Repair Bad Sectors

Bad sectors are sections of your computer's hard drive that have been damaged, and have lost the ability to save and store your data.[1] If your computer makes grinding noises when using the hard drive, that's a good sign that your hard drive has bad sectors. When you repair a bad sector, your computer will replace the bad sectors with good sectors and ignore the bad sectors. The methods for repairing bad sectors are different, depending on what version of Windows you're using.

Steps

The larger your hard drive, the more sectors there are to check, and the longer this process will take. Start this process when you won't need your computer for a while, such as overnight.

Windows XP

  1. Close all of your open programs and files. Windows XP can't scan or fix a bad sector if that sector is being used by an open program or file.[2]
    • Windows XP uses a system utility called Chkdsk to scan for and fix bad sectors.
  2. Open My Computer. Double-click My Computer to open it.
  3. Choose a hard drive to check for bad sectors. In the Explorer window, in the sidebar, right-click the hard drive you'd like to check for bad sectors, and then click Properties.
    • The C: drive is often the hard drive.
  4. In the Properties window, click the Tools tab.
  5. In the Error-checking section, click Check Now.
  6. Choose the Check Disk options you'd like to use. In the Check Disk dialog box, you can have Check Disk fix file system errors it finds and recover bad sectors.
    • If you'd only like to scan for and fix bad hard drive sectors, make sure that Automatically fix file system errors is unchecked.
  7. Click Start. Windows will start checking your hard drive for bad sectors and will fix any that it finds.
    • If you have any open files or programs at this point, you'll get an error message asking if you'd like to schedule the disk check when you restart your computer. If you click Yes, it will restart your computer and perform the disk check.
  8. Review the Chkdsk report. When it's done, Chkdsk will create a brief report.
    • Chkdsk code 0 means no errors were found and code 1 means that errors were found and fixed.
    • If the check disk process failed to fix the bad sectors, your hard drive may be failing and you may want to backup your drive to a new one. [Click here] for help on backing up your hard drive.

Windows 7

  1. Close all of your open programs and files. Windows 7 can't scan or fix a bad sector if that sector is being used by an open program or file.[3]
  2. Open Computer. Click Start, and then click Computer.
  3. Choose a hard drive to check for bad sectors. Right-click the hard drive you want to scan, and then click Properties.
  4. In the Properties window, click the Tools tab.
  5. In the Error-checking section, click Check now.
  6. Check the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.
    • You can also check the Automatically fix file system errors to check the hard drive for software-based errors.
    • Place a check mark within the box next to "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors."
  7. Click Start. Windows will start checking your hard drive for bad sectors and will fix any that it finds.
  8. Don't use your computer while Windows attempts to fix errors.
    • If you have any open files or programs at this point, you'll get an error message asking if you'd like to schedule the disk check when you restart your computer. If you click Yes, it will restart your computer and perform the disk check.
  9. Review the check disk report. Click the See details down arrow to see more details about your report.
    • If the check disk process failed to fix the bad sectors, your hard drive may be failing and you may want to backup your drive to a new one. [Click here] for help on backing up your hard drive.

Windows 8/10

  1. Move the mouse cursor to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer, and then click Search.[4]
    • If you're using the touch interface, swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then touch Search.
    • For these steps to work, you will probably need an admin account and password.
  2. In the Search field, type This PC, and then click or touch This PC.
  3. Right-click the drive you want to repair, and then click Properties.
    • If you're using touch, press and hold the drive you want to repair, and then touch Properties.
  4. Select the Tools tab.
  5. Under Error checking, click or touch Check.
    • You may be asked for an admin password. Enter your admin password. If you don't have one, contact the person who has the admin account.
  6. Review the scan results. The error checking scan will tell you either that there are errors or there aren't errors. You can still repair the drive, even if there are no errors, but you don't need to.[5]
  7. Click Scan and repair drive.
  8. Choose when to repair the file system. In the Restart your computer to repair file system errors dialog box, click Schedule on next restart to repair your hard drive the next time you start the computer. Click Restart to repair the hard drive now.
  9. Wait for Windows to scan and repair the hard drive sectors. Do not try to use your computer or interrupt the sector scan while it's happening.



Tips

  • If you use Windows XP, and prefer to use the command prompt to repair bad sectors, click on "Run" from the Start menu, type "cmd," then press the Enter button on your keyboard. You can then type the command of "chkdsk volume: /r" to locate and repair existing bad sectors.

Related Articles

  • Repair Windows 7

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_sector
  2. ↑ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265
  3. ↑ http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Check-a-drive-for-errors
  4. ↑ http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/improve-performance-optimizing-hard-drive
  5. ↑ http://www.groovypost.com/howto/windows-8-new-disk-error-checking-feature/
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