Laptop harddrive problem

[KK]

My wife's laptop's harddrive has a couple bad sectors on it when running chkdsk. Will reformatting it correct it, or do I need just to replace the harddrive. It's been taking about 5 minutes for it to completely boot up, would that be because of the bad sectors?

 

[shoRunner]

depending on the amout of bad sectors and the tolerances of the drive a format may work. only way to know is to try it and see.

 

[ohnnyj]

Bad sectors usually indicate a dying drive. Formatting and reinstalling the OS will only allow files to know where the current ones are but does not protect the system from more sectors going bad (which most likely the will). As such, if you want to ensure that you don't lose your data it would probably be in your best interest to make a purchase of a new one.

As for the bad sectors causing a slow boot. It is most likely a contributing factor, but I am willing to bet that the hard drive is a 4200RPM model (most are) and as such will cause the system to boot slowly. So bad sectors + slow hard drive = even slower boot. You can pick up a 5400RPM at the least or even a 7200RPM one if you can justify the premium in price. If it is an older laptop, you may not want to dump too much money on it, so that is something you will have to factor in as well.

 

[ElFenix]

iirc chkdsk would notify the drive not to put files on those bad sectors


as for slowness, that is probably due to the operating system. if your drive is trying to read from a bad sector (for something needed during boot) it'd get a corrupted file and windows wouldn't boot.

 

[KK]

sometimes when it does boot it'll give a bsod. The laptop's a dell that I bought about 1 1/2 years ago. 2.66 P4 inspirion 5100. I seen a 7200 40GB drive at zzf for 130 shipped, probably go with that from the sounds of it.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Hmm sound familiar.

Does the HD light remain solid? It might not even be just bad sectors. Your drive is just physically damaged.

Dell eh? I have a 600m. Sometimes when I acces my 3rd partition the HD light just goes solid and my system locks up. I know my HD died at that point. I toyed around for a month or two and finally my main OS partition was suffering.

Call Dell and they send you a new HD using next day air. You swap in and out and you're done.

Well, do you have the 3 yr warranty? If not, then bleh...

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Hmm sound familiar.

Does the HD light remain solid? It might not even be just bad sectors. Your drive is just physically damaged.

Dell eh? I have a 600m. Sometimes when I acces my 3rd partition the HD light just goes solid and my system locks up. I know my HD died at that point. I toyed around for a month or two and finally my main OS partition was suffering.

Call Dell and they send you a new HD using next day air. You swap in and out and you're done.

Well, do you have the 3 yr warranty? If not, then bleh...

yeah, the hard drive light I have noticed was on solid alot of the time for no reason. And no, I don't have a 3 year warranty, just a 1 year.

 

[KK]

Would a 7200 drive be much faster than a 5400?