Partition Recovery™
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An expert tool for recovering lost partitions
Last updated: Aug 26, 2021

Bad sectors on the hard drive? Repair them without leaving home!

Bad sectors are a common problem with a hard drive. But what to do and how to check if it really is no the disk?

In that article, you will find out:

  • what is a bad sector on a hard drive?
  • what are signs for bad sector's presence
  • why you need DiskInternals Partition Recovery
  • how to fix bad sectors on the hard drive

Are you ready? Let's read!

Hard Drive: Bad Sectors Overview

Each hard disk includes many sectors. Those that are unreadable or damaged are called bad. Due to many reasons, sectors can be damaged one by one. And the more bad sectors on the hard drive you have, the slower the hard drive will work. In the end, when the bad sectors on hard drive are more than the good ones, the device simply stops working. Often, in such situations, the user does not know what to do.

You can learn in this article how to fix bad sectors.

Signs That You Need to Scan for Bad Sectors

A hard disk stores a huge amount of information and if it gets corrupted due to a bad sector, it may cause you to panic. Fortunately, the hard drive does not stop working without warning; before this, there are some symptoms that will help you to recognize that something has gone wrong. Once you know these signs may help you avoid bad sectors on hard drive.

Here are some of the main symptoms:

Fix bad sectors on the hard drive and restore files with Partition Recovery

  • When you try to open a disk, you see error messages like this: “Location is not available.” “Drive: D is not available.” “Data Error.”
  • Hard drive is read as RAW.
  • Applications take a very long time to open.
  • The hard disk itself produces unusual sounds when working with it.
  • You cannot complete the formatting of the disk and receive the error message “Windows could not complete formatting”.
  • Restarting the computer is taking longer and longer.

If you are dealing with these signs, it means that you have bad sectors on hard drive and, at any moment, the hard disk may stop working.

Bad Sectors: Physical vs Logical

Bad Sector on the hard drive

You need to know whether your sectors have physical damage or logical. This greatly affects the ability of performing bad sector repair on your hard drive.

Physical damage to sectors is mechanical damage to the constituent parts of a hard disk (for example, damage to a hard disk head). Unfortunately, fixing bad sectors in this case is impossible, but it can be prevented by properly handling the hard disk.

Logical damage to sector mean that the disk does not work, but in fact is easy to fix. The sectors are marked as damaged when the OS tries to read them, and the codes do not match. Later, we will show how bad sector repair in such cases can be done.

Reasons that Lead to Bad Sectors on a Hard Drive

  1. 1. Any hard disk has a lifespan. Perhaps your hard disk has been in use long enough and therefore bad sectors have begun to appear.
  1. 2. A dirty and dusty hard drive sooner or later will also have bad sectors.
  1. 3. Sudden and improper shutdown of the computer can easily damage sectors. In the event of a sudden power outage, the head should quickly return to its original position and at the same time touch or even wipe the disk plate, which will inevitably lead to damage to the sectors.
  1. 4. Careless usage of the hard disk. When hit or shaken, the hard disk can be damaged. This is most relevant to laptops.
  1. 5. The hard drive itself may be of poor quality and from an unknown manufacturer.

Here the outcome of using such a hard disk is generally unpredictable. So, what should you do with bad sectors? How do you perform bad sector repair?

What to Need to do Before Fixing Bad Sectors

Recovering a bad sector destroys any data on the disk; more precisely, it destroys data on bad sectors or near bad sectors and it is almost impossible to recover them. That is why, no matter which tool for hard drive bad sector repair you choose, the first step is data recovery.

This can be easily done using DiskInternals Partition Recovery.

This application supports all popular file systems: UFS, HFS, NTFS, XFS, Ext2 / 3/4, ReiserFS, FAT12, ReFS, and Reiser4. This program recovers files of any type and size, which is very important, as there is usually a huge amount of information on a hard disk. DiskInternals Partition Recovery can be tried for free, and only after you have realized that this software suits you completely, do you need to purchase a license and license key.

The preview function is also completely free, so you have no reason to worry. Partition Recovery is equipped with a trio of helpers: Partition Recovery Wizard, NTFS Recovery Wizard and FAT Recovery Wizard. In addition, there are 3 modes of operation for the wizards: “reader”, “uneraser” or “recovery”; that is, you can open files like you do in Windows Explorer and restore data.

DiskInternals Partition Recovery is a win-win solution for you and your data.

Bad sector repair on Windows 7, 8 and 10

You can fix bad sectors yourself using built-in programs. For Windows 8 and 10, this method will look similar:

First, open This PC and right-click on the problem disk.

Then click on the last line of Properties and go to Tools. Here you will notice the Error Check section; click on this. After that, the disk check with the image in the subsequent research results will begin (the error and its status will be shown). In most cases, this will restore the disk.

In Windows 7, this process is slightly different:

Right-click the drive and select Properties. In the Tools section, click on the Check Now button and be sure to activate the Scan option and try to repair the bad sectors. Only after that, run a scan. Now you just need to wait for the results and hope that they will be satisfactory.

Fix Bad Sectors with Command Line

Bad sector repair is possible using the command line. To do this, follow these steps:

Pay attention: chkdsk will cut your file to 512kb, so better save files before you start to use this method.

Right-click the start button and type “cmd” and press Enter. Then you will see a new window titled “cmd.exe”. In the window you will see a line similar to this: Start Command line in cmd.

In this new window, type chkdsk [drive letter] and parameter: Example of check disk command. and press Enter.

Instead of D - type your drive letter.

And remember: there is a space between "d:" and "/".

* Parameter "/r" - corrects the sector on the SD card.

After the process is completed, it is also recommended to restart your computer.

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