Is this Hard Drive dead?

Hi Guys,

My fiance tripped on her Dell Inspiron cable and dropped the computer. After that, it wouldn't boot for lack of OS.

THe most important thing was to try to save her files, so I removed her HD and connected externally to my computer and I was able to save all important files.

Then I formatted the hard drive, put it back on her machine and reinstalled windows from the Dell disk. INstallation went fine, and I even put her files back in the hard drive.

But now the computer is again accusing errors. Sometimes it won't boot. I ran a diagnose program from Western Digital and it found "too many bad sectors".

Ok, does it mean it's time to buy a new hard drive?

Thanks so much

 

Correct, I would go out and buy a new hard drive. Which Inspiron is it? And you might want to check out the integrity of the data you backed up, some of it might be corrupt.

 

As Tsunade_Home said, yes, it's time to go out and buy a new drive. Those bad sectors mentioned are places where the spinning platter of the hard drive has been physically damaged. In theory, you could run a disk check utility and mark all of the bad sectors, and use what's left, but given the already present physical damage, the chances of a complete failure in the near future are pretty high. By the way, did you do a quick format, or a full format? If you did a full format, it should have caught those bad sectors when you did the format, so if that's the case, then these are bad sectors that are arising after the initial damage, further hints that the drive is going to go.

 

Thanks guys. I will start shopping for it.

 

-> dropped(hard) drive generally means dead drive.

I'd say you are actually lucky to recover all files if the computer was on.

The only thing I'd use it for is a disposable "test rig".