BleepingComputer.com: Hard Drive has bad sectors?

I've been having problems getting the Sims 3 to work, and EA's support told me to do a disk defrag. It reported that about three files (all relating to The Sims 3) could not be defragmented. EA pretty much told me this showed that my hard disk either had bad sectors or was just messed up. They recommended that I replace my hard drive. I mainly want to make sure that they are correct on this, since if we replace anything it'll just be to get a new computer at some point. Thanks.

Btw, I posted this here because it isn't really directly related to game help and it seemed like the best place to put it otherwise. Sorry if this isn't the right forum.

This post has been edited by Orca239: 08 June 2009 - 11:57 AM

Hi .

Well...bad sectors have nothing to do with defragging. Inability to defrag may be an indication of hard drive problems, but bad sectors is not the worst or only thing that can be described as a hard drive problem.

Bad Sectors On Hard Drives - http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?art...1583&page=3

Bad sector (Wikipedia) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_sector

And...bad sectors don't necessarily mean that users should throw the drive away. If that were true, then none of us would be using hard drives (if you read the links, you know what I mean).

Windows defrag does not defrag every file or every type of file, it wasn't designed to do such.

The Importance of Disk Defragmentation - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/the-importance-of-disk-defragmentation/

Using Windows Defrag - http://www.geekgirls.com/windows_defrag.htm

See Additional Disk Defragmenter notes, http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_defragmenter_utility.htm

<<EA pretty much told me this showed that my hard disk either had bad sectors or was just messed up. They recommended that I replace my hard drive.>>

I can only say...I find that it often happens...that human beings make up answers when they don't know the answer and they also know that the person they are addressing...has no clue. When there is a way to check the validity of such comments (just use Google), I suggest you try to do so.

Your hard drive may indeed be "messed up" but the best way to check such...would be to download a diagnostic from the hard drive manufacturer's website...and run it, according to instructions. That will give you a good grasp of the drive's condition and future useability.

Hard Drive Installation and Diagnostic Tools - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic28744.html

Louis