cant format a drive

[commentator8]

I have a laptop that after formatting and installing windows would give a variety of errors (formatting and installing several times). It would log in then immediately log out, or give a "an i o operation initiated by the registry" error etc. Seemed to be a HDD issue. Odd thing is that it was running fine (they wanted it reverted from 7 to xp as it was too slow).

Anyway, i try and format it, first with DBAN, then Killdisk and a couple of others, through windows management in a PE environment, and each time it doesn't progress past 7%. Its a job for a friend, so i am spending time above what its worth, and it would be better to buy a new laptop than hard drive at this point (its old).

I am running hdd regenerator and it is slowly racking up bad sectors found and recovered at the 7% mark but has been running for an hour and a half and shows no sign of stopping (while its progressing, it is doing so very slowly).

I am not interested in saving the data obviously - so HDD regen might not be the best option - is there any way to format the drive or is it a write off?

 

[ZenTree]

If you're getting bad sectors, even if they're being "recovered" you want to swap the drive, especially if you don't need to get data off it.

AFAIK the regeneration just fools the hdd and marks everything as being good, regardless of whether it is. This means that you can try with some copying programs to read some data from some of those damage sectors. It doesn't mean that it's all okay.

Did you read the SMART attributes for the drive before the hdd regen? If you read after you're going to get the jedi mind trick of everything is okay but if you checked before should give you an idea and a lot LOT quicker than hdd regen the drive.

I'd get the mate to find a new laptop, he'll love the speed burst and you'll save time

 

[Martyn]

If I see errors I say new drive to the client. Even if it works for a while with bad sectors your name is on it when it fails however long down the road.

 

[commentator8]

SMART was fine (from memory). If its dead then its dead. So be it. Thanks.

 

[wtigger]

AFAIK the regeneration just fools the hdd and marks everything as being good, regardless of whether it is. This means that you can try with some copying programs to read some data from some of those damage sectors. It doesn't mean that it's all okay.

No, that is not the way it works. Bad sectors are marked "unusable" and replacement sectors are taken from the reserve pool. Data is read from the bad sectors and written to good ones (if the sector is recoverable).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_sector

 

[Xander]

If I see errors I say new drive to the client. Even if it works for a while with bad sectors your name is on it when it fails however long down the road.

Exactly. Bad is bad. Some things you don't fix, you replace.

I tell them, "We caught it early which means there should be no data loss. I can just clone your data over to a new drive and your computer will be no different other than healthier."

 

[iisjman07]

It's a write off {space filler}