I had my busted laptop for awhile now and I'm just dying to get it working again without having to pay for extra parts or a whole new laptop. It's a Vista OS (i know horrible choice right?) and it fell off my bed and my computer started to freeze up every so often so i went into command prompt and typed /format C: without realizing that the recovery disc would've been a better idea to use because it wont leave bad sectors. When I formated the laptop and tried to load the OS it would freeze up at 17% and would just stay like that. When I saw that there was still KB left on the hard drive I was a bit worried that the format didn't work properly so i formated again and it got rid of some items but it didn't get rid of it all. I was just wondering if there might be a solution as to fix an already formated hard drive using the command prompt to fix the bad sectors. Any information can be helpful. Thanks in advanced. Also i was wondering if there might be some solution as to hook the laptop hard drive to a tower hard drive and fixing the laptop hard drive on a desk top computer if that is a possible solution please be generous and give all the information you can.
Bad Sectors on a Formated Laptop Hard Drive
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MindoverMaster
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First, I would check your RAM with Memtest86+
Secondly, use GParted, to cleanly sweep it. See my quoted text in my sig.
Secondly, use GParted, to cleanly sweep it. See my quoted text in my sig.
Lexluethar
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The format C: command you did won't do a thing - A)you can't run a checkdisk on the drive that the OS is loaded on B)without a switch (indicated with a /) the chkdsk will only do what is called a read only checkdisk on your PC - meaning it will just tell you if there are bad sectors but won't fix them.
As for formatting the entire drive, you will always have that extra 8kb or whatever space when formatting with a windows utility. I don't know the exact reason but there is on (i'm sure mak could fill you in).
As for fixing bad sectors - that is impossible. Bad sectors are parts of the hard drive that are physically bad, meaning they've lost their charge or just can't be read anymore. There is nothing that can fix this. The only 'work around' is to actually run a chkdsk on the drive, what that does is allow the OS to indicate which sectors are bad on the drive, then the OS will move what files are on that sector (if possible) and move them to a good sector. Then it will mark that sector as bad and won't use it. The issue with this is when you format a drive the OS looks at the drive as new, so it isn't going to know not to use a certain sector. So when completely formatting the hard drive then reinstalling the OS, the OS may install crucial components on bad sectors - causing the installation to fail.
All of this is assuming that the chkdsk you ran on C did find bad sectors. If that is the case it could very well be that the installation won't complete on that drive. To ensure that the hard drive is not the issue ensure you are using good ram (run memtest) and a good installation disk (try another computer).
Finally it has been my experience that once a hard drive starts failing, it fails at a catastrophic speed.
As for formatting the entire drive, you will always have that extra 8kb or whatever space when formatting with a windows utility. I don't know the exact reason but there is on (i'm sure mak could fill you in).
As for fixing bad sectors - that is impossible. Bad sectors are parts of the hard drive that are physically bad, meaning they've lost their charge or just can't be read anymore. There is nothing that can fix this. The only 'work around' is to actually run a chkdsk on the drive, what that does is allow the OS to indicate which sectors are bad on the drive, then the OS will move what files are on that sector (if possible) and move them to a good sector. Then it will mark that sector as bad and won't use it. The issue with this is when you format a drive the OS looks at the drive as new, so it isn't going to know not to use a certain sector. So when completely formatting the hard drive then reinstalling the OS, the OS may install crucial components on bad sectors - causing the installation to fail.
All of this is assuming that the chkdsk you ran on C did find bad sectors. If that is the case it could very well be that the installation won't complete on that drive. To ensure that the hard drive is not the issue ensure you are using good ram (run memtest) and a good installation disk (try another computer).
Finally it has been my experience that once a hard drive starts failing, it fails at a catastrophic speed.
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