Re: Bad clusters

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Just because a very small area of a platter may show signs of magnetic loss,
doesn't mean the hard drive is failing itself. Except for SMART capability,
cache size, and rotational speed, firmware intervention, there's nothing
different about today's hard drive physically.

It is prudent to have a backup clone available at all times, Leastwise, an
image backup on another physical hard drive. Whether the current used hard
drive for XP is showing signs of failure is immaterial. And, may be too
late for full use when used as source for a clone or image at that point.

--
Noncompliant

For corporate legal advice regarding the EULA for XP, check with a lawyer
qualified in corporate law.

"Ron Martell" <ron.martell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:o8mrt25aikvna4hc3cj81f668sakpl47gf@xxxxxxxxxx
"Noncompliant" <spamyourself@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A sector is a pie section shape of the platter(s).
A cluster is the minimum size of partition space that can be occupied to
save a file. A cluster may crossover to another sector.

That is a bit unclear. A sector is 512 bytes in size. A cluster is a
group of adjacent sectors (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128) that is
treated as a single unit when disk space is allocated to files.



Its possible to map out bad areas of hard drive, and will still be good if
its just a few cluster problems. Use the hard drive manufacturers
software
for this. It will update the hard drive firmware not to use this portion
of
hard drive. A bad sector, replace it as soon as possible.

With modern drives, any indications of bad areas on the drive are most
likely a indicator of the probable imminent failure of the entire
drive.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bad clusters
    ... A cluster is the minimum size of partition space that can be occupied to ... A cluster may crossover to another sector. ... On-Line Help Computer Service ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: Finding REALLY hidden files?
    ... Virtually all hard disk drives use, at the physical level, a sector ... the slack space is 511 bytes. ... large cluster size. ...
    (rec.video.desktop)
  • Re: Finding REALLY hidden files?
    ... Any left-over space in the last cluster of a file is lost, in that it will never be used for any other data. ... but slack space is slightly different than the space ... Virtually all hard disk drives use, at the physical level, a sector ... if the cluster size is 32 KB (and under FAT32 I *have* had drives with clusters that big) and you create a file of length one byte, it is not just the 511 bytes in the first sector that are lost to further use, it is also the 512 bytes in each of the other ...
    (rec.video.desktop)
  • Re: Bad Clusters vs. Bad Sectors
    ... Sector are the storage unit of the ... filesystem block sizes. ... parameters and rebooted to run it) on a HDD in an old Dell ... Optiplex system say there was a bad cluster and was able to move a file ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • Re: MCE2005 Storage Drive Cluster Size ?
    ... The other way to look at it is that in average each file waist half a sector size. ... >> In pursuit of improving my MCX wireless performance, ... > A larger cluster size is good for very large files, particularly very large files that are read sequentially. ... You might want to schedule a disk defrag more regularly than you otherwise might. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)