Partition Magic & bad sectors (XP Pro)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dale Walker
  • Start date Start date
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Dale Walker

I'm trying to repartition a drive with on bad sector but Partition
Magic won't let me resize one of the NTFS partitions with an Error
#122 (bad sector) error.

Is there a way around this?

Let me say that I've had this 'bad' sector pretty much since I got the
drive and have been keeping an eye on the drive for over six months
now with no increase in problems so I don't think this will result in
a cascade of bad sectors later on (like what happens with older
drives). I feel the problem is a stable one so don't think it's worth
going through the rigmarole of replacing it just yet.

Yes, the drive is still under warranty but that doesn't really help as
I'll still have to buy another drive to copy all the data over to to
send the original one back.

Is there a way of persauding Partition Magic (8.0) to get around this
or is there another non-destructive Partition Manager that's clever
enough to work around the bad sector? Surely, if the program can
recognise it's there, it can work out how to avoid it.

If not, are there any utilities that can mark an NTFS bad sector as
good just long enough for Partition Magic to do it's thing? Yes, I'm
taking a gamble here but chances are I could recover from any
consequences from a backup if need be. I regularly defrag and at the
moment, the bad sector is sitting well away from any data and as I'm
trying to make the partition bigger, not smaller, I'm not going to
have any problems with trying to copy moved data over it.
 
I'm trying to repartition a drive with on bad sector
but Partition Magic won't let me resize one of the
NTFS partitions with an Error #122 (bad sector) error.
Click to expand...
Is there a way around this?
Click to expand...

Yes, use the hard drive manufacturer's ute to map the bad
sector away so nothing at the OS level can see it anymore.

That will normally wipe all data on the drive tho.
Let me say that I've had this 'bad' sector pretty much since
I got the drive and have been keeping an eye on the drive for
over six months now with no increase in problems so I don't think
this will result in a cascade of bad sectors later on (like what
happens with older drives). I feel the problem is a stable one
Click to expand...

Yes, some drives will write a single bad on a power failure
during a write and its quite safe to map those away.
so don't think it's worth going through
the rigmarole of replacing it just yet.
Click to expand...
Yes, the drive is still under warranty but that doesn't
really help as I'll still have to buy another drive to
copy all the data over to to send the original one back.
Click to expand...

Are you silly enough to not have proper backups ?

Its stupid to attempt a repartition with PM without
a full backup of the drive, because sometimes it will
go flat on its face doing that, even with no bad sectors.
Is there a way of persauding Partition Magic (8.0) to get around
this or is there another non-destructive Partition Manager that's
clever enough to work around the bad sector? Surely, if the
program can recognise it's there, it can work out how to avoid it.
Click to expand...

Doesnt mean they choose to bother tho.
If not, are there any utilities that can mark an NTFS bad sector
as good just long enough for Partition Magic to do it's thing?
Yes, I'm taking a gamble here but chances are I could
recover from any consequences from a backup if need be.
Click to expand...
I regularly defrag and at the moment, the bad sector
is sitting well away from any data and as I'm trying to
make the partition bigger, not smaller, I'm not going to
have any problems with trying to copy moved data over it.
Click to expand...

Its more complicated than that with PM.
 
Dale Walker said:
I'm trying to repartition a drive with on bad sector but Partition
Magic won't let me resize one of the NTFS partitions with an Error
#122 (bad sector) error.

Is there a way around this?

Let me say that I've had this 'bad' sector pretty much since I got the
drive and have been keeping an eye on the drive for over six months
now with no increase in problems so I don't think this will result in
a cascade of bad sectors later on (like what happens with older
drives). I feel the problem is a stable one so don't think it's worth
going through the rigmarole of replacing it just yet.

Yes, the drive is still under warranty but that doesn't really help as
I'll still have to buy another drive to copy all the data over to to
send the original one back.

Is there a way of persauding Partition Magic (8.0) to get around this
or is there another non-destructive Partition Manager that's clever
enough to work around the bad sector? Surely, if the program can
recognise it's there, it can work out how to avoid it.

If not, are there any utilities that can mark an NTFS bad sector as
good just long enough for Partition Magic to do it's thing? Yes, I'm
taking a gamble here but chances are I could recover from any
consequences from a backup if need be. I regularly defrag and at the
moment, the bad sector is sitting well away from any data and as I'm
trying to make the partition bigger, not smaller, I'm not going to
have any problems with trying to copy moved data over it.
Click to expand...

From a command prompt, chkdsk x: /r , where x is the required drive,
follow the onscreen instructions.

Mike.
 
Michael Hawes said:
From a command prompt, chkdsk x: /r , where x is the required drive,
follow the onscreen instructions.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid that won't work.

So far as I'm aware, chkdsk x: /r does not make sectors marked as bad
good again, especially if they're really bad (like mine). All it does
is 'attempt' to move good data away from any bad sector, and then mark
it as bad.
 
Rod Speed said:
Yes, use the hard drive manufacturer's ute to map the bad
sector away so nothing at the OS level can see it anymore.

That will normally wipe all data on the drive tho.
Click to expand...

This is the scenario I'm trying to avoid.
Are you silly enough to not have proper backups ?
Click to expand...

Nope, Have a big pile of CDs full of backups. Trouble is, I never,
ever trust backups 100%. There's always something that goes wrong.
Besides, restoring from a backup of loads of incremental backups files
takes aeons. I have my data partiton mirrored offsite (synchronises
once a night) but haven't got enough spare space to do that with the
system partition so just do the odd incremental backup of that once a
week.

However, it's not that much more effort to reinstall an OS plus a few
apps if something goes horribly wrong. In all probability I would do a
clean reinstall rather than restore from a backup as it's the more
healthy thing to do.
Its stupid to attempt a repartition with PM without
a full backup of the drive, because sometimes it will
go flat on its face doing that, even with no bad sectors.
Click to expand...

Yep, but as already hinted in my first post, I do make regular
backups.
Doesnt mean they choose to bother tho.
Click to expand...

True
 
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