Bad clusters

My computer gave me a problem of Bad Clusters....still trying to figure out why...but I'll be updating this section.

http://www.scrounge.org/badmorn.htm

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,14391,pg,4,00.asp

http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/answerstips/story/0,24330,2292623,00.html

This link provides some background info.Here's the actual article:

Your computer stores the data on your hard drive in units called clusters. Each cluster holds a minimum of 4 kilobytes of data. You can think of your hard drive as a freezer filled with ice cube trays. The ice cube trays are clusters, and the ice cubes are the sectors which make up each cluster.

ScanDisk checks your clusters for errors. If it finds even one bad sector in a cluster, it marks the entire cluster as unusable. It can't read any of the data on the cluster, and it can't write any data to the cluster.

The two kinds of cluster errors are soft errors and hard errors. The soft error means that the magnetic signal on the drive is weak or the format is messed up, and you can't write to that area or read from that area. You can fix a soft error by reformatting the hard drive. A hard error is a different story. A hard error is actual physical damage to the hard drive. If a hard drive is physically damaged by something such as a scratch or bump, there is no way to correct it. You can't continue to use that drive.

If your hard drive has a lot of bad clusters, that's not a good sign. 22,000 bad clusters means that a substantial portion of your hard drive is unusable. You should use an effective diagnostic and correction program called SpinRite. If you're still under warranty, send the computer back to the manufacturer and have a technician look at it. The drive could have a serious problem.

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Page updated on: 19-Feb-2002 03:39 PM