Anyone know a defragger for XP that shows bad clusters?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aldwyn Edain
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A

Aldwyn Edain

I remember the defragger in Win98 would graphically show you where any
bad clusters are but the one in XP doesn't, nor does Diskeeper or
Norton Speedisk. Anyone know one for XP that does? Preferably free or
one that has a trial version. :-)
 
I remember the defragger in Win98 would graphically show you where any
bad clusters are but the one in XP doesn't, nor does Diskeeper or
Norton Speedisk. Anyone know one for XP that does? Preferably free or
one that has a trial version. :-)
Click to expand...

If you actually see bad clusters on a modern drive, replace it
IMMEDIATELY. Most IDE/SATA drives have spare sectors that are used to
automatically replace defective ones. Only when it runs out of spares
will Windows see bad sectors. That is a VERY bad sign.

You can do a simple 'CHKDSK x:' to see the number of bad sectors if
needed. NT/2K/XP also have 'CHKDSK x: /R' to have it scan and look for
anything bad, although it should only trigger the drive to replace it if
one does pop up.
 
Andrew Rossmann said:
If you actually see bad clusters on a modern drive, replace it
IMMEDIATELY. Most IDE/SATA drives have spare sectors that are used to
automatically replace defective ones. Only when it runs out of spares
will Windows see bad sectors. That is a VERY bad sign.
Click to expand...

Troll. Bad sectors show up before the spares are gone. The drive does
NOT remap uncorrectable bads. Stop perpetuating myths.
You can do a simple 'CHKDSK x:' to see the number of bad sectors if
needed. NT/2K/XP also have 'CHKDSK x: /R' to have it scan and look for
anything bad, although it should only trigger the drive to replace it if
one does pop up.
Click to expand...
Nonsense, that shows bad clusters. The bad sectors may well be gone. Run
diagnostics instead.
 
Andrew Rossmann said:
I remember the defragger in Win98 would graphically show you where any
bad clusters are but the one in XP doesn't, nor does Diskeeper or
Norton Speedisk. Anyone know one for XP that does? Preferably free or
one that has a trial version. :-)
Click to expand...

If you actually see bad clusters on a modern drive, replace it IMMEDIATELY.[/QUOTE]

Ignore the braindead idiot.
(Now watch the John Doe troll post my email address all over the internet again).
Most IDE/SATA drives have spare sectors
Click to expand...
that are used to automatically replace defective ones.
Click to expand...

Clueless.
You have been told many times how that works and it is not automatic at all
in a number of cases, one of which is unrecoverable read error 'bad' sectors.
Format and file system scanners will note those down as bad clusters.
Only when it runs out of spares will Windows see bad sectors.
Click to expand...

Utter nonsense again.
Unrecoverable read error bad sectors can appear at any time.
Unrecoverable read error bad sectors only get reassigned at writes.
Only recoverable read error bad sectors get reassigned automatically if necessary..
That is a VERY bad sign.
Click to expand...

It's a sign of the recorded ECC not being equal to the calculated ECC on a read.
That's all it means. That can happen if a sector write isn't completed and that
obviously has nothing to do with physical damage.
You can do a simple 'CHKDSK x:' to see the number of bad sectors if needed.
Click to expand...

Wrong again. That's clusters. The filesystem doesn't know about sectors.
NT/2K/XP also have 'CHKDSK x: /R' to have it scan and look for
anything bad, although it should only trigger the drive to replace it if
one does pop up.
Click to expand...

Wrong again.
Any read or write action can "trigger the drive to replace it if one pops up".
Whether that happens depends on a number of rules, not unconditionally automatic.
 
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