Tool to remove bad sectors marked in partition table

[arrow_runner]

Let's say drive A is starting to fail, but it's very, very early. It's a 60gb drive. It still boots to windows.

Drive B is brand new and is a 320gb drive.

After taking an image of Drive A and putting it on Drive B, the sectors marked bad in the partition table are carried over. Any software checking the partition table of Drive B now reports (false) bad sectors.

Is there a tool to just zero-out all the bad sectors listed in a partition? A quick google search came up w/ nothing.

 

[iptech]

Drive imaging does not copy bad sectors. Bad sectors are physical defects to the disk platters, disk imaging only copies raw data. The only issue to be aware of in imaging a drive showing bad sectors is that the data stored on the bad sectors may not be fully copied to the new hard drive. If you clone a drive with bad sectors it is always prudent to run chkdsk /r across the newly imaged disk to repair any index or file allocation errors that were present on the old drive that would have been copied over. In my experience bad sectors tend to occur on the areas of the drive most often accessed, typically this will be the the page file which is not critical if it is corrupted, you can either defrag the copied pagefile file using Sysinternals PageDfrag or simply delete the page file via an external boot medium and the operating system will created a shiny new pagefile when it reboots. Obviously if the bad sectors on the old drive contain damaged data from the operating system of application programs then you may have to consider a repair install of the OS/and or the re-installation of affected apps.

The other issue to consider if you image a smaller capacity drive onto a larger capacity drive is to re-size the partition(s) to utilise the additional capacity of the new drive.

 

[arrow_runner]

Yes a bad sector is a physical defect but that information is also stored in a partition table when Windows finds a bad sector that wasn't hidden from it already.

The other issue to consider if you image a smaller capacity drive onto a larger capacity drive is to re-size the partition(s) to utilise the additional capacity of the new drive.

Really...

 

[iptech]

Yes a bad sector is a physical defect but that information is also stored in a partition table when Windows finds a bad sector that wasn't hidden from it already.

No it isn't, the partition table is independent of the operating system. It only sets the parameters of the boot partition to be passed to the operating system. Bad sector information is stored by the drive's Intelligent Drive Electronics (IDE), not on the disk itself. The bad sector table used to be installed on the drive itself, but the last time I set up a drive like that was over 20 years ago.

Really...

Yes really.

 

[kagman]

You can use software tools to try and get the data that is in the bad sectors. I use spinrite. Lots of people here in technibble use one called HDtune.

 

[arrow_runner]

I'm not looking to recovery data missing behind those bad sectors.

I want the bad sectors on the copied partition to be marked as good.

 

[purple_minion]

The only time an OS would ever know there is bad sectors is if all the backup sectors have already been reallocated, in which case you should check the SMART data because you're pretty screwed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_sector

However windows does keep track of bad sectors in the MFT, and had you done a google search you would have found a few bits of info.

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=ntfsclone
http://www.technologyquestions.com/.../242128-how-reset-bad-sector-ntfs-volume.html
http://www.bodden.de/legacy/bad-sector-recovery-on-ntfs/

 

[Psychoticus]

The other issue to consider if you image a smaller capacity drive onto a larger capacity drive is to re-size the partition(s) to utilise the additional capacity of the new drive.

If you use a program like norton ghost, acronis or even clonezilla they automatically use the entire drive, i know acronis actually lets you specify the partition size, ghost and clonezilla may have some commands im unaware of but thats what i do know.

 

[MobileTechie]

This topic brings up something that I'd like to get cleared up.

As I understand it, the drive adds bad sectors to it's g-list and this is invisible to the OS. So how come Windows ever finds bad sectors? If it does, does it mean that the g-list is now full? Or are there "software bad sectors" and "hardware bad sectors"?

 

[mmanna]

Hi, I know exactly what you're referring to. You'll want to download and install DFSee. Just install the demo on the cloned computer, and although it's somewhat difficult to find in a very clunky dos-style gui, there's an option that will let you clear the bad sector flags. I've encountered this several times and this is the only way I've found to clear the flags after cloning. I would love to know if anyone else has a better/easier way.

From part of their manual: http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/dfsmenu-ntfs.php

Reset bad sectors
From main menu: Mode=NTFS -> Reset bad sectors

Reset the bad-sector administration to show ZERO bad-sectors or clusters

This will check for bad-sectors being present in the
filesystem and when present, reset to NO bad sectors.

FAT: Reset all 'BAD' values in the FAT to FREE
NTFS: Update $BadClus and $BitMap to reset bad-clusters
HPFS: Make the bad-sector-list in the spare-block empty

This can be very useful after cloning or imaging a partition
or disk that includes bad-sectors to a new replacement one

Let's say drive A is starting to fail, but it's very, very early. It's a 60gb drive. It still boots to windows.

Drive B is brand new and is a 320gb drive.

After taking an image of Drive A and putting it on Drive B, the sectors marked bad in the partition table are carried over. Any software checking the partition table of Drive B now reports (false) bad sectors.

Is there a tool to just zero-out all the bad sectors listed in a partition? A quick google search came up w/ nothing.

 

[arrow_runner]

@iptech

It sounds as if you're talking down to me. I didn't ask for anything else but a tool to reset bad sectors in a partition.

had you done a google search you would have found a few bits of info.

I really don't think that part was necessary. I did look and didn't find anything, probably because I didn't use the word 'reset'.

I did get my answer in those links with the ntfsinfo and ntfstruncate commands, so thank you.

 

[Galdorf]

What i do is image the drive, then run hdd regenerator and reformat has not failed me yet.

 

[iptech]

@iptech

It sounds as if you're talking down to me. I didn't ask for anything else but a tool to reset bad sectors in a partition.

No sir, it is you who talks down to others. By-and-large members on Technibble are polite and courteous, it is you who has been off-handed and rude, yet you still adopt a superior attitude in this thread that you chose to create.

Why ask a question on a technical forum if you're not prepared for others to question your reasoning?

Good luck with your search in finding a "bad sector reset tool" and welcome to my ignore list.


Really. (sic)

 

[iptech]

What i do is image the drive, then run hdd regenerator and reformat has not failed me yet.

Why bother to image a drive if you're going to reformat it?

 

[iptech]

This topic brings up something that I'd like to get cleared up.

As I understand it, the drive adds bad sectors to it's g-list and this is invisible to the OS. So how come Windows ever finds bad sectors? If it does, does it mean that the g-list is now full? Or are there "software bad sectors" and "hardware bad sectors"?

Windows doesn't, chkdsk operates at system level not at the OS level. Windows only reports on the information that is passed to it from the system level.

 

[MobileTechie]

Windows doesn't, chkdsk operates at system level not at the OS level. Windows only reports on the information that is passed to it from the system level.

What do you mean by "system level"?

I don't see how this explains the question. If a drive's firmware is automatically adding bad sectors to the glist, then how does manually running chkdsk /r help - even if it is not operating at the OS level.

 

[iptech]

Chkdsk only reports bad sectors, it does not and cannot repair them - they are physical damage, not filesystem damage. Using chkdsk /r locates any readable information from damaged sectors and rewrites them to mapped good sectors and will repair the associated MFT entries accordingly.

Bad sectors = physical damage - can only be repaired by replacing the mechanical components of the drive. It's never done because it is not economically viable to do so. I do not use or believe in hard disk 'regeneration tools', I've never known them to work in the long term and they can mask a failing hard drive to the point where it fails totally and results in catastrophic data loss.

Filesystem damage = software damage - It can often be repaired with system level tools such as chkdsk, but it should not be regarded as a panacea and do not rely upon it to keep fixing errors caused by a failing hard drive. Filesystem damage is not always caused by hardware faults it can be caused by improper shutdown, power outages, virus infection amongst others. If filesystem damage is caused by a failing hard drive i.e. chkdsk is reporting bad sectors, the the best option is to replace the failing hard drive as it is likely to degrade further in the short term with the risk of total data loss.

If you sector clone a hard drive with filesystem damage, however caused, the filesystem damage will still need to be repaired on the cloned drive although some commercial cloning tools such as Acronis & Symantec Ghost will attempt to repair MFT errors as a pre-process to the actual clone.

 

[iptech]

What do you mean by "system level"?

Hardware level - as opposed to user level, application level or operating system level. It is a low-end process.

 

[purple_minion]

@iptech

It sounds as if you're talking down to me. I didn't ask for anything else but a tool to reset bad sectors in a partition.




I really don't think that part was necessary. I did look and didn't find anything, probably because I didn't use the word 'reset'.

I did get my answer in those links with the ntfsinfo and ntfstruncate commands, so thank you.

My intention was to not talk down to you. I get frustrated when people ask questions that seem as if they didn't do any simple research on them. I see this all over the web and frankly it gets old. Personally I would like to see a question stated: I have this issue, I have tried this this and this, and searching google for 30 minutes produced zip.... can you help.

I can understand not finding the right keyword as we've all done it, however when I can't find what I'm looking for I step back and go to basics such as what are bad sectors. It will often give you clues to start the keyword juices flowing. In google you can also click on show options under the search and then click wonderwheel, sometimes gets you places.

 

[arrow_runner]

I get frustrated when people ask questions that seem as if they didn't do any simple research on them. I see this all over the web and frankly it gets old.

I completely agree, but I mentioned in my opening post that I did search. I had actually looked for this in the past as well but didn't find anything. It's like you said, we all miss the right keyword sometimes.

I also think my question was a little out-of-the blue. If someone had asked "How do I remove Antivirus XP", and you responded the way you did to me, it would have made sense to me, because you and I both know there's a billion ways listed on the net to do it. I honestly wasn't sure a tool to clear bad sectors marked on a ntfs partition even existed.

I'm fine, and like I said, you gave me what I was looking for so that's cool too.