Reformatting a HD with a bad sector

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fairfieldfalconsfan

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Is it possible to reformat a HD that has a bad sector(s) on it? I have an 80 GB Maxtor HD that was doing the clicking thing on me and when I cloned it with Maxtor Maxblast it said there were some bad sectors (I think it was around 5 or 10). I was thinking about using it as a backup/storage drive in an external enclousure. The data on it would be on at least one other PC maybe two so it wouldn't be a big deal if it died.

If it is possible what program would I use to do this?

Thanks in advance.
 
Well when I plugged it into my IDE/SATA to USB adapter it clicked for a while and then the light went out so I think it is just dead. I may just buy an external HD or a used HD locally. Thanks anyway Trotter!
 
Sounds like your whole drive could be bad. However for future reference hard drives can develop bad sectors at anytime without you really even knowing. Those sectors are simply 'deleted' from the 'index' so to speak and are ignored from then on. Or maybe I'm thinking of bad blocks, hmmmm. Maybe you should ignore this post.
 
The windows chkdsk sometimes fails to find/mark bad sectors.

Also, windows doesn't actively mark bad sectors when the system is running, it can only do that prior to loading everything.
 
Thanks for the help guys. I may just get an external HD when one is on sale or I may get a used hard drive locally. A local PC shop is testing some useds HDs they have to see if they are good.
 
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