What else can I try to recover bad sectors ?

hoctagon · 30 May 2006 at 08:36

Found out my Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 160 GB Sata II have developed bad sectors.
I run the diagnostic tools from Hitachi website, and erased drive twice and fully. However, the problem still persist. I still get a red screen message saying bad sectors have been found (Device failure),to recover please fully erase drive to 0.
What else can I try to recover this drive ?
cheers

basmic · 30 May 2006 at 11:28

Just RMA it - I wouldn't hold any more hope for it.

senorstealth · 2 Jun 2006 at 17:43

You could try a low level format, though your best bet us to send it back

Explicit · 2 Jun 2006 at 22:13

hoctagon said:
What else can I try to recover this drive ?

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Amazing piece of software...can't recommend it enough

basmic · 3 Jun 2006 at 00:15

I'd be very reluctant to trust a drive with bad sectors. If it was within the RMA period, I'd just RMA it for a (hopefully) more reliable drive.

hoctagon · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:55

Well, I tested my drive using HD Tune to find out 2.5% of drive surface is corrupted.Last 4 GB of drive is damaged.Can not explain why.
Drive was fine until I plugged on port no 2 (sata I) on my mobo and transferred the entire content into a new Samsung SpinPoint in port 1 (sata I).

Drive was not bought through OCuk.
Can I RMA it directly to Hitachi or original vendor even If I haven`t got the packaging any more ?

TooNice · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:19

I always RMA straight to the the manufacturer. I remember that Hitachi's RMA service was impressive. They didn't have advanced replacement like some other manufacturers, but the swapping process was real quick for me. I can't vouch for Spinrite much. Good on paper, but when I used it, I ended up wasting days: it's very slow, understandably being a low level tool. But/and it wasn't particularly successful at recovering my data either.

xtreme.BIN · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:21

Explicit said:
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Amazing piece of software...can't recommend it enough

Excellent advice, agree 100%

hoctagon · 5 Jun 2006 at 15:06

Cheers all. Just sent a email to Hitachi UK - Warranty & products support.

Jay_t · 7 Jun 2006 at 11:19

If you don't want to send it back yet you could try hdd regenerator which can sometimes repair (not just mark) bad sectors.

TomTomTom · 7 Jun 2006 at 20:07

Explicit said:
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Amazing piece of software...can't recommend it enough

Agreed. Supposedly Symantec offered to buy the code. Author refused and still happily selling it on his own (and providing an excellent internet security checking site).

Jay_t · 9 Jun 2006 at 12:34

I've just sucessfully fixed 2 bad sectors on one of my raptors with HDD regenerator. Thats properly fixed using magnetic reversal, not just marked as bad and covered over.