Bad block Vs Bad Sector

[arjunbox]

Hello,

I would like to know the difference between bad block and bad sector in the hard drive.

Since yesterday my Windows 7 machine was taking really long time to start (close to 3-4 mins).

So I checked the event log as well as ran chkdsk.

Event log shows The device, \Device\Harddisk1\DR1, has a bad block.

Chkdsk shows 0Kb in bad sector.

Please share your thoughts?

Also, does this mean my hard drive is dying? This machine is not even 6 months old.

Thank you

 

[drtweak]

Think of it this way. A block is well like a neighborhood block. A sector is a house. So when you have a back Block, which most of the time is a Software Bad Block/sector, can be fixed by backing up all the data and doing a full format on the drive which could take hours or days depending on the size of the hard drive.

I would download Crystal Disk info in my signature and then run it. See if it says all your drives are good or not. If any are Caution or bad copy and past the results here.

 

[arjunbox]

Thanks for your reply. The machine was at a point that I couldnt even open in safe mode command prompt. So I pressed F11 and did a factory reset of using Lenovo recovery thing. The Lenovo Recovery is in Q drive but when i click on it, I dont see anything.

My question to you is a) In the dos prompt, can I go to Q drive and just a format c:? Will that work? Once I do that, would I still have the Lenovo Recovery drive to try and install Windows again?

 

[drtweak]

Yes you will still have the recovery BUT if the recovery isn't starting up now it won't startup later. Does your PC have a Product Key on it or no? If it does you can probably just download the Version of windows it is for and burn a disk/thumb drive and then just use the key to activate windows.

 

[arjunbox]

Hello there,

Please look at the crystal info of my HDD as you mentioned http://postimg.org/image/yl8pu7p3n/

It says health is good. How come the event log says it has bad blocks?

 

[drtweak]

It might be a software bad block/sectors as Crystal Disk only picks up physical stuff. I would backup what you can and then do a Full format on it not a quick format. Do you have another PC you can put the hard drive in to back up stuff or if you you get into windows to copy your files to?