How to know if HD has bad sectors?

[Cajete]

So long story short, I was reformatting a laptop that had a lot of spy ware and was running extremely slow. I popped in the vista CD... installation went fine... But when Vista tries to boot up I get the blue screen of death and the process repeats. So I ran Boot N Nuke to wipe the hard drive thoroughly but it's telling me it could have bad sectors. I don't hear any strange noises... and the Vista OS previously installed was running fine besides the fact that is was slow due to the issues. Anyway -

My questions are...

1. How can I truly test if the hard drive has bad sectors? Is there a boot able app that I can use to confirm this?

2. When a sector goes bad on the hard drive... does that mean the entire hard drive is screwed and I have to replace it?

Well, any information is appreciated... I need to get this thing running asap.

 

[carnageX]

Defragging doesn't check for bad sectors. Doing a chkdsk would. Can be done via the boot disc, and do a chkdsk /r command.

Best way to try to fix a bad sector is with Spinrite. I and many others here swear by this program, and it really does work. If it can't fix them, it blocks off the bad sectors.

 

[KSoD]

chkdsk /r /f for teh best results. This will find and fix all bad sectors on a hard drive. Carnage is right that SpinRite is the best tool for this.

 

[LOL_NESS]

Get the harddrive test tool for your brand of drive off of their website, scan the entire surface, and it will most likely try and disable the bad sectors depending on how bad it is, it will try to repair them. Ultimate boot cd is a good diagnostics to use.

 

[carnageX]

SpinRite is a better utility than the manufacturer's tool is.

 

[Cajete]

Is spin-rite free?

 

[KSoD]

No Spin Rite is not free. But it is by far the best investment you can make. Well maybe not the best. But it is worth the money.