This week I was working on a computer that was having problems with it’s hard drive. I could get it to start once, and then it would fail to start up again. As you can imagine, the drive had some bad sectors, but the people I was fixing this for could not afford another $60 expense to replace the drive. So I had to try to find a way to fix the computer without replacing the drive.
And that’s when I learned this: Before you throw out a drive with bad sectors, try to run the manufacturers test and repair utilities on the hard drive. Western Digital has its Digital Lifeguard software and I’m sure Seagate has a similar tool. If you can attempt a repair with it, try the repair option. If the repair fails, then you will likely need to get a new hard drive unfortunately. Hopefully this will help you wring another couple of months out of your drive. (Who knows, it may work for years after you do so.)
