FAT32 bad sector recovery

  • Thread starter Thread starter lokman
  • Start date Start date
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lokman

Hello

My Segate 160GB (8M cache) HDD suddenly crash without any reason in
last Friday. What I mean crash is that the HDD can still be recognise
in WinXP and can still browse. But whenever I tried to copy thing
into/out of the drive, my PC simply hangs without HDD led blinking.

The very fist symptom was that the PC hang and I reboot the machine.
It then came to the blue screen asking for the chkdsk to run, I just
let it go, but it hang for 15 minutes without HDD led blinking, I
reboot and try, still the same.

Then I tried XP "Check for Error", it hang it phase 1, with the same
symptom (HDD led not blinking).

I checked the disk again using Norton Systemworks (Disk Doctor), the
result is the same.

Since the HDD was partitioned into 2 80 GB disc and they are n FAT32
format. I use SCANDISK D: /AUTOFIX /NOSAVE /SURFACE from my Win98 Boot
CD and run it. Ok, this time the HDD led is blinking and I can feel
that there are some "physical activities" (spinning) inside the HDD.
But it ran for more than 30 hours already and it is still running the
"File Structures".

When I tried to copy the files between drives, it says Error reading
Secotr...

I have a habit of backing up my stuff into DVD, but I don't do it
everyday. I would like to get the most out of this drive. Can somebody
please give me some instuctions how it can be fix ? Recall that
CentralPoint PCTools was a good tool in Dos 6.22. Can I use this once
again ? Any recommend tools ?

Thanks.
 
Thank you very much for your help. I have actually ran Findbad
yesterday, with writef6 and allowwrites option. Since there are more
than 1000 bad sectors found. It started to ask the Y/N question and I
keep on pressing Y for 5 minutes.....

Thanks a lot.
 
lokman said:
Thank you very much for your help. I have actually ran Findbad
yesterday, with writef6 and allowwrites option. Since there are more
than 1000 bad sectors found. It started to ask the Y/N question and I
keep on pressing Y for 5 minutes.....
Click to expand...

Then you need to check Power Supply (supply of power) to the drive
and drive temperature.
Also, check if the previous run had the desired effect (possibly by
running it a second time (no writes this time)).
If bad sectors are still detected it is about time to image the drive
to another one with an imaging app that ignores bad sectors.
Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...

Hopefully the filestructures will still be intact but with so many bad sectors?!
 
Thanks a lot for the reply.

I think I am in the stage where I need the drive image software which
ignores the bad sectors. Can you recommend some ? Thanks a lot.
 
Thanks a lot for the great advices.

I have a question actually, since I am going to create an image of a
80gb disk. I guess I need a healthy 80gb to standby to receive the new
image.

Before doing this. My friend told me that Hard Drive Mechanic 3.0 can
fix the bad sector problem easily. Do you have comment in this

Thanks
 
Thanks a lot for the great advices.

I have a question actually, since I am going to create an image of a
80gb disk. I guess I need a healthy 80gb to standby to receive the new
image.
Click to expand...

Forget imaging a bad drive, unless you mean cloning by "imaging". The target
drive for CLONING should be the size of the source drive, or larger.
Before doing this. My friend told me that Hard Drive Mechanic 3.0 can
fix the bad sector problem easily. Do you have comment in this
Click to expand...

In a previous post you write that Findbad found more than 1000 bad sectors. If
I were you, then I wouldn't ask any more questions and clone the drive right
away, before you lose it forever. If you didn't lose it already.

Regards
 
lokman said:
Thanks a lot for the great advices.

I have a question actually,
Click to expand...

So did I, but I didn't get an answer.
since I am going to create an image of a 80gb disk. I guess I need a
healthy 80gb to standby to receive the new image.

Before doing this. My friend told me that Hard Drive Mechanic 3.0 can
fix the bad sector problem easily.
Click to expand...
Do you have comment in this.
Click to expand...

I might, but you'll probably not listen.
 
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