SCANDISK Problem

I'm using SCANDISK surface scan from the ME restart diskette to try to
clean a friend's hard disk. It has bad clusters, starting about 80% of
the way through the 10 meg drive. Each SCANDISK iteration cleans about
5K clusters then stops for lack of memory (64megs) to store the log. I
don't need a log!!
So far I've run it 10 times and each time it cleans another 5K, but
each iteration takes about 40 minutes. I calculate another 105
iterations assuming it's bad to the end of the drive.
Is there a better way? Thanks.

MikeM
Sun Oct 01 09:01:43 CDT 2006

If the drive is as bad as you say it is I feel there is little point in
continuing with Scandisk. Instead I would try and recover any user data
from DOS and then format and reinstall the os since it is likely to be
unusable having had so many bad clusters. However if the drive is as bad
as you say it might be better to bite the bullet and purchase a new hard
drive.
--
Mike Maltby
mike.maltby@gmail.com


tom_nospam_ba@pobox.com <tom_nospam_ba@pobox.com> wrote:

> I'm using SCANDISK surface scan from the ME restart diskette to try to
> clean a friend's hard disk. It has bad clusters, starting about 80% of
> the way through the 10 meg drive. Each SCANDISK iteration cleans about
> 5K clusters then stops for lack of memory (64megs) to store the log. I
> don't need a log!!
> So far I've run it 10 times and each time it cleans another 5K, but
> each iteration takes about 40 minutes. I calculate another 105
> iterations assuming it's bad to the end of the drive.
> Is there a better way? Thanks.

cquirke
Mon Oct 02 02:53:37 CDT 2006

On Sun, 01 Oct 2006 15:37:51 +0200, tom_nospam_ba@pobox.com wrote:

>I'm using SCANDISK surface scan from the ME restart diskette to try to
>clean a friend's hard disk. It has bad clusters

You cannot "fix" bad clusters! It's like painting lipstick smiles on
train-wreck victims to make them "feel better".

The HD's bad - evacuate it and replace it!



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tom_nospam_ba
Mon Oct 02 07:22:38 CDT 2006

On Sun, 01 Oct 2006 15:37:51 +0200, tom_nospam_ba@pobox.com wrote:

>I'm using SCANDISK surface scan from the ME restart diskette to try to
>clean a friend's hard disk. It has bad clusters, starting about 80% of
>the way through the 10 meg drive. Each SCANDISK iteration cleans about
>5K clusters then stops for lack of memory (64megs) to store the log. I
>don't need a log!!
>So far I've run it 10 times and each time it cleans another 5K, but
>each iteration takes about 40 minutes. I calculate another 105
>iterations assuming it's bad to the end of the drive.
>Is there a better way? Thanks.
I'm answering my own question. I still don't believe the answer!
I gave up on data recovery and formatted and surface-scanned the
drive; 10% bad sectors! From their distribution it looked like a
platter had died. I tried one more thing...
The HDD had two equal-sized logical drives; C & D. I got rid of D,
gave the whole space to C, formatted and surface scanned. Not one
single bad sector!! Windows is up and running sweetly.
My friend owes me...

Mike
Mon Oct 02 07:41:40 CDT 2006

tom_nospam_ba@pobox.com <tom_nospam_ba@pobox.com> wrote:

> I'm answering my own question. I still don't believe the answer!
> I gave up on data recovery and formatted and surface-scanned the
> drive; 10% bad sectors! From their distribution it looked like a
> platter had died. I tried one more thing...
> The HDD had two equal-sized logical drives; C & D. I got rid of D,
> gave the whole space to C, formatted and surface scanned. Not one
> single bad sector!! Windows is up and running sweetly.
> My friend owes me...

Personally I'd still be treating the drive as suspect. I suggest you
recommend your neighbour to keep their data such as photos, address book
and perhaps message store, backed up "just in case".
--
Mike Maltby
mike.maltby@gmail.com