[RESOLVED] Bad sector message in Event Viewer

[jonny b]

I did a scan of a tower's hard drive. It showed replaced bad clusters a few times. But at the bottom of the Event Viewer's page it says 0 KB in Bad Sectors. Why does it not list something in this bad sectors area if it had bad clusters?

[Shinma]

• What Is Chkdsk Utility?

[jonny b]

Clusters are groups of sectors is what I read. So if there were bad clusters then why didn't I get a msg saying that I had so many KB of bad sectors instead of 0 kb in bad sectors. Is the Event Viewer lying to me or are the bad sectors/ clusters now hidden so it shows up as no bad anything? I run the chkdsk all the time on people's computers and I only have seen a few times that bad clusters or sectors have been replaced and then show up as no bad sectors.
Just wondered why this was. I don't need a description of Chkdsk. I have read that info many times. The computer that I was on was an XP OS.

Another computer mystery unsolved.

[glussier]

You probably ran chkdsk with the /F or /R switches. When you run with these options, the bad sectors are hidden and are excluded from the hard-drive space. This is why that you have a count of 0 sectors or clusters in error.

[DanceMan]

I never use chkdsk. I use the manufacturer test utilities off UBCD. If it fails the quick test, get your data off and toss it. You can try the "fix" option, but in my experience it's a waste of time. You just get more and more errors.

[glussier]

Exactly, once a drive starts having problems, the best thing is to back-up and replace.

[jonny b]

No I went to Hard drive properties>>tools>>check now>>Put checks in both boxes and restarted.

[glussier]

No I went to Hard drive properties>>tools>>check now>>Put checks in both boxes and restarted.

Your anwer should have been yes. Putting a checkmark in the first checkbox, is the same as running chkdsk with the /R option.

[jonny b]

I always do it this way, with the two checkmarks. I probably do this at least once a week on customer's computers. Just 1 in maybe 30 times it shows bad sectors indicated or clusters and at the bottom of that same page they indicate 0 Kb in bad sectors.

Sometimes I will run the HD utility on them like Seatools and it will indicate PASS on an HD with bad sectors or clusters.

[SpywareDr]

CHKDSK is designed to help solve problems with the operating system's file structure.

A hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility checks for hardware problems. It doesn't care what file structure, if any, is being used.

[DanceMan]

CHKDSK is designed to help solve problems with the operating system's file structure.

A hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility checks for hardware problems. It doesn't care what file structure, if any, is being used.

Thanks. That is precisely the reason I use the manufacturer's utility.

[SpywareDr]

Yep. It would be a waste of time to try and run CHKDSK on failing hardware.

If the hardware check out okay though, but there is still some sort of file-related problem, then a "CHKDSK /R" would be the next step.