Can't resize partition with bad blocks

I am running XP sp2 and DD 9 from the boot CD
I have a logical drive (E) with 57GB capacity and 40GB free space. I would like to recover some of this free space for use in other logical drives on the same hard disk. Any operation that involves this drive - move or resize - results in the error "Can't resize partition with bad blocks". Chkdsk /R on this drive shows 4KB in bad sector, (but windows disk management does not flag any errors). Is there any way I can retrieve some of the free space on this logical drive?
Any operation on the other logical drives that incidentally affects E is blocked for the same reason.
The disk structure is
C Primary Active 40GB total, 31 free NTFS
D Logical 36GB total 4 free NTFS
E Logical 57GB total 40 free NTFS the problem drive
F Logical 21GB total 21 free FAT32

Thanks for any advice

 

The easiest way (assuming DD 9 is like 10) is to copy off all the files you want to keep on the E: partition (looks like about 17GB) and then boot to DD and reformat the partition.

If you can't resize after you reformat, then delete the partition and recreate it the size you want.

Once you have the partition the correct size, boot back into Windows and do a chkdsk /r on the partition. The bad sector should be found if it's in that part of the drive. Otherwise it will be in the unallocated portion. If that's the case, remember to run a chkdsk /r on any partition you create that uses that unallocated space.

 

Thanks.
I created an image of the whole disk with TrueImage 9 before playing with DD9.
If I reformat or recreate the partition will I be able to restore just E: from the backup, without overwriting the other partitions?
Will the backup have the same error and carry it over to the new partition? (assuming I have a clean new E.

 

You can restore the old E: partition (from the TI image file) to the new E: partition without overwriting any other partition. Just check that partition and none of the others.

Since the restore is being done with resize (the destination partition is a different size than the original), the bad sector shouldn't carry over from the backup image. However, the bad sector still exists on the hard drive. That is why you need to run chkdsk /r on the partiton after you restore the image. Otherwise you risk saving a file to a bad sector.

Currently you don't know (unless you know the bad sector number) if the bad sector will end up in the new E: partition or in the unallocated space you'll be using for the other partitions. The point is, you need to run chkdsk /r and find it again when you get your partitions restored and created like you want.

 

Thank you for your help.
Reformatted and resized E: Chkdsk /R showed the bad sector still in this partition but image restored OK and everything seems to work.