Re: Bad sectors... how bad?

Pdigmking wrote:

djs0302@xxxxxxx wrote in
news:1133851913.546881.207680@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: 


Pdigmking wrote:

OK, so I'm crazy over all this HD stuff, I'm looking at HDs, tryingn
to find out if one brand is better than the other, what difference
does buffer make etc. All this concern is raised by the fact that I
ran a chkdsk and found one bad sector, and maybe my addled brain
heard the dreaded "clacking" from the HD. Setting aside my addled
brain for the moment, how bad is it really to find a bad sector? I
mean, does this really mean my drive is crashing? I just want to
catch this before it crashes this time so I don't have to spend hours
re-loading all my programs again. 

Any thoughts?

Paul 

I definitely wouldn't put anything critical on a hard drive that's
starting to develop bad sectors, although I've been using a dying hard
drive on one of my computers for the last 3 years.  Your drive may
last another 10 years or more or it may die tomorrow.  The important
thing is to make sure you have all your  data backed up on removeable
media. To make it easier you really don't have to back up the
operating system or your programs since you should already have the
setup disks for those things.  I personally back up the following:
1. Any documents, photos, mp3s, or other files that I've added to the
hard drive that I have no other copy of,
2.Internet favorites or bookmarks,
3.e-mail addresses and other contact information,
4.  saved games and other settings such as high scores.
Also if you've tweaked the registry you may want to back that up too.




yeah,

I have an external drive that I back up to, but re-loading my operating system and all the programs is a real hassle that takes hours. I don't have the actual XP disk so I have to load 95

I presume you mean you have an 'upgrade' XP CD and so have to load an 'original' O.S. first.

and run all the upgrades up through sevice pack two!!!

No, you don't. Just load SP2, which includes all updates prior to SP2's release, and then the remaining post SP2 updates after that.

And since your CD is apparently pre-SP2 you should download the 'redistribution' version (huge file) and keep it on CD so you don't have to redownload if you need to install XP again (or make yourself an SP2 slip streamed XP CD).


I guess HDs are so cheap that it makes sense to consider replacing it. I guess the observation I have is, I've had drives with bad sectors last a year and then crash, I've had them last three months and crash. Maybe I've had drives with bad sectors that I never knew about and never knew the difference. But I've never had a drive with no bad sectors crash.

My problem is I'm one of those guys who makes a computer work, it's not always pretty, but I keep it going. I don't really know a lot about some of the details like what a bad sector really is, what causes it, and what it means.

Paul. 

.

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