Thread: Software to find damaged hard drive segments?

  1. #1
    Software Developer jverkoey's Avatar
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    Software to find damaged hard drive segments?

    Well, my laptop's officially dead. First it was the PCI ports, then the keyboard, then the battery, then the LCD backlight....and now the hard drive.

    My dillemma is such:

    The computer itself still works, but it appears that part of the hard drive is damaged/corrupt and is unfixable.....so I was wondering if there was any software that ran on bootup, scanned the hard drive, and pointed out the sectors that were damaged so I could install a new OS *around* the damaged section.....? Like, I'd have the OS in one part, and then 2 partitions, one before the damaged section and one after.....

    I'm going to commence my own search for this right now.....I'm really bummed out that I'm computerless now...thank god I backed everything up last week (took 16 cds to back up all my junk, plus 25 gigs on my mp3 player and another 1.2 gigs on my website....)

    I'm going to be looking for parts for building a new desktop, I don't think I'm going to invest in another laptop for a loooong time, and defintely am never investing any money whatsoever in Gateway. Ugh.

  2. #2
    Registered User linuxdude's Avatar
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    I would like that program too. I have a 60 that has certain sectors that are dead

  3. #3
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    i assume your laptops hard drive isnt easily accesable from the bottom?

    A friend of mine just replaced her laptops HD, took all of 5 minutes to pop the old one out and put the new one in. Im not sure how much she paid for the new one, but it was an upgrade to 80 GB

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    Software Developer jverkoey's Avatar
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    umm..it's easy to take out. sure.

    but the problem is, my LCD backlight's dead, along with the battery which no longer works whatsoever, and the keyboard stopped working a few months back.

    I have no desire to invest any money in this laptop as I would get more entertainment by throwing it down the toilet or going to a strip joint.

  5. #5
    Bob Dole for '08 B0bDole's Avatar
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    those seem like problems that can be stemming from one specific problem. talk to gateway, there might be a cheap solution to this
    Hmm

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    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    chkdisk?

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    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    Again another victim of laptop´s dem-o-crazy...

    those seem like problems that can be stemming from one specific problem. talk to gateway, there might be a cheap solution to this
    I dont know about gateway´s support but i think that if the laptop is somewhat older they´ll advise you to buy a new one

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    Software Developer jverkoey's Avatar
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    wahoo!! I'm posting this from Fedora!! I LOVE LINUX!!

    Ok, so, after a loooong time of researching and testing (and about 8 cd-r's) I finally got a boot cd made for my laptop with a program called HDRegenerator or something like that, I ran it, went to bed, and woke up this morning, and it fixed 4 sectors that were damaged (it does something weird with remagnitizing the hard drive or something), but whatever it did, it fixed my hard drive! *is incredibly happy*

    I'm going to be posting the ISO for the cd on my website after school today, for now I've gotta reformat my harddrive again, put windows xp on one partition, and then boot up fedora on the other half so I have dual OS's (I've always wanted to do that).

    Oh, and did I mention I love linux?

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    hey,

    I know someone who also have a bad HD. I was wondering..where did you find that program? Tried a google but nothing really showed up
    Its all a matter of willpower

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    Software Developer jverkoey's Avatar
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    Give me a day or two and like I said, I'll have the ISO for the cd on my site....I'm still trying to figure out why my windows cd isn't booting up on start and going in to the installer now....(I'm fine with linux, but I'd like to have windows on there as a dual OS)

    But that program isn't something you can just "find" because the solution was a bunch of different solutions bundled together and a lot of steps (I had to find a program to make boot disks, then i found a program that fixed hard drives, i had to get a registry key for it, then it would on make boot floppy discs, and seeing as my laptop has no floppy drive, i had to get a converter from floppy boot disks to cd ISOs.....and then I had to get the right ISO burner, which took me about 8 cds to get right in the end....)

    But yah, to simplify the process for everyone else I'm going to just upload the ISO to my site. 'Twill save everyone who has this same problem a few hours and a few headaches.

  11. #11
    Registered User linuxdude's Avatar
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    I love linux too yeah, but let us know where you got that program from. I'd like it

  12. #12
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    >>I'm still trying to figure out why my windows cd isn't booting up on start

    windows is stupid. when you boot windows (of HD or a CD) it looks at the first bit of your disk. If the first bit is FAT, NTFS, or empty space it boots. HOWEVER, if it doesnt recognize whats there it just hangs with a black screen. (surprised?)

    Advice: install windows first, give it a partition around 8 GB or less. Then install Fedora (Core 3 i hope ) and make sure your boot partition is right after the windows one. This is the easiest way to install a dual boot. If you want windows to have more room it gets a little more complicated.

    The reason it has to be around 8 GB or less is because you can only boot off the first 1024 tracks (which is 8ish GB). I heard that this was going to change and it might not be the case anymore. experiment and reinstall as neccessary, its the best way to learn

  13. #13
    Software Developer jverkoey's Avatar
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    Yup, it's all up and running now, I had to get an fdisk program so I could reformat my disk, *just* to install windows xp, ugh. Now I'm doing the long task of putting all my backups back on my laptop from last week (cuz I seemed to have some premonition that this was all going to happen....).

    Once I'm done restoring everything and have my ISO ripping software on here I'll put that ISO up, but at the rate my cds are copying it might not be till tomorrow....sorry.

    And yah, I'm using Fedora 3, and what I did was partition 10 gigs for windows xp applications in NTFS, 12 gigs in FAT32 for data (shared between linux/windows xp), and the remaining 8 gigs for linux applications and things.

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    oh sorry I missed that part about the ISO on your last post
    Its all a matter of willpower

  15. #15
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    >>I had to get an fdisk program

    you already had one just boot off your fedora CD and type "linux rescue" at the prompt. then run "fdsik", (or better yet "parted")

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