Please Help my DV6000t HDD have a 4kb Bad sector,what to do?

Little bit of history:

I recently have a chkdsk for my hdd and guess what......TADA........a 4KB Bad Sector was found by windows, after some error/problems when i try to open a folder that responded very very slow and cant erase the folder itself.....saying some kind of error message that the folder is not empty or something........then tried to search some solutions and stumbled to someone pointing out to do chkdsk......which i did.........then thats when this thing took place.......it said in the test that they are retreiving some clusters and some orphaning in the dialogues i remembered....which frankly i dont understand that well........then afterwards the report said i had the 4KB BS........but in retrospect......my problem with that folder was solved anyways.......thus giving me this problem at hand...........


1)Now,can i ask from anyone here..........does the 4kb BS means a lot or is a very bad threat?Should i be trying to canvas now a replacement HDD........

2)if i did buy a new HDD,is it easy to install/replace it by myself?

3)How will i transfer the HDD default factory state to the new HDD?is the recovery dvd that i made is enough to do the magic of installing the a)quickplay boot,b)default win xp OS,c)the recovery partition.......automatically???

4)I lost my recovery dvd's from before so i am trying to burn them again.......i know about the HPCD.sys thingy........so i was able to create again a set of recovery dvds......but right now iam having problems with creating one set......with some error 20,or the writing process just hang,or not rresponding anymore.......ill try to see if i can get arround with the problem tough...........

5)if not HDD cloning or ghosting i should try instead.......can anyone point me to some instructions with this one.........kinda noob with this area........

in summation hope anyone can shed light on me for what good advice you can give me with this kind of situation

MY Specs:

HP Pavillion DV6188ea

2.0ghz C2D
2.0gb DDR2
256 Nvidia Geforce Go 7400
120 gb HDD.....SATA i think?
Win XP Home SP3
and all other.......

thanks in advance.......

cheers ya all

Vinz

 

1)Now,can i ask from anyone here..........does the 4kb BS means a lot or is a very bad threat?Should i be trying to canvas now a replacement HDD........

Clearly, the drive has an issue. You ought to consider replacing it now or at least get a backup solution for all of your data. Because there is a chance the drive could go completely bad anytime. There is also something called a "soft bad sector" that can be fixed by a low-level format of the disk (backup your data first!) and then a restore. Google it and give it a shot...it can't hurt.

2)if i did buy a new HDD,is it easy to install/replace it by myself?

Yes, as long as you know how to pick up a screwdriver.

3)How will i transfer the HDD default factory state to the new HDD?is the recovery dvd that i made is enough to do the magic of installing the a)quickplay boot,b)default win xp OS,c)the recovery partition.......automatically???

The restore DVDs should redo the OS (and the bloat) as well as the recovery partition, but I don't know about quickplay...lack of experience with it. But probably yes.

4)I lost my recovery dvd's from before so i am trying to burn them again.......i know about the HPCD.sys thingy........so i was able to create again a set of recovery dvds......but right now iam having problems with creating one set......with some error 20,or the writing process just hang,or not rresponding anymore.......ill try to see if i can get arround with the problem tough...........

This could be related to the drive failure. Best to contact HP and request the DVDs.

5)if not HDD cloning or ghosting i should try instead.......can anyone point me to some instructions with this one.........kinda noob with this area........

To play it safe, a manual file-by-file backup of all your personal data is recommended. If part of one file is corrupted by your HDD and you do a file-by-file transfer...only that file is lost. But if there is a corrupted file in a backup archive, you risk losing all the data.

Anyway, Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image are the best utilities out there. Acronis is better IMHO though.

 

Uhhh, if the drive experienced shock recently it could have been the cause of the bad sector.

 

True...but now that means that your drive's magnetic disk has a bump on it. That bump could easily lead to other bumps being created as the hard drive arm hits it.

 

One 4k bad sector sounds pretty normal to me. I would be sure to back it up, but I wouldn't replace the drive; it's probably fine.

 

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Thanks for the quick response

1)Clearly, the drive has an issue. You ought to consider replacing it now or at least get a backup solution for all of your data. Because there is a chance the drive could go completely bad anytime. There is also something called a "soft bad sector" that can be fixed by a low-level format of the disk (backup your data first!) and then a restore. Google it and give it a shot...it can't hurt.

iam bound to upgrade it eventually but not just now
is low level formatting will erase all my HDD's partitions specially quickplay,recovery partition,and winxp os,without even backing it up or cloning/ghosting it yet?

2)Yes, as long as you know how to pick up a screwdriver.

i think i can change em,tried dismantling the hdd and the casings with it already and put it back in again...........my only question is that i have an external 120 gb 2.5 hdd with external casing as well....tried to dismantle it also,hoping to swap the two but found out the conectors from both of them are different........"so i suck",lols.......is it still swapable with the right adaptor/connectors???

3)To play it safe, a manual file-by-file backup of all your personal data is recommended. If part of one file is corrupted by your HDD and you do a file-by-file transfer...only that file is lost. But if there is a corrupted file in a backup archive, you risk losing all the data.

Anyway, Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image are the best utilities out there. Acronis is better IMHO though


so what you are trying to say is that if my HDD have a 4kb bs already you cant/or is dangerous to clone/ghost the image of my default factory settings on my current hdd to a new hdd????

 

Also just going to point out that though I agree a low level format is a good way to "fix" a bad sector, and I would try it myself, I think it's important to mention that some drives will not survive it.

 

so its risky/dangerous/and am not willing to erase all my files just yet,maybe for a last thing option i would consider formatting

 

You need to use a caddy and adapter for your external HD to work. You need to take it out from the old drive

 

does anyone here have a link or knows a step by step video of upgrading a laptops hdd,specifically showing the connectors,coz iam very confused,the external hard drives i have has a goldlike brush pins on them at the end & comes with a female adaptor with usb socket but my existing hard drive has a chip like slot end and an adaptor to go with the laptop's hdd drive bay socket,so are they interchangable and are they compatible to each other,because when i buy a new hdd i would have to put it in to my external hdd casing but iam seeing some hard compatibility issues when it comes to their end connectors????

can anyone please????

thanks

 

hey guys, stumble upon this hard disk drive with western digital and has a good price with it, a 250 gb 5400 rpm sata hdd http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=314.......

the only question does my rig support this 250gb hdd cpacity..........coz some tech guy in HP told me that 200gb is the max capacity of hdd for my laptop,and forgot if its 5400rm or 7200rpm???

anyone can confirm this one

thanks

 

bump.....bump........bump.........

yuhooo,anyone out there,can give me some advice with this WD HDD???or any other brand that has good quality and with good pricing as well???

thanks

cheers

 

yes it supports it. As a matter of fact i have that exact drive installed.

seagate and WD are good brands.

 

thank you sir......ill be price hunting from now on..........

 

hello everyone had a great breaktrough with my hdd's 4kb bad sector........

here's what i did..........

made a Recovery DVD+R DL discs and use that disc on boot-up,chosed the option to format the drive and make the recovery..............

it read from the dvd+r dl disc and went to formatt the drive and installed all the partitions,os,drivers, by itself.............

then first thing i did is run chkdsk on c:..............

guess what............the 4kb bad sector from before......was gone!!!!

whooohoooo!!!!don't know if im just lucky or maybe the bad sector was just software base and the re-formatting of my drive somewhat fixed that problem.......or maybe its just hidding in there waiting to resurface in the fututre............

nevertheless..........iam quite happy and satisfied, thanks ya all........

cheers!!!

 

the HDD may have reallocated a sector to make up for it. go download HDTune from www.hdtune .com (without the space before .com) and run the full test (uncheck quick test) just to make sure everythings good. You could also get speed fan or somthing simular that has a SMART utility that will read out the SMART data from the HDD and check how many reallocated sectors it has.

 

It is still a bad thing...that drive is untrustworthy now.

 

yeah it could resurface sooner or later at an even bigger scale. I suggest you keep track of your HD's health every few weeks or so

 

oh man....really.......the thing aint over yet...bummer!

anyways,ill keep that in mind and check periodically as you ahve advised

really hoping that it wouldnt anymore........

cheers

 

Update on CHKDSK..........

as of today i have rechkdsk my hard drive from the last time and still 0 bad sectors,i hope its really gone and wont come back anymore.

 

just keep it in check every 2 weeks or so.. or just make sure you dont keep important stuff onboard.

Get HDTune and look at the SMART readings. Also run a full disk scan