty

whatever it is, jus call up and confirm. coz if i remember rite samsung was the first to come up wid 5 year warranty.... no harm in making sure...

are bad sectors covered under warranty period?

i had bought a 250 GB HDD in Feb

and it has succeeded in developing 1MB+ of bad sectors (plz dont ask

)

i have a reciept which i got while buying that HDD from the dealer

he also gave me this seagate service center number

will gave them a call first thing tommorow

thanks infra_red_dude for bringing up this solution (replaciment never occured to me

)

dunno abt samsung, but i and my fren got our hdds which had developed bad sectors widin the warranty period replaced from the seagate dealer. you may wanna give it a try

actually 1 can stop using bad sectors, and use the other space.
1 of my firend had few bad sectors on 40 gb hdd. so around 10 gb of space was removed and now he using tat drive as logical with 30 gb space.

10GB of bad sectors :shock:

slugger said:
10GB of bad sectors

No re, bad sectors where after 30 gb space. so the rest had to be removed.

tracing that will take ages! and then you need to carefully cut that part and create a parition wid the remaining. anyways, try a replacement first, if it doesn't work then try to remap if that doesn't happen either then mark the bad sectors and do as vish says, shun the bad sector part and use the rest.

Use software "Drive Fitness Test"

google it by name "DFT"

D

longlife said:
New HDDs carry 5 years warr, previously in 2004/2003 3 years warranty and earlier 1 year warranty

That's correct, go for replacement if still in warranty, no point just wandering around for a software solution to a hardware problem.
Still if its out of warranty, use seatools (*www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools) to check and repair(relocate sectors).

dabster said:
That's correct, go for replacement if still in warranty, no point just wandering around for a software solution to a hardware problem.
Still if its out of warranty, use seatools (*www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools) to check and repair(relocate sectors).

Seatools doesn't recognise any hdd except seagate's. The best you can do now is to backup all the data and just return it.
These tools makes no sense at all to me. You can't recover corrupt data nor fix the bad sector permanently. Its just delaying your hdd's inevitable death.
They can be at best used to regularly check your hdd's health and move data from sectors that are about to fail.
more ever when you can RMA it why bother running useless scans that takes hours?

D

orc said:
Seatools doesn't recognise any hdd except seagate's.

Seatools recognizes all PATA/SATA HDDs(SCSI not sure)

dabster said:
Seatools recognizes all PATA/SATA HDDs(SCSI not sure), seatools software is not owned by seagate.

Are you sure about it? Because it didnt recognise the samsung hdd I had plugged with a message 'No seagate discs found'.
I was using the seatools when they had that online diagnostic thing.

D

orc said:
Are you sure about it? Because it didnt recognise the samsung hdd I had plugged with a message 'No seagate discs found'.
I was using the seatools when they had that online diagnostic thing.

I too have Samsung HDD and it works for me. here *www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS.iso
Download the iso burn it, boot directly from CD and bang! it works...

Dunno what "online diagnostic thing" is...

Hey guyz

i called up d Seagate service center and they promptly agreed to replace my HDD and dey even more promptly hung up b4 i could seek clarification

what will happen to my data on the HDD?

how will I b able to transfer the data from my old HDD to my new HDD?

do they let us take the old HDD back for at least 1 day with the new HDD? (if they do then all my problem solved

)

it is simply not possible to burn d content on DVDs as i got 200GB+ worth of data and i know nobody who has got that kind of free space left and not possible to spread d data to diff freind's HDD

i guess burning it is a nice option but 200 GB :-O man.. purchase a blueray writer

lets c

i will take all my boot CDs with me and if dey dont allow me to take it back, will ask them if i can partition d new HDD there itself so at least i can transfer d files properly

it is not actually 200+ i just added up all d data
comin to 193.xx GB

lets c either tommorow or monday

slugger said:
lets c

i will take all my boot CDs with me and if dey dont allow me to take it back, will ask them if i can partition d new HDD there itself so at least i can transfer d files properly

it is not actually 200+ i just added up all d data
comin to 193.xx GB

lets c either tommorow or monday

can u tell me ur prob in detail may b i can help.

vish786 said:
can u tell me ur prob in detail may b i can help.

my HDD is under warranty and d guys have agreed to replace it

but my prob is dat i got 190GB+ worth of data stored on it and pretty much nothing can b deleated

what i want to know is that how can i transfer all the data from the old HDD to the new HDD

do they let us take the old HDD back for a day or two?
if they do it then I can easily parition my new HDD and transfer the data to the new 1

but if they dont, then what shall i do?

i wanted to seek clarifcation from them on this issue but d b***h hung up b4 i could ask her

y what has happened 2 ur disk ?

around 1 MB of bad sectors in 6 months

@slugger
didn't i tell you? dunno abt others but at least seagate does

afaik, the guy will replace the disk on the spot (at least thats what happened wid me). so jus ask him to make a partition and transfer ur data to the new one. he'll most likely obliege. they won't allow u to take both the hdds. no way.

edit: don't tell him u haf 1mb of bad sectors. jus tell him that the hdd has developed bad sectors in the warranty period. get a zerox copy and the original bill wid u. he may keep the copy. also take in the casing (if any) along.

slugger said:
around 1 MB of bad sectors in 6 months

most probably hdd suffering shocks

, like infra said they wont give both hdds

, hopefully u can seat their and transfer that huge data

infra_red_dude said:
@slugger
didn't i tell you? dunno abt others but at least seagate does

well Seagate has assuared me that it will be repalced immediately

infra_red_dude said:
so jus ask him to make a partition and transfer ur data to the new one. he'll most likely obliege.

well i have 7 partition with NTFS+FAT32 combo

hope they have lots of time to kill

infra_red_dude said:
edit: don't tell him u haf 1mb of bad sectors. jus tell him that the hdd has developed bad sectors in the warranty period. get a zerox copy and the original bill wid u. he may keep the copy. also take in the casing (if any) along.

thanx buddy, never occured to me not to tell him about d exact amount of bad sectors

D

slugger said:
well Seagate has assuared me that it will be repalced immediately

okay, so u got the new disk? did they allow you to copy...?
as for samsung they say that while giving HDD itself they tell to take backup and also they don't replace hdd then and their, they send it for testing and then whatever the result you get new/refurbished hdd. So is it same with seagate and about Western digital ? how abt their service ? though all 3 manufacturere now hv 5 yr warranty but then which has the best service?

dabster said:
I too have Samsung HDD and it works for me. here *www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS.iso
Download the iso burn it, boot directly from CD and bang! it works...

Dunno what "online diagnostic thing" is...

The previous version of seatools. they had an tool where you could scan the disks online from within windows. no need for any bootable disks.

segate is bad