Re: C:\ partition with a interemittent bad sector

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I agree with you in certain ways, it would be foolish to use the bad part
for anything important. But I don't believe in throwing away things that
work, and probably 95% of this 40 GB harddrive is still working without a
problem. So I'm trying to get a handle on the magnitude of this problem.
The harddrive itself hasn't been used for more than about 1 year, it was
bought a few years ago as a spare. Why would a few bad sectors require
dumping the entire harddrive. Does this kind of problem spread? Is it an
indication of an overall magnetic corruption? A mechanical problem? Is
there a way to "fence" off part of the harddrive so that it won't ever be
used again.

BTW, what is a "psu".

jc







"DL" <address@invalid> wrote in message
news:uttiCErPIHA.5184@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
IMO if a hd shows bad sectors it should be dumped, or only used for stuff
you dont mind losing.
Having said that, any iffy psu can cause 'odd' hd problems such as this

"jbclem" <jbclem1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:VUE8j.83$v43.0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My WIn2000 PIII computer has 2 hard drives and 2 Win2000 installations
(C:
ands E:). So I can always boot up in E: when this intermittent problem
happens. There seems to be a bad hard drive sector near or at the
beginning
of the C: and when it's bad I can't boot up in C: . I can run Partition
Table Doctor's surface test(from E:) and spot the bad sector, and today
when
it happened I couldn't access anything on C:, and My Computer was
showing
zero bytes on C:. I could still access other partitions on that hard
drive,
D: and E:. Usually when this happens I can't boot up in C: but I can
access
files in that partition so I assumed that the problem was only in the
area
where the boot record was. But today all of C: was inaccessible.

I have a new hard drive coming in the mail...but I'd like to know if
there
is a program that might help me fix this problem if it's just a bad
sector.
I've run Chkdsk, I've run SpinRite, I've run the Maxtor diagnostics
disk.
Neither Spinrite nor the Maxtor disk find anything wrong, but that might
just be the fact that it's an intermittent problem. Partition Table
Doctor
was finding 4 bad sectors (surface test) but today only found one.
Chkdsk
finds problems and presumably fixes them. But that doesn't stop them
from
reoccuring. I know that there are sectors marked as B (bad) because I
see
them on of the surface tests I've conducted. But the problem is still
there. Should I try rebuilding the MBR, or rebuilding the partition
(using
Partition Table Doctor)...will I destroy something if this isn't the
problem?

This is a weird problem and I'd like some advice and suggestions for
handling it. I think most of the hard drive is ok, just this area with
the
problem. What can I do to try to fix it.

Thanks in advance...

John






.

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