Can anyone recommend a free tool similar to scandisk, that actually tells you which sectors are bad? (Something that partitions as well would be topshelf)I plan to repartition around the bad bits in an attempt to prolong the life of the drive. As I only have 4mb bad on a 40gb disk, I'd prefer to salvage this than splash the cash on a new one. I only found one app that sounded promising: media test 2.5 from alanta something or other, but that reckons I only have a 7gb HD *cough*... Great. -{>_<}DO~/}- "Welcome to the party pal"

You could try DFT by IBM,you are better to go to support download for your manufacturer of hard drive.Everest Home Edition is good for finding out all information on your hardware.It may still be available at www.majorgeeks.com I don't know.

Thanks street1 I'm just about to try Maxtors equivalent tool, powermax. Any other suggestions are also appreciated. -{>_<}DO~/}- "Welcome to the party pal"

No joy with that app, it'd be suprising if there isn't a prog that can give accurate information about where bad sectors are located. -{>_<}DO~/}- "Welcome to the party pal"

http://www.tomdownload.com/utilities/file_disk_management/hdd_regenerator.htm

I may give that a go, am also waiting on a ubuntu livecd so I can run badblocks. I'm pretty sure the drive is screwed, but I'll try anything to keep it ticking over for another month or so. How trustworthy is tomdownload.com? I only ask as they sell keyloggers & such... -{>_<}DO~/}- "Welcome to the party pal"

If there are bad sectors on your drive, then more are going to develop and suddenly you will be without your whole OS and data, without any warning. So, unless you have a fully cloned backup, I would say never try to do what you are trying, unless you have absolutely no alternative.