Hi As BigBob has suggested go to the seagate site. Run the diagnostic and see what that program has to say. Then if you have saved any data you need to keep, you may procede to work with the drive. You can use a low level format option or zeroing, (low level format used to describe something a lot more involved a few years ago), to blank the drive. Then you reformat and this will then verify all the drive again. As michael2 states killdisk is such a zeroing utility. If the bad sectors are in one small area, then its a matter of partitioning off that beginging, middle or end away from use. Then use the rest of the drive with caution. A lot of the time - bad sectors are pretty stable, as they were induced by bad computer room habits like letting doors slam and other simalar activities that can make a room rattle. Often its a matter of reformating and leaving these sectors partition marked as bad, remain in a working partition. Then its a matter of waiting to see if they "grow". A lot of the time the number of bad sectors level out, but you can never truely trust the drive. It could just pack it in one day.

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thanks a lot guys...i will start from Seagate and let you know...! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Ok, So I downloaded Seatools from Seagate and checked my hard disk.The program found two (2) bad sectors that it could not repair (zero them). What now? HELP!!! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Hi Run killdisk. I think from memory it will define the area that won't zero. Record those numbers killdisk has to skip. (as stated below - you need this info to partition around the bad bits) You have a choice. Run data around the bad sectors, or partition the bad sectors out so the area around the bad sectors are used for non critical data. eg demo games etc. When you reformat as a single partition, windows will mark the bad sectors as unuseable. You take a note of any bad sectors and record this data so you can refer back to it. You need to know which sectors are "bad" in order to repartion. You don't want any partition boundry near a bad sector "just in case". Its common for bad sectors to appear in a one area of the disk. You can span a partition so that most of the bad sectors are within the partition. Really only important if you boot 98, when separating bad sectors in a partition very near the start of a drive you might have to label from the start of the drive to past the last bad bit as- "non dos" and put up with not using it at all. eg you may end up with a 100 Meg non dos partition. This seems like a waste but having windows work around expanding bad sectors which corrupt or create incomplete critical window programs has never been a "good thing". As you run xp though, and don't dual boot 98 creating a disposeable c: drive for data shouldn't present any problems. ps. yes I know - should I be using the term sectors the way that I have. Well I just use the term to mean the area that windows views as no good.

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Hi Forgot to say that you have to run scandisk to see which area are marked bad after formatting. The format process (for 98) doesn't display that info. Just a note - just occurred I havn't formatted any disks that have bad sectors with XP yet. So someone else will have to mention if xp scandisk does the same as 98.

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Hi anenefan thank you for your response! I downloaded Diskmanager from Seagate so I will run it when I'll go back home... It promises that it will "cure" the bad sectors...Hope it will do it's job.. I'll keep you informed... PS : It says that i"ll have to format the disk at LOW-Level... God bless me and my hard disk drive... :P "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Hi Zeroing a drive is all about what most modern LLF programs do. I don't think seagates diskmanager can remap a sector - but if can that'll be good news. Good luck

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thanks ! I'll keep you informed...! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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ok, it doesn't make the noise that it did in the past...but my windows xp installation may be corrupt (error: cannot find the hive file.corrupted SAM) grrr.... "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Ok you have reinstalled xp in partition labelled c: When you reinstall xp is coming up with the same error? What did you do with the bad sectors - leave them within the partition or cut them away from the working partitions?

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I leaved them within the partition. Yes the same error... I will reinstall Windows XP professional. I think its over. thank you so much for your help! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Hi Ok Look make another partition. chop c: to about 3 G. I'm guessing thats where the bad sectors have to be. On the next partition which should be free of any corrupted sectors -- Install XP there Another thought is the ide cable could be damaged. Replace the 80 wire ide cable. Its a long shot, but worth considering.

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thanks...i'll keep you informed...! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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ultraxmode... Go to http://grc.com/ and read about SpinRite... Gary

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Thanks Gary... Till I read your message I reinstalled Windows XP pro.It seems to run well but some errors still occur. I'll check out your suggestion! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Hi Well I don't know if you grouped most of the bac sectors together in a partition. But even if you decided to leave the bad sectors within your main install, it strikes me odd, you have problems immediately rather than xp going for a bit and then having problems. I am thinking if not the cable then the memory. I suggest you grab a copy of Memtest86 and run it for a few hours or until you have many errors. (don't overlook the iso which is available as well) The ide cable should be replaced with a new one just in case. (if you havn't yet done this)

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anenefan, first of all thank you so much for your help! The log in the event viewer says "ATAPI error in disk0." also the seatool from Seagate tells me that the hard disk has 6 bad kbytes of data and the other seagate tool also tells me that i have two bad sectors, so it is 100% sure that the hard disk includes bad sectors....sad but true... I am waiting to buy my new PC system configuration so I can format my 30GB IDE (problematic) hard drive at LOW-LEVEL mode.I need this disk because when I'll have my new PC, I will install to my old PC Windows 2000 server for educational purposes.... thanks again! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Hi OK thanks for the update. It just struck me - you kept having reoccurring problems. Then I remembered that Ontrack's disk diagnostic, do a memory check just in case its the system creating errors and not the drive. Yes I see, you're waiting until you can back up all your data. Wise decision. Memtest86 will not hurt the hard drive - it just checks most of the system memory. It does this from a bootable floppy. Hope all goes well with your new hardware.

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I downloaded memtest86 and I will run this program when I go to my home... If this is the problem, what can I say? i will my brains out! he he he thanks again! PS : Now that you mention it, I have 2 different memory modules installed to my ASUS p3v133 motherboard that I have...Well we'll see if this could be a problem... I'll update you... "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Anenefan, We have to talk for so long!!! Hey, if you read this my friend this is for you : "YOU ARE A WIZARD MAAAN!!" It's the memory module as you said!!!! GOD ! GOD! GOD!!!! thanks man removed the bad memory stick...now runs with BETTER performance !!! and with no disk problem!!! "-Doctor, before the surgery, you haven't got any beard - I'm not the doctor....I'm Saint Peter..

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Hi Great to hear you have had a win. Failing memory problems are not always obvious - esp in cases where it only seems to affect the performance of a single hardware item. Thank you for posting back and letting us know how it turned out. Best of luck - anenefan.

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