IFW On A Bad Drive - Would You Run Spinrite?

I have a hard drive that has bad sectors on it that needs to be replaced.

I ran IFW and made a backup and it said it encountered 531 bad sectors.

The thing is I'm helping someone, it's their drive and the only way to get the OS back is with the recovery partition this thing has on the D drive, so I'm hoping I've not lost any of it. But I was able to use the recovery partition to reinstall Vista before I determined the hard drive was bad.

Would it be safer to use Spinrite on the hard drive before making an image with IFW?

I'm afraid spinrite might mark the drive and I'll loose data, but I also want to make sure I can make a backup image of the recovery partition so I'm able to get the system reinstalled with it when I put in a new hard drive.


THANKS

 

Spinrite hasn't been updated for a very long time! -- I would run Windows Check (Scan) Disk, selecting the option to scan and attempt to recover all bad sectors.

 

You could try HDD Regenerator:

http://www.dposoft.net/#b_hddhid

 

I have a copy of Spinrite and had only used it for maintenance until a friend of mine turned up with a laptop that booted to a black screen with the error message that the drive was unreadable. I ran Spinrite on it (took all night) and the next morning it booted up just fine and ran like nothing had ever happened. If you already have 531 bad sectors then you really don't have anything to lose.

 

Don't know your HD brand, but your HD mfr. may offer a diagnostic / repair utility for download.

 

So what? It works fine as it is. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Chkdisk isn't nearly as thorough as Spinrite, which is why Steve Gibson has been selling it for so many years. One of his comments on chkdisk is that it has probably destroyed more data than it has recovered.

 

I also thought the more you mess with the drive, the more likely to create more problems, so best to leave alone.

I'm just wondering if I run Spinrite I might just create more bad sectors and make matters worse, hmmm...

 

Spinrite is often able to recover the data from bad sectors, which it then writes to good sectors. It definitely doesn't create new bad sectors. If it did that he wouldn't still be selling it as long as he has. As I already pointed out, I ran it over a drive that was unreadable and the OS booted right up afterwards.

 

What make HD is it?

 

You're completely right. Who the hell is this Steve Gibson guy anyway? And why does he feel that he can sell his product for sixteen years, despite the fact that every company under the sun has tried to buy it from him. It's complete crap. It's not as if he has a reputation to upload. Wait.....

Seriously, run the product. The drive is already broken, else there would be no need for this discussion.

 

Not in my case... I own a copy of Spinrite 6 and whenever I try to use it on my WD360 (connected to a Promise SATA controller) it just hangs. When I contacted GRC in 2006, I was told it was a 'known issue'. Nearly 4 years later it still remains an unresolved issue!

 

You should NOT use spinrite on this failing disk before you have a complete full image of it. I know 2 software that can perform this nicely :
Active@ File Recovery Pro
Easeus Data Recovery Pro V5 (recently released).

Once you have a workable image, you can play all you want with the physical drive. Believe me, I got burned once....

 

If your not completely happy with Spinrite there's a no quibble refund, huh you even get to keep the program, there's no protection built in.

 

Mind elaborating on why he should "NOT" run Spinrite? Getting data off a dying drive is exactly the scenario for which Spinrite is intended.

I've been burned several times, but not by Spinrite. By that logic, I could say nobody should use Ghost, Paragon or Partition Tragic, all of which have contributed to bricking a system for me in the past. OTOH, a lot of people use them without any problems. Like any software, ymmv.

 

It's two different things to deal either with a dying disk or with a disk which just has a few bad sectors, some magnetic faults.

Using Spinrite is a long and stressing process for the drive, and when the drive is dying, you may be able to regenerate some sectors but the degradation can then become catastrophic and you get a disk you can neither regenerate any longer, nor even read. It happened to me on two occasions.

If you have a first initial image, at least you are sure you won't lose more than the files that contain bad sectors.

Now, you may think otherwise and start Spinrite, HDD Regen or DRevitalize, and probably in some cases you will lose nothing, but I am just saying that the scenario where the drive completely dies is very probable, and then you have lost everything.

 

Besides physical damage, there can be Windows write errors creating bad sectors.
In the latter case the drive is still good.
Give HddErase a spin from UBCD.
HDDErase will ask you if you want to erase the HPA, select NO.
It will wipe the drive and reset all bad sectors and leave the HPA intact so you can install the OS again.