Bad sectors can often be corrected by using a spare sector built into the drive. However, any information written to a bad sector is usually lost.
There are several methods for finding and correcting bad sectors.
- Use the Error Checking utility built in to Microsoft Windows.
- Double Click (My) Computer, and right-click the hard disk.
- On the shortcut menu, click Properties, and on the Tools tab in the Properties dialog box.
- Click Check Now in the Error-Checking Status area.
- In the Check Disk dialog box, select the Automatically Fix File System Errors check box, select the Scan For And Attempt Recovery Of Bad Sectors check box, and then click Start.
- Use SeaTools diagnostics for Seagate and Maxtor drives and run a long test. For Seagate SCSI drives, use Seatools Enterprise.
- Erase the drive:
- For internal ATA/IDE and SATA drives: Use SeaTools for DOS to perform a full zero fill.
This option will erase ALL data on the partitions on the drive.
For more information on performing a zero-fill, please see Document ID: 203931. - For SCSI drives: Use Seatools Enterprise (for Seagate drives) to perform a low-level format on the drive.
- For external drives: Use DiscWizard or your external drive management software to zero-fill your external drive.
- For OneTouch 4 drives, you may use the Maxtor Manager to erase the drive. See Document ID: 200231 for guidance.
- For OneTouch, OneTouch 2, OneTouch 3, and OneTouch 3 mini drives, you may use the OneTouch Manager to erase the drive.
- For Seagate Pocket Drives, please use the Toolkit software to Reset to Factory Default. If you need the software, you may download it here.
- For internal ATA/IDE and SATA drives: Use SeaTools for DOS to perform a full zero fill.