Help with Bad Sectors

Factual Questions
1

Backstory: My brother’s in-laws’ computer (some sort of Dell with XP Home) was going wonky, reporting bad sectors and running chkdisk all the time.

When I went to put in a new HDD that I bought, I opened up the case and found an identical HDD to the bad one inside, not hooked up. I took the “found” HDD and installed their copy of XP Home, then copied all of the files they wanted from the old to the “found” HDD.

Some files wouldn’t copy, namely their Outlook files. I figured these were on the bad sector. I used TestDisk to copy them over and was able to give them back a completely working computer with all of their stuff on it.

I kept the HDD that I’d bought for myself.

It’s now some months later and they are reporting that “the same thing that was happening before is happening again.” I haven’t seen it yet, but I am guessing that there are once again bad sectors.

Now, I am no IT whiz but I am pretty sure bad sectors are a hardware issue and not something that could have been caused by, say, using TestDisk to copy/restore some files that had been on another disk’s bad sector(s).

I’m guessing that the other HDD that I found in the machine was just from a bad batch since it was identical to the original failed one. Or perhaps it was already bad, being that the Dell was bought as an off-lease refurb.

The in-laws wanted to replace the entire computer and I said that was overkill for fixing a bad sector issue. I can just buy a new HDD and do exactly as I did last time - install the OS, copy over all the files they want from the dying HDD, use TestDisk to move anything over that won’t move with Explorer’s copy/paste.

Am I missing something here? Am I causing problems by moving around the data like this, or am I right to think they just got two physically bad disks and a brand new HDD will fix the problem for the foreseeable future?

Note that I am not ghosting, I am doing a complete clean install of the OS from scratch and copying data from the dying drive to the new drive via an external USB enclosure.

2

It’s a hard drive problem. There is some physical problem causing errors reading or writing to those sectors.

3

You’re getting errors on a drive that’s only been in use a few months?
You may have a bad hard drive controller.

I’d suggest hooking up a new drive and then run the hard drive manufacturer’s diagnostics. It will write data to the disk. So, do it first before installing windows. If you get errors then it’s a bad hard drive controller. These days, the cheapest remedy is replacing the pc.

Seagates diagnostic software is called SeaTools for DOS it will create a bootable cd. Boot from the CD and run the full tests.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools

The other hard drive manufacturers have similar diagnostic software.

4

That was my first thought too. Since controllers are on the mobo now, most people would just replace the whole thing. Is it possible that it is still under warranty?

5

Nah, not under warranty as it was an off-lease deal.

However, that’s an excellent suggestion and I will do that check first before I go through the install. They had hinted at wanting a new machine anyway, so it won’t be a huge bummer if I find that the controller is bad.

Thanks!