[SOLVED] bad sectors storage device

johnyb98

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Hi all members.

I need your help to the issue:

I have a hard drive of 120GB with Vista: two partitions of 60GB. 2nd partition is totally empty. I want to expand first partition with e.g. 20GB of 2nd one.
Having both gparted and PartedMagic boot from, both stop expanding process with error message of hard drive bad sectors.

Is there a way to discard/dismiss the bad sectors existence message, and complete expanding?

p.s. I have already a full disk backup made by CloneCD. Seems very strange to me the fact that, CloneCD completes disk cloning of this bad sectors hard drive, but gparted and PartedMagic do not.

Thank you!
 
Solution
I'm pretty sure that drive won't work because it's a native 4k drive and you need 512b.

As for your expanding the partition, do a full surface scan with checkdisk by opening an admin level CMD prompt, then run chkdsk X: /r {replace X: with your 2nd paritions drive letter} the /r tells checkdisk to scan the surface of that partition on the drive.

When that one is done, repeat it again using C:
It will ask if you want to do it at the next startup, answer Yes and restart the PC.

Once the sectors get marked as bad & replaced by spares internally, you should be able to expand.

Spinrite would be able to scan the whole drive if you prefer another program

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
No.
Bad sectors never get better, only worse.
Many tools will happily copy/clone/image a drive with bad sectors. Either simply skipping that part, or copying it with whatever bad data resides there. Just because it finished does not mean it is valid data.

A 120GB drive is well over a decade old. It is dying.
 

_Cosmin_

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You could try to use HDD Regenerator to "repair" those bad sectors. It will work for a bit longer, but you should not keep important information on that disk! Back-up and switch to an SSD if possible (is cheap these days and will work faster).
 

johnyb98

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I already have ordered a SSD 120GB, but it will delay some days. I wanted these delay day, even if it is just 4-5 days delay, if there is a way to make it work with this mechanical problematic HDD.

Anyway, in some way, I have made it not being necessary to work with this hard drive for this delay.

Another question.

Defective HDD is 120GB with Vista of 2 x 60GB partitions.
Ordered SSD I am waiting is also 120GB. The way I have thought to make it is:

a. with CloneCD to copy HDD to SSD
b. If this copy is successfully completed with CloneCD, then, with PartedMagic, on SSD, delete 2nd partition which is empty
c. Expand on SSD first partition (maybe totally all 60GB of 2nd partition).

Is that a correct work? Your opinion?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Personally, I wouldn't do a "clone" of that dying drive.
If your tool of choice completes the function, how are you assured that it simply didn't just bring along corrupted data? Or skipped what it couldn't read off the bad sectors.
 

johnyb98

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Thank you for your answers and link blog.
Now that I have the image backup of the hard drive, will it be fine to clone it back to the new SSD hard drive? What is your opinions?
 

johnyb98

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In order not to open another thread/question, I have another problem.

I now have in my hands the SSD I have ordered. But, the problem is that the BIOS does not read it.

Notebook ACER ASPIRE 5630 series
Model No : BL50

BIOS Phoenix : V3.50

Mechanic HDD (problematic) : 120GB
Brand new SSD : 120GB

I upgraded to latest BIOS for this notebook to V3.60, but still BIOS not reading it.

Is there something else I may do?
 

86zx

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Most 120 GB spinning drives are from 2005/2006 or so?

(They are often affectionately referred to as simply, 'spinning rust'!)
Just because a drive is old doesn’t mean it won’t function properly I have some really old drives that work fine one of them is from 1987 it’s a 43mb drive works 100% fine doesn’t even make any bad noises
 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
I'm pretty sure that drive won't work because it's a native 4k drive and you need 512b.

As for your expanding the partition, do a full surface scan with checkdisk by opening an admin level CMD prompt, then run chkdsk X: /r {replace X: with your 2nd paritions drive letter} the /r tells checkdisk to scan the surface of that partition on the drive.

When that one is done, repeat it again using C:
It will ask if you want to do it at the next startup, answer Yes and restart the PC.

Once the sectors get marked as bad & replaced by spares internally, you should be able to expand.

Spinrite would be able to scan the whole drive if you prefer another program
 
Solution

johnyb98

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I'm pretty sure that drive won't work because it's a native 4k drive and you need 512b.

Please, as for that saying, in which drive are you mentioned to? What drive won't work?

Please, if you are referring to Crucial link above, I have found in Crucial datasheet about the one SSD I am interested in (CT120BX500SSD1) that it will work on specific Acer notebook (Aspire 5630), because it is backwards-compatible (512 byte sector). Have a look here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...atasheet.pdf&usg=AOvVaw27Q29UnPrRdraP6mBcJxjh

If you are not referring to specific Cricial SSD, can you please tell me what is the drive you are mentioned to, and about its not working issue?
 
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johnyb98

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Finally, Crucial SSD made just fine in Kingston's replacement. Everything went just fine. Disk cloning from TOSHIBA SATA HDD to Crucial SSD, and afterwards, Crucial SSD installation on Acer laptop. BIOS saw HDD, and Vista boot just ok.

I'm pretty sure that drive won't work because it's a native 4k drive and you need 512b.

Just to understand:

SATA 1 : works only with 512 bytes block
SATA 2 and SATA 3 : work on both 4K blocks and 512 bytes block (512 bytes depends on manufacturer: if it has made the SSD backwards compatible to 512 bytes block)?

Have I understood it well?

Thank you!
 

johnyb98

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Thank you for your reply. Please, one more detail. What do you mean by emulate 512b to the controller?

HDD's are almost all 4k drives internally but emulate 512b to the controller

a. Is there any difference or something else from internal use against controller use? Could you explain a little more?

b. By saying this "emulate", is this that we read in SSD's datasheet that is both 4k and 512n compatible (backwards compatible)?

Thank you !
 
Just because a drive is old doesn’t mean it won’t function properly I have some really old drives that work fine one of them is from 1987 it’s a 43mb drive works 100% fine doesn’t even make any bad noises

I've also had old drives (1.2 GB, etc) that functioned 8-10 years as well back in the IDE/Win95 through WIn98/2000 days..

But, if having issues with corruption, hanging file transfers, reads that take forever, etc., a 10-12 year old drive is often a good place to start one's examination of potential causes...(especially if it is one with 32K hours of use, and numerous reallocated sectors on CrystalDiskInfo, etc..)

Cheers...!
 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
A: The Harddrives controller keeps track of where everything is in 4k land and maps it to a table that converts to 512b for windows compatibility. The conversion is rather easy since eight 512b= one 4k

B: Yes.

For future reference, many external USB docks & enclosures these days use USB interface controllers that only talk to drives in 4k so they can't read drives from 512b well at all. Usually enough to tell us if the drive is using 512, with the right program that is, and you have to put it back into a PC to get anything from the drive.