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Checking Bad sector in HDD and ExtHDD

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hulkbuster:
Hello folks, i was trying to recover some deleted Wallpapers in my ExtHDD i was using Active Undelete for this, but Recuva too performs equally good at this, Undelete showes few bad sectors, so now i am realising that i do not have a Sector checking software for this, the one that can detect it and mark as red colour which later on the OS would detect it and avoid writing on that particular bad sector.

Hope my problem is understandable.....:)

PS:Can someone suggests me some free as well as paid software for doing this job.

Shades:
Microsoft's own CheckDisk should help you out with that. It is already included in every Windows version since Win 2000 (if not earlier).

If that one doesn't do it, there is an alternative called 'MHDD'. This is a tool for advanced users, so be warned! With that tool you have a lot of control, including marking bad sectors (so they will not be used anymore). However, to accomplish this it first has to "nuke" all the existing data in a way you will never get it back. MHDD I would recommend as last resort only.

hulkbuster:
Microsoft's own CheckDisk should help you out with that. It is already included in every Windows version since Win 2000 (if not earlier).

If that one doesn't do it, there is an alternative called 'MHDD'. This is a tool for advanced users, so be warned! With that tool you have a lot of control, including marking bad sectors (so they will not be used anymore). However, to accomplish this it first has to "nuke" all the existing data in a way you will never get it back. MHDD I would recommend as last resort only.
-Shades (June 18, 2012, 07:23 PM)
--- End quote ---

Hello Shade  :)thanks for replying this query: you see i used once to perform a low level format on one of my HDD quite a long time ago.
You also mentioned first i h' to nuke the HDD first before markig bad sector so that they can't be used anymore.


Checking Bad sector in HDD and ExtHDD

I wanted a tool that would mark the bad sector so they can't be used, i ran Active Disk Monitor, it did show 54kb of bad sector as red(indicating a bad block) in my EXT HDD: but i dont know wheter it is marked it or not.
So anyother tool that can achieve this, you see i am storing a lot of data in my 320GB EXT HDD and i want to add more : is their anyother tool ,i would be happy if their was one that did the job.  :(

Thank you:

4wd:
Normally the controller on the drive will perform any remapping of hardware bad blocks, (eg. platter defects), to its spare area and add them to its Grown Defects List, (G-list), without any user intervention.

You can also have software bad blocks where the ECC data is no longer valid for the sectors affected, (probably a greatly simplified explanation but good enough for me).  You can attempt to 'repair' these by running a Low Level Format, (which isn't really), or by running MHDD in ERASE mode.

However, as Shades has said, they are destructive procedures so don't do them until you have a backup or don't require the data.

Apart from specific test hardware/software I don't know of anything that will let you insert sectors into the G or P list.

You could also try reading the S.M.A.R.T. data and see if there has been any sector remappings.

eg. Here's Hard Disk Sentinel on one of my drives:

tslim:
Hi,

Whether or not you can find a program to mark existing bad sectors, that does not matter. My very sincere advice is: Do not attempt to continue using a HDD once you find it start developing bad sector. Just grabs everything on it ASAP while you still can (So far, Norton Ghost is the best in claiming the most out of a bad HDD)

Regarding the wallpaper you try to recover, I would suggest you to find them back online (assuming you have found and download them online in the past), I think it will be easier and you stand a higher chance to success.

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