Dr. Blip's PC-Doctor Forum

General Category => Ask Our Experts => Topic started by: ToddWelch on January 22, 2015, 08:53:08 am

Title: Bad Sectors
Post by: ToddWelch on January 22, 2015, 08:53:08 am

I have been testing out the usb bootable diagnostics test on bad hard drives and am wondering how I can tell what type of "bad sector" it is when it says one is bad.  Is it a sector that can be remapped or is it some other type of problem that can not be remapped?  What are the possible error messages that can come up on the hard drive tests?

Title: Re: Bad Sectors
Post by: Kris_PCD on January 22, 2015, 02:01:12 pm

Depending upon the test, it can be either a bad sector that can be (or is already) remapped, or it can problem sectors in other areas. For example, the SMART Extended Self Test can sometimes report all bad sectors even if they have already been remapped, while the Targeted Read Test will scan sectors near previously reported bad sectors to check for others.

If you look in the test logs, it should report where the errors are found so that you can focus additional testing on them as well as know approximately how many sectors are having problems.

Please let me know if this answers your question, and if you have any other problems.

Thanks,
Kris