How to Tackle Bad Sectors
Bad sectors are probably one of the more common problems that people encounter on their hard drives. There are two different types of bad sectors that you can come face to face with on your hard drive, the first is physical and the second is logical. While you can fix logical bad sectors by using the appropriate software, in most cases, it may not be possible for you to repair physical bad sectors. Despite that, there are still things that you can do. In some cases it’s still possible for you to recover the sectors, as it depends greatly on the extent of the problem. So in this article, I will be focusing primarily on physical bad sectors, the reasons why they occur, their various symptoms and the many ways that you can adopt to fix them.
When you have physical bad sectors on your drive, it will typically manifest itself in two different ways:
The of the main causes of bad sectors is wearing out, some areas of your hard drive, over time become more difficult for your computer to access, to eventually they come inaccessible. Although it is possible for you to recover these lost sectors, using the appropriate application, in this situation you’re probably better off considering purchasing a new hard drive as your primary drive and using the drive with damaged sectors as a secondary drive. The reason why this is something that you should consider, is because, although all the bad sector may be repaired and your now able to access all the data on it, there is always that chance that the problem could reappear. As a result, you don’t want to put yourself in a position, where your computer is unable to boot up owing to that bad sector.
Another reason why your computer may contract a physical bad sector is because of a shock, one that is much more than what the hard drive can withstand, and one that has taken place while the computer is on. In a situation like this, bad sectors are pretty much inevitable. Because of the intricacy of the hard drive and the fragility of the hard drives platter, damage on the hard drive is inevitable, typically covering a fairly large storage area of the drive.
Today, you can pick up a fairly large hard drive (at around 500GB) for relatively cheap. This means you can buy a new one at any time, but I understand that the data contained on your present hard drive may be priceless. So a solution must be adopted in order to fix the problem described above. As was previously mentioned, depending on the kind of bad sector, it’s possible for you to use software to fix the problem. These special programs are able to scan, detect and repair bad sectors on your hard drive. In the event that you’re unsure of what to do or if the hard drive is unresponsive, then you may want to consider utilising the skills of a professional.
When you have physical bad sectors on your drive, it will typically manifest itself in two different ways:
- You receive random blue screen of death errors that the computer failed to read the memory. The computer will typically restart after presenting you with the error message, only for you to be confronted with another one, soon after. This error message is also known to appear when there is a problem with the RAM. But it’s easy to deal with bad RAM, as all you need to do is buy new ones.
- The operating system doesn’t boot up, instead it presents you with an error message indicating that it was unable to locate a specific file.
The of the main causes of bad sectors is wearing out, some areas of your hard drive, over time become more difficult for your computer to access, to eventually they come inaccessible. Although it is possible for you to recover these lost sectors, using the appropriate application, in this situation you’re probably better off considering purchasing a new hard drive as your primary drive and using the drive with damaged sectors as a secondary drive. The reason why this is something that you should consider, is because, although all the bad sector may be repaired and your now able to access all the data on it, there is always that chance that the problem could reappear. As a result, you don’t want to put yourself in a position, where your computer is unable to boot up owing to that bad sector.
Another reason why your computer may contract a physical bad sector is because of a shock, one that is much more than what the hard drive can withstand, and one that has taken place while the computer is on. In a situation like this, bad sectors are pretty much inevitable. Because of the intricacy of the hard drive and the fragility of the hard drives platter, damage on the hard drive is inevitable, typically covering a fairly large storage area of the drive.
Today, you can pick up a fairly large hard drive (at around 500GB) for relatively cheap. This means you can buy a new one at any time, but I understand that the data contained on your present hard drive may be priceless. So a solution must be adopted in order to fix the problem described above. As was previously mentioned, depending on the kind of bad sector, it’s possible for you to use software to fix the problem. These special programs are able to scan, detect and repair bad sectors on your hard drive. In the event that you’re unsure of what to do or if the hard drive is unresponsive, then you may want to consider utilising the skills of a professional.