Bad sector caused by OS?

Hi;

I recently encountered a service technician telling me and my friend that his hdd bad sectors may have been caused by the OS itself. Is that true? How can that be? I never heard of that before...

I heard some programs/software causing bad sectors but not the OS. Before our encounter with the said service technician, we did a checkdisk/F but the bad sectors were not corrected by Windows. We used the manufacturer's hdd diagnostic/repair software. It did confirmed the presence of bad sectors and gave an option to repair it. After using it(repair function) the hdd software said it had successfully repaired the bad sectors. But after we exited and checked via checkdisk...the bad sectors were still there . Same number as it was first detected.

We ran the manufacturer's hdd diagnostic/repair software again but it said there was no bad sectors. When we did a checkdisk, the bad sectors were there. Used Auslogics Disk Defrag function of "Check for Errors" and it detected it with bad sectors(same number as it was first detected). Even used Auslogics' option to "Correct" the errors but it also cannot repair the bad sectors.

Well, the hdd was placed under RMA and will be replaced this week. But some inquiries again:

1) Is it really possible that the OS have caused the bad sectors? If so how? ( can you give some inputs on this please...)

2) What is more reliable..the manufacturer's diagnostic tool or Windows?

3) Any effective 3rd party software out there that can "effectively-reliably" diagnose/repair bad sectors?

4) Can you share some approaches/inputs as to what you have to do:

a) when you encounter bad sectors
b) when the bad sectors cannot be repaired..(well, replacement (RMA) is best I believe but maybe some more ideas are around.. ..)

Very eagerly waiting for your gracious responses here!

Thanks !

 

just a bad disk, good it is being replaced.

 

@Cudni;

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I feel the same and was suspecting that in the first place.

I was bothered by the comment that the "OS may have caused the bad sector..." This was new to me and really got me confused. From experience(may be wrong here...) I understand that it is a physical damage that can be/cannot be repaired/replaced.

Have used a couple of manufacturer's disk tools before and some have diagnosed a failing hdd as "good and no problem" on one occassion and then give a completely different one next. Both were done with the same variables and situations(say, test1 - fail, test2 - pass, test3 - fail, test4 - fail, test5 - pass, test6 - pass...with their CS not answering my further inquiries after I have presented the varying results).

One hdd manufaturer's CS said that the 'clicking-whirring-sound' I hear all of a sudden the pc 'sort-of-freezes' and goes on as 'busy' as if 'thinking what to do' which seemed to went on like forever until you restart it...is "normal" and not to be worried upon only to be dumbfounded that t was in fact a mechanical damage. Their diagnostic tool also gave a "hit and miss verdict" (pass-fail-pass-fail) on the hdd. And yes, the hdd soon failed. That particular manufacturer's CS also never did answered my further queries.


But this one was a whole new question in my mind....."OS may have caused the bad sector..."?

 

Windows write errors can create bad sectors, I believe.

~Url link removed~

http://www.datarecovery.com.sg/data_recovery/bad_sector_on_hard_disk.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

 

but it doesn't unless the user is tricked into running some 3rd party software, as in your example

 

@ Searching_ _ _;

Thanks for the reply.

I visited the link and it explained to me some of the things I needed to know. It also confirmed some of the observation I have had in the past though not directly with the hdd concerned right now.

I also have encountered the power failure thing and had some bad sectors after it(not with the hdd concerned..). It was corrected by a low level format in combination with the manufacturer's diagnostic tool.

"* This program will create bad sectors on the hard disk. If you left it
* running for long enough, it could render a hard disk quite useless."

--- You are referring to a program which a link was removed so I cannot confirm if we had used it or not...But I am sure that we are very careful of using softwares that are not vouched by manufacturers as safe to use. I also always ask around first if a software is safe to use or not.

Cudni was referring to a 3rd party software..so is it a malware?

The system from which the hdd came from is clean. We used HitmaPro, Mbam, SASpy, Avira Premium and A2 free(removed it afterwards --2nd opinion only). No other issues with hardware (ram tested with Memtest86+ --pass), CPU fan is working properly. No overclocking done.

Thanks!

 

I'm glad I was able to provide some helpful information -1.

There are many of these type of bad sector creators, one even claimed to write data then mark the sector as bad. You can find for yourself googling "bad sector write data create". Look at code forums also.
Most are geared toward FAT not NTFS.

 

All hail to FAT32! http://cquirke.blogspot.com/2008/03/ntfs-vs-fatxx-data-recovery.html

 

Hi ;

Thanks for all the help here!

@LowWaterMark;

"It's extremely unlikely that you ran that particular program, and such code would only be used in destructive malware, given what it says it does. I think the point of that example was that a programmer claims he wrote code that can cause permanent damage to a hardrive via software alone."
-- Thanks for the explanation here. Need to be safe always! Thanks!

@Searching_ _ _;

I'm NTFS so I should not worry about it. Bad sector writers..tsk..destroyers..

 

No operating system "creates" bad sectors. Bad sectors are a physical condition of the disk. And operating systems do not read or write to disks. They communicate at a hardware level with the disk controller and by way of the file system - typically NTFS or FAT32.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite

 

CHKDSK utility provided by Windows Operating System may help to detect and mark for bad sectors. The operating system will note the particular sector and avoid writing new data onto that area of disk. After which, the bad sector will be remapped to a special sector on the drive which is reserved for this purpose.

I am trying to dig up two programming examples I have seen before in addition to the one I did post above, but Google is not being very nice to me today.
1. On linux, this person wrote a program that writes/creates bad sectors.
In the article he stated writing data to a sector then marking it bad, with code examples.
2. A VB program to create bad sectors, form one of the coding sites, similar to Code Project.

 

Yeah, from a command window, entering chkdsk /r (note the space before /r) might recover any bad sectors that are not really bad. It will likely prompt you to run at next boot - follow the prompts to allow it. But note large drives can take many hours, even more than 24 to complete and appear to be stuck - just let it be. It will eventually finish.