bad sectors on my ntfs partition, what do i do?

jdow jdow at earthlink.net
Mon Aug 24 05:09:36 UTC 2009


The disk is dead, Jim er Haneef. You need to rescue it.

You have linux. That's a really good start.

Use it to make a duplicate of the whole disk containing the bad
sectors, using dd.

Copy using:
"dd bs=512 CONV=sync,fdatasync,noerror if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc"
Modify "sdb" and "sdc" as appropriate. Note that you MAY have to
adjust the flags for dd to make it happy and make the output copy
size the same as the number of disk blocks reported via something
like "fdisk -l /dev/sdb".

(This will be brutally slow. But every block that can be read will be
read and placed on the output disk properly. Double check that dd
declares the correct number of blocks was copied.)

Then mount the disk with XP and let it churn until the disk is fixed.
Run a check disk on it to be sure.

I used that to repair a disk that the real NTFS could not fix because
there was a directory block that could not be repaired or written fairly
deep in the system files. Luckily when the smoke cleared the duplicate
was able to be fixed and all I lost were some of the system restore
files from "way back" that I didn't nead anyway.


You might be able to use ntfsclone as indicated. But I'd prefer to use
it on a duplicate, though. Of course, that would involve three disks.
So use your own imagination for how you want to arrange it all. My
personal experience is with this "dd" technique that worked like a
serious champ for me with a disk that would not even boot it's XP
image because of the broken directory block. It's image is now booting
XP on my laptop when I need it. (I used the extra space on the new disk
for another storage partition for XP. I have a separate Linux disk I use.)

{^_^}
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Haneef Bashir" <darkfena313 at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, 2009/August/23 09:17


>i have a three partitioned harddrive. i have windows on the first 10gb
> partition. after having some difficulties with windows and the
> reinstallation of windows, and now not being able to boot back into
> hardy, i grabbed my copy of puppy linux and used the live-cd (which i
> am typing on now). i then used gparted to check and repair the windows
> partition and this is what i got:
> <i>ntfsresize v2.0.0 (libntfs 10:0:0)<BR />Device name        :
> /dev/sda1<BR />NTFS volume version: 3.1<BR />Cluster size       : 4096
> bytes<BR />Current volume size: 11202798080 bytes (11203 MB)<BR
> />Current device size: 11202799104 bytes (11203 MB)<BR />Checking for
> bad sectors ...<BR />Bad cluster:  0xbd0bc - 0xbd0bc    (1)<BR />Bad
> cluster:  0xbd1f7 - 0xbd1f7    (1)<BR />Bad cluster:  0xbd306 -
> 0xbd306    (1)<BR />Bad cluster:  0xc0029 - 0xc0029    (1)<BR />ERROR:
> This software has detected that the disk has at least 4 bad
> sectors.<BR 
> />****************************************************************************<BR
> />* WARNING: The disk has bad sector. This means physical damage on
> the disk *<BR />* surface caused by deterioration, manufacturing
> faults or other reason.   *<BR />* The reliability of the disk may
> stay stable or degrade fast. We suggest  *<BR />* making a full backup
> urgently by running 'ntfsclone --rescue ...' then   *<BR />*
> run 'chkdsk /f /r' on Windows and rebooot it TWICE! Then you
> can resize  *<BR />* NTFS safely by additionally using the
> --bad-sectors option of ntfsresize.*<BR
> />****************************************************************************<BR
> /></i>
>
> i just want to know is this haddrive still any good? can it be fixed,
> can i install windows on another partition with out any problem?





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