Harddisk Bad Cluster Error.......

[satyamy]

I was using 40GB HDD, running WinXP from last 1 year
but frm last 1 months my computer freezes in middle also I got start error while starting my PC
the error getting frequency was getting faster & faster day by day & One day fromatted my PC, but i was unable to install WinXP on it
while Installing WinXP it shows Registering Component 2-3 minutes remaining (at particular that time my PC freezes) I tried to install & repair & tried all the possible ways
then i fromatted Drive C in FAT32 using WinXP CD & again booted my PC with Win98 then doing scandisk & surface scan i get to know their are around 3 bad cluster in it
But Win98 installed & run sucessfully
because all of my drive is NTFS i was unable to use other 3 drives in Win98
so i tried win2000 but it again freezes


Now i am running this HDD as slave

My HDD has 4 drives C, D, E & F, only C is free all other have data

Now Pls tell me what should i do to repair my HDD without deleting my data from it & Install WinXP again

Pls help................

[The Unknown]

Did ScanDisk not repair your HDD? It always does.

[satyamy]

no!!!
after scandisk also it again shows some 3 sector marked as "B" i.e. Bad Cluster
& in scandisk report it shows no error found

[The Unknown]

Hmm... Serious Problem. I think it is damaged mechanically. Is the Warranty period or its still there?

[satyamy]

warranty expired 6 months before
can anyone tell me any utility or software to repair Harddisk's Cluster

[The Unknown]

Sorry Buddy No google results found. Wait for some others to reply. I have an !dea, take ur HDD to ur frnds comp. and take all the data from it into a CD/DVD/PEN and give the HDD to the company. They'll charge you Rs.100~500 and repair it and give warranty for 1 yr.

[phreak0ut]

I faced the same problem with my old HD. I've heard that there is something called 'zero filling' the drives, which is a low-level format. You can try out this site. But, I recommend you backup your data and buy a new hard disk. One of my friend told its not reliable and I've heard it from different sources as well. If you wanna experiment, then just go ahead

[aj27july]

scandisk can not detect bad sectors to some extent.
use Disk Manager instead.

[The Unknown]

If you repair the HDD by giving it to the company, after repairing or if you have bought a new HDD, always

1. ChkDsk in xp(if loaded) or ScanDisk in 98.
2. Keep volume filesystems, NTFS.
3. Defrag your Registry, Pagefile using pagedefrag from www.sysinternals.com
4. And Defrag your Partitions regularly atleast once in a month.

I do the same thing so my 5 yr. HDD Segate is still running. Remeber one thing if you buy any new HDD it should be always of SEGATE Its HDDs are very sturdy.