How To

How to Fix Bad Sectors on a Hard Disk

Computer problems? Maybe the hard drive has bad sectors

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By eHow Contributing Writer

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(123 Ratings)

The minute your computer's hard disk starts to act flaky, make sure you have an up-to-date backup. Then you can do some simple diagnostics and repairs. Both Windows and Mac OS come with built-in hard-disk utility software that scans your hard disk for errors and attempts to fix them.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

For Windows

Step 1

Double-click on My Computer to open the My Computer window.
Step 2

Select the disk that you want to diagnose and repair.
Step 3

Choose Properties from the File menu. You should see the Properties window for the drive that you selected.
Step 4

Choose the Tools tab.
Step 5

Click the Check Now button under Error Checking Status.
Step 6

Depending on your version of Windows, choose either "Thorough" or "Scan for and Attempt Recovery of Bad Sectors."
Step 7

Click on Start.

Tips & Warnings

Third-party hard-disk utilities do a more thorough job of diagnosis and repair than the software that comes with Windows or Mac OS, but they work much better if you install them before you have a problem.
Third-party hard-disk utilities do a more thorough job of diagnosis and repair than the software that comes with Windows or Mac OS, but they work much better if you install them before you have a problem.

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Comments

density5 said

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on 1/2/2009 the best site i have found for hdd repair software is the http://hddguru.com/ website.

density5 said

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on 1/2/2009 i use alot of hard drive utilities on the http://hddguru.com/ website.

blockerm said

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on 12/28/2008 The real answer is...if you see bad sectors then you have to buy a new hard drive. In the end, solutions like that mentioned above will mark the sectors as bad but once this starts happening, the disk is bound to fail. Use the utility to recover the sectors, back up to a secondary hard drive, then use a utility like Acronis to copy the disk (if possible) to a new hard drive. If not, reinstall the os and copy your files over from the backup. Cheers

Angelikah said

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on 9/1/2008 What can I do if the chkdsk /f utility cannot complete because there is an error? Since it cannot complete it cannot repair the bad sectors either, it keeps getting stuck at part 2 where is checks the index and stops at 40%.