Damaged Hard Drive?

I would like to share a solution with anybody that may find them selves in a similar situation. It probably won't work in the majority of cases, but if it helps someone from having to buy a new HDD, (even tho they are pretty inexpensive these days.), then good.

I had someone bring me their less than a year old HP Entertainment PC laptop, that would constantly hang on them.
Long story short... I was able to determine the hard drive was damaged/scratched from the laptop being dropped.
I was also able to determine it was scratched at the beginning of the drive. So I partitioned about 20GB of the 500GB HDD at the beginning and left empty and labeled as "bad?". Then created 2 more partitions after that and was able to install both Windows 7 and Linux on the other 2 partitions.

Everything seems to be working along just fine now. Nothing is written on the bad part of the drive. You can hear it click during POST like it was doing before all the time, but once the OS loads, it is quiet and smooth running.

Just wanted to share...

Thanks for sharing!

As long as those heads and servo hold up, I suppose this trick can hold up for a bit. But I have seen a Maxtor hard drive totally fail over a bad head that was damaged from crashing into the platter.

Once those heads fail and fall apart, they can make a nasty grinding noise almost like putting bolts in a blender and turning it on!

Good luck and hope it gives continued performance.

Bruce.

That is cool and yes thanks for sharing that. But I wouldn't rely on it as a permanent solution.

But I have seen a Maxtor hard drive totally fail over a bad head that was damaged from crashing into the platter.
Once those heads fail and fall apart, they can make a nasty grinding noise almost like putting bolts in a blender and turning it on!

Yeah I have actually made that happen just to do it. It was really loud!

A very ingenious work around

Hmmm...I've done the same thing on one hard drive where I could pinpoint the damage to a given portion of the drive...but I would not expect that to work on most drives.

It all depends on the nature of the problem with the drive...some types of damaga cannot be worked around.

Louis

Yeah... I'm not expecting it to be a permanent solution. Works great now, but I still have a new HDD ordered and on its way. The guy I was fixing the laptop for decided he would rather sell it than fix it, so I bought it from him.

Yeah I have actually made that happen just to do it. It was really loud!

What... the bolt in the blender? haha