How to repair bad sector HDD

Bad sectors are sections of your computer's hard drive that have been damaged, and have lost the ability to save and store your data. In most cases, bad sectors are the result of internal physical damage in your computer, such as magnetic disk failure, and can sometimes corrupt your saved data. Bad sectors are usually indicated by grinding or chugging noises inside of your computer or from error messages that inform you that data cannot be saved to your disk drive. To repair bad sectors on a Windows operating system, you can run your computer through an automatic error-check and repair process. If you have a Macintosh computer, you can re-install the affected sections of your operating system (OS) that contains the bad sectors, or you can choose to re-install the entire OS completely.

EditSteps

Windows 7 and Windows XP

1. 1
   Close any open files on the affected disk drive. In order for the repair process to work, you must close any programs, applications, and files saved or stored on the faulty disk drive.
2. 2
   Open your Start menu. The Start menu button is located in the bottom-left corner of your Windows desktop and may appear in the form of the Windows logo if you use Windows 7.
   
   
   
3. 3
   Select "Computer" from the Start menu. If you use Windows XP, this option may read as "My Computer."
   
   
   
4. 4
   Open the properties menu for the affected disk drive. The "Computer" folder will display a list of all your disk drives on the computer.
   
   
   
   • Right-click on the affected disk drive and choose "Properties" from the floating menu that appears. The properties menu will then appear on your screen.
     
     
     
5. 5
   Click on the "Tools" tab. This tab will allow you to access the error-check and repair option.
   
   
   
6. 6
   Click on the "Check now" button. You will then be presented with options for checking and repairing existing problems with your disk drive.
   
   
   
7. 7
   Select the option for repairing bad sectors.
   
   
   
   • Place a check mark within the box next to "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors."
     
     
     
8. 8
   Repair the bad sectors.
   • Click on the "Start" button to repair the bad sectors on the affected disk drive. This procedure may take several minutes, depending on the size of the disk drive you are repairing. When the repair process has finished, Windows will notify you that the bad sectors have been repaired.
     
     
     

Source : wikiHow.com