BleepingComputer.com: Random fill tool to repair bad sector

Hello all,

I have bad sector on the hard disk diagnosed by HD tune ,are there any tool to do random fill just at bad sector cluster, please ? If there is no such tool , could you recommend the utility for normal random fill ?

Using other tools also results in fail test on S.M.A.R.T and surface test indicating rapid approach failure , could random fill or zero fill actually solve this problem ?

I need .iso file since window is hanging and unable to completely recover now.

Please kindly advise and and more information about S.M.A.R.T and surface test failure would be appreciate.

Regards,

What brand is your hard drive?

Hello and welcome to Bleeping Computer.

You can run disk utilities such as scan disk or chkdsk which will mark bad sectors as sectors that new data additions will avoid.

However, if your hard disk is headed for an imminent failure, there isn't much you can do to save the hard drive.

Failure can be caused by several faults, one being bad read/write heads, to which no disk utility can repair.

The heads may have crashed into the platters in several locations causing disk damage.
Once this happens pieces of the disk surface can be floating around inside the drive causing more disk related damage.

The circuit board on the hard drive has integrated chips that can fail for various reasons including but not limited to prolong exposure to heat generated by both the hard drives servo and the rest of the components inside the computer that generate heat.

When the SMART feature of a hard drive sends a message to the system BIOS that something is about to fail, your only option at this point is to try and transfer what files you value and put this hard drive out of commission, because it will fail all together when you least expect it to and you will lose all that it contains.

When a hard drive fails the SMART, it is close to not functioning at all, even if you try accessing it as a slave drive. It will merely sound like a bunch of marbles has been thrown in the drive and make a nasty rattling noise and may crash the system it is attached to.

The conclusion here is, replace this hard drive before it gets any worse than it is and retire it from service.

Bruce.

Hello All,

@ killerx525, as shown in my system spec , HD is WDC WD5000BEVT-22A0RT0 ATA Device , 500 GB .

@ MrBruce1959, Thank you very much for useful information. In case of replacing the HD I would think about wiping the data before claim. Do you have any suggestion for random fill tool writable in CD since the system is freezing ?

Furthermore, i would prefer to do just one pass since I am not pretty sure whether doing several times zero fill would have the bad effect to the drive or even one pass random fill would void warranty as acer does not confirm yet WD corp suggest to wipe data prior to replacement.(warranty depends on Acer as it is OEM)

To All, if anyone ever claim HD with acer please kindly inform whether random fill would void warranty.

Additionally, does anyone know the tool which could be able to identify whether the HD is new device not refurbishment without disassembly the laptop, please ?

I would appreciate all advice.

regards,

This post has been edited by AA l.: 27 September 2011 - 06:29 AM

Your drive is a western Digital.
I would test the drive with Data Lifeguard by Western Digital as it is made specifically for their drives and may repair your bad sector.

@ Eyesee , I have tried WD datalife guard before ; however, it was unable to repair bad sector on window environment while using DOS.ISO it represented error code 0120 unable to find the drive . Do you have any suggestion, please ?

To All,

I would also like to try DBAN to run random fill on DoD short 1 pass verify yet there is error as following :

"reading sectors error (EDD) "
"reading sectors error (EDD) "
"reading sectors error (EDD) "
...
...
...
ERROR: No configuration file found.

What is the cause of the problem and are any approach to wipe the data prior to HD replacement , please ?

Any advise would be appreciate.

thank you in advance.

This post has been edited by AA l.: 05 October 2011 - 02:55 AM

If the drive is out of warranty it's Hammer time.

If in warranty do you have a desktop you can hook it up to to run the WD Diagnostics and wipe.