news.ntlworld.com said:
Im sorry Scan Disk is reporting Bad clusters Not Bad Sectors
It is not unusual for a new drive to contain bad tracks, sectors and/or
clusters.
Typically, as part of the quality control at the factory, the drive will go
through rigorous testing and any bad tracks or sectors are "spared out."
Since the drive has spares built into it for just such a purpose, a certain
number of defects can be corrected without affecting the advertised storage
capacity. If all the spares are taken, the drive doesn't make it to market.
Norton's discovery of bad clusters may, or may not, be the sign of a
borderline drive. If there is a large number of bad clusters and they are
all grouped together, I would consider returning the drive. If there is only
a few bad clusters widely scattered, it is probably not worth the effort.
I have seen (years ago) drives with consecutive bad spots run for years, and
I have seen them fail within a matter of months. The problem is that you
don't really know if the drive is in the process of failing unless you
monitor it over an extended period of time to see if a trend develops. (By
that time, the warranty will probably run out.)
FWIW - It has been a very long time since I have seen Norton detect a bad
cluster on any of my drives - new or old. I am not sure how prevalent bad
clusters are in drives these days.