HDD Regenerator won't fix bad sectors

Question

I got pretty new Toshiba 500GB HDD as 2nd HDD(just for data) in my ThinkPad T400. Seller told me, that he just replaced this HDD with SSD in his new laptop. After about month of using I tested this HDD with HDTune an I was unpleasantly surprised. It has 2 bad sectors.

After some time of using i faced problems with playing some films on this HDD, one game crashes sometimes, etc.

So I tried chkdsk /r. But it stucked. It said that there is not enough space to remap. But I have 360GB free and just 140GB used.

Than I get soft called HDD Regenerator. It wants to set compatibility IDE mode. So i done it in BIOS and started Regenerator from bootable USB. It was checking my disk and in about 30% it found bad sector and started to regenerate it. After some time, red color messages has been shown.

Drive is not ready!

and

Set-up **BIOS** to compatibility IDE mode.

It is quite strange that there was set up BIOS. And it is strange that it wants to set up when it already is set up. Can it be problem in my SATA driver? I looked in device manager and there was AHCI controller.

Please give me a hint what to do and please don't everybody write that I should backup data and buy new HDD. I know it's best solution but it's not very easy to buy new HDD when you know that you got this just for about 3 months..

Solution 1

There's only so many "spares" on a drive to remap bad sectors to, and you've run out (they have nothing to do with the capacity shown for the drive, they are spare sectors specifically for remapping bad ones to).

Once you run out of spares, any future blocks that go bad will just be "bad" forever.

He sold you a failing drive (intentionally or not).

Solution 2

The truthfully problem is software you are using not supported for your HDD, it's only use to repair the IDE drive so won't recognize it. Try to make your HDD into IDE Compatible in BIOS if it's not available try to update your BIOS from manufacture website. If you can remove your HDD try to using converter kit that make your HDD like an IDE not a SATA Drive, if your computer not support this try another computer (PC or Notebook). I usually use Hiren's Boot CD to repair my HDD, a lot of tool you can use to repair your HDD, just boot your computer on CD Rom and the tool menu will appear. If your HDD is not to much bad on it, i usually used HDD Regenerator & DeRevitalized its work just fine and didn't loose my data, after that you can copy your data to another source and format your HDD. If the bad sector in your HDD is to heavy you need to use another tool which more complicated. Just be patient with the process till it's finished don't interrupt it, it's can damage your HDD ! GoodLuck

Comments

[Frank Thomas]

what do your SMART stats tell you about the disk? boot into a live CD to analyze the SMART stats if you can't boot your OS. Ubuntu is a good choice because they ship the Disk Utility (palimpsest) applet with their desktop.

[Frank Thomas]

Note that a Reallocated Sector Count of more than a few is an indicating that the disk is dying, and the growth in this stat usually approaches exponential until the drive hits prefail. you are fine with a couple, but more than that is likely to grow very quickly.

[Frank Thomas]

buy a new disk, and image the one you have NOW.

[Gondil]

you're probably right, but still I'm so angry of it..

[Jason C]

Careful with SpinRite; it's not appropriate for certain failure modes, particularly when the drive fails more each time it is read (e.g. coating flaking off the discs, etc.). I would first find an imaging tool that can create a backup image and skip bad sectors, then use SpinRite, then try recreating an image and seeing if any more of the missing data is produced. SpinRite always writes recovered data right back to a failing drive, and despite their marketing, is only really useful for preventative maintenance (which it is great for) and trivially damaged drives.

[Jason C]

SpinRite also has a good satisfaction-guaranteed refund policy which they do honor. But please only take advantage of it if you are truly unsatisfied.

[Frank Thomas]

dd_rescue is a great imaging tool for damaged disks.

[Gondil]

Ok but it has so few spares that it cannot remap 2 bad sectors?

[Gondil]

Can't figure out how to run mhdd If I mount iso and open it there is just a text file and nothing else.

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

There's only so many spares - they run out eventually. A decent SMART tool should be able to tell you the threshold (how many total were made available) and where you currently sit (how many bad sectors found, how many successfully remapped sectors).

[Gondil]

As I discovered, there are not 2 bad sectors but much more. OK not sector, better said block of 190MB. I started normal scan(not Quick) in HDTune I´m behind half of scan and have 2,8% of that 190MB blocks demaged. Quite sad. My fault that I didn't test that disk before buying..

[Valmiky Arquissandas]

Having lots of reallocated sectores is a good indicator of physical issues with the disk surface. This is not a matter of the software not being supported, and changing it to IDE will definitely make no difference. The disk is damaged, and if it is new, it should be replaced. You can not trust any data stored in it.

[c00000fd]

Also keep in mind that SpinRite is a very old tool and may not work with many modern hard drives. In my experience it kept crashing on a hard drive larger than 500GB. Tried it on several desktops/BIOS'es and eventually had to give up on it.