Can anything be done to salvage a hard disk that has generated bad sectors? Most of the people I talk to say that the HD has got to go. If it is just a year old, will you throw it away? Is it possible to mark them such that new data will not be stored on the bad sector?

If it's a physical error then it might be better to throw the HD away. If it's not then you could probably have it fixed with some programs. Try preforming SCANDISK or CHKDSK. Wait...XP doesn't know what that means anymore^^;

Formatting the HD will usually have the option to fix bad sectors.

Depending on how important your hardrive is (or how important the data on it is.) You could always try a data recovery system or special programs that are supposed to bring life back to a dead harddrive.

If it isn't the case, I would simply go with another harddrive.

Take a look at http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I had the same problem with my laptop computer. I took it to a friend who owns a computer shop and he locked the bad sectors. It’s working fine now, but I lost all my stored data. It taught me a lesson to back up my files. He also said if it happens again to buy a new HD.

So SpinRite is a data recovery program. Although that one is good for maintenance and powerful for recovery, so far I don't think I will be needing (or buying) it as the HD hasn't crashed... yet.

What this HD has are physical bad sectors identified after running scandisk. But since then, I have reformatted twice and defragmented about once in between and no new bad sectors have developed.

Carpas, I'm curious as to how your friend locked the bad sectors.

Well that's nice to know that everything turned out well. Obviously it is one of the steps to do. Before changing pieces, reformat

Originally Posted by Chroder

Take a look at Hard drive data recovery software

This is an excellent tool. I have saved several disks with it.

If that does not take care of it, then I would definately chunk the disk.

Can you fix bad sectors on a jump drive. I have one that I use for everything however at times I have problems with it because it will come up that a sector is bad.

Originally Posted by kokotai

Can you fix bad sectors on a jump drive. I have one that I use for everything however at times I have problems with it because it will come up that a sector is bad.

I do not know for sure. My guess would be no, just because the way data is stored is different. Personally I had never heard of a bad sector on a jump drive. Since there are no mechanical parts, it is not likely a sign of a bigger problem, though.