REQ: INFO Bad Vectors? What are they and what causes them? Thanks

[Brite]

Hi
I was told my harddrive has bad vectors. What are they? and what
causes them?

Thanks

Brite

 

[JM]

quoting:

Hi
I was told my harddrive has bad vectors. What are they? and what
causes them?

Thanks

Brite

You mean bad SECTORS. That means your hard drive is failing. Back it up,
and replace it.

You should never "see" bad secors on any hard drive. Hard drives have
reserved, surplus sectors at the end of the drive that are used to replace
any bad sectors that may pop up. Actually seeing bad sectors on a hard drive
means the drive has used up all of its surplus sectors, and is failing.

 

[Machine Messiah]

snip

You mean bad SECTORS. That means your hard drive is failing. Back it up,
and replace it.

You should never "see" bad secors on any hard drive. Hard drives have
reserved, surplus sectors at the end of the drive that are used to replace
any bad sectors that may pop up. Actually seeing bad sectors on a hard drive
means the drive has used up all of its surplus sectors, and is failing.

What if you see them on a drive that's less than 6 months old?
Could a swap file crash cause them? We're talking less than 50kb of bad
sectors.

 

[kony]

What if you see them on a drive that's less than 6 months old?
Could a swap file crash cause them? We're talking less than 50kb of bad
sectors.

Bad sectors can be a physical or a logical problem. A physical problem is
an actual defect on the platter, a sign that the drive has already used
all spare sector remapping available and is dying, needs replaced.

Logical bad sectors on the other hand are simply those that the OS has
determined are bad because of a problem with the read request, but not a
problem with the drive itself. Google search 'retest bad sectors' to find
the right solution for your OS and filesystem.