Category: Data Recovery and Bad Sectors


Data Recovery and Detecting Bad Sectors: My Personal Experiences Detecting Bad Sectors Example 1

Filed under: Data Recovery and Bad Sectors — 1 Comment
May 11, 2011

In this post I am going to write about one way in which you might be able to detect bad sectors.

In this post I am going to write about one experience I have had detecting bad sectors on a hard drive.

In the future I will write other posts about my personal experiences detecting bad sectors.

Below is one experience I have had detecting bad sectors.

I have a friend that I was helping repair his computer over the phone. My friends computer had the windows XP operating system installed.

I had him make a change in the windows registry and then exit the windows registry. I had him go back into the windows registry to make sure that the windows registry had saved our changes. The windows registry did not save our changes. We tried to make the change several times and the windows registry still would not save our changes.

The windows registry is suppose to automatically save changes when you modify anything in it.

The windows registry does not ask you if you want to save changes, it just saves them.

I told my friend to bring his computer to me so I could run a full set of diagnostics on the computer using the PC-Check diagnostic program.

I tested all the hardware in his computer and the only problem detected by PC-Check was that the hard drive had bad sectors. At this point I used a data recovery program to recover his data. After using a data recovery program to recover his data I then used PC-Check to erase all the data on the hard drive and fix the bad sectors on the hard drive.

PC-Check is a good computer hardware diagnostic program that can help you repair bad sectors on your hard drive. PC-Check does not have a bad sector repair option in it’s menus but the way to repair bad sectors with PC-Check is to use the option that erases all the data on the hard drive you want to remove the bad sectors from. This option is usually the Low Level Format, Destructive Write Test or Low Level Initialise Drive option. This option may be called something different in each version of PC-Check.

The point I am trying to make is that when you try to make a change to the windows registry and the windows registry will not save your changes then one possible reason might be that the hard drive has one or more bad sectors. Of course any time that you try to make a change to the windows registry and the windows registry will not save your changes this does not always mean that your hard drive has one or more bad sectors. You will need to check the hard drive to see if it does have any bad sectors.

Also if you are having trouble opening some files or saving some files on your hard drive then one possible reason could be that your hard drive has one or more bad sectors. If you are having trouble opening or saving some files you might see an error message when you try to open or save certain files. Of course your hard drive might not have any bad sectors when you are having trouble opening or saving some files. You will need to check the hard drive to see if it does have any bad sectors.

For a list or programs that can detect and repair bad sectors read our Data Recovery From Bad Sectors post.

For free data recovery software read our Free Data Recovery Software post.

For even more data recovery programs read our Data Recovery Software Experiences post

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Data Recovery From Bad Sectors

Filed under: Data Recovery and Bad Sectors — 1 Comment
April 16, 2011

If you want to recover your data before repairing any bad sectors then I suggest you use a program that can read a bad sector more than once to increase your chance of being able to get a good read on a bad sector. This would give you a good chance at recovering your data from the bad sector. You might not always be able to recover all the data from the bad sector so I suggest that when your data is recovered that you check and make sure all of it is there.

One such program that can read a sector more than once is.

1. Media Tools Professional

When you need to recover data from bad sectors then the program below is one of the better programs to use on a hard drive with bad sectors. If the bad sector cannot be repaired then data is moved from the bad sector to a good sector.

1.SpinRite

Also if you want to try and repair the drive with bad sectors without erasing all the data on the hard drive then spinrite is one such program that can do this.

PC-Check is a good computer hardware diagnostic program that can help you repair bad sectors on your hard drive.

PC-Check does not have a bad sector repair option in it’s menus but the way to repair bad sectors with PC-Check is to use the option that erases all the data on the hard drive you want to remove the bad sectors from.

This option is usually the Low Level Format, Destructive Write Test or Low Level Initialise Drive option. The option you choose in PC-Check will be the option to erase all data on the hard drive with bad sectors. This option may be called something different in each version of PC-Check.

Make sure to use a data recovery program first to recover any data you want off of the drive before using PC-Check to erase it.

PC-Check may not always be able to remove the bad sectors from the hard drive so this may not always work.

One reason that PC-Check may not be able to remove bad sectors from a hard drive by erasing it is because over time the magnetic media on the hard drive can become weaker. A hard drive comes with spare sectors that are used in place of the bad sectors when needed. When there are no spare sectors left on the hard drive then any other bad sectors that the hard drive gets cannot be repaired.

Also if you are interested in a good hardware diagnostic program to check all the hardware in your computer for problems then PC-Check in my opinion is the best program to use for doing this.

Get more info on PC-Check

If you have tried using PC-Check or some other diagnostic program to Low Level Format your hard drive and still have bad sectors then I have one more bit of information to tell you that might help.

We have read that using the following program below may be able to help repair bad sectors that a Low Level Format may not be able to repair.

1. HDD Regenerator

Also if you want to try and repair the drive with bad sectors without erasing all the data on the hard drive then HDD Regenerator is another program that can do this.

For more information on bad sectors see Wikipedia Bad Sector article

For even more information on Bad Sectors read Hard Disk Drive Myths Debunked

If you have used programs that have been able to repair bad sectors on a hard drive for you then let us know which programs you have used.  I am sure our blog readers would be interested in that information.

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