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HDD with bad sector!

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ziloo

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I have three partitions on my HDD.
My C: partition has been hit by bad sector syndrome.
Partitions D: and E: are not affected.
I have re-formatted C:.

So far I have used another HDD as master to boot and work up the
operating system, and the faulty HDD as slave to use D: and E:.
What should I do to re-use the original HDD as stand-alone?

1- Is it possible to break the C: partition into two partitions,
C1 and C2 namely, and boot from one of them that does not
contain bad sectors? If so, what software one should use?

2- What are the other remedies?

Thank you

ziloo
 
Last edited:
Hmm, did a whole bunch pop up all at once and now it's back to being stable, or do you get new ones from time to time? You can always cut a partition into 2 pieces and not use the split off part at all. You can just leave an unallocated "hole" there, if you want.

Of course you knew this one was coming....
You think the bad sector syndrome will continue, as in more and more bad sectors? I had that with an old drive. If you were stupid enough to write a bunch of new data to the disk after it was first turned on, after it warmed up (in about 30 to 60 minutes), you could NOT read those new sectors. You basically had to let the baby stabilize before using it at all. Yes, it went into the trash sometime after that. Sucker cost me $1500 in 1984, whopping 20MB drive, sigh.
 
Hi
I'm not sure if that helps much. As I recall, the partitions are assigned
in physical order. The first partition is always C. If you split the first one,
you'll change the D and E to E and F with a new D using the part of the
original C.
You'll still have the C patition that was having problems.
Dwight
 
If you leave the split off part as unallocated to an active partition, then the drive letters won't shift.
 
Then let me pose my question this way:

Can I set up the bios so that partition C: is completely forgotten ( I don't
need the space anyway!) and partition D: replaces partition C: including
track 0? This way partition D: is renamed partition C: ...

ziloo
 
Just delete the original partition C and leave it unallocated. Use Fdisk to set the "new" C as active. I assume all this is in DOS land. You will also need to "sys" the new C to make it bootable, if you want to boot from that drive. After you get the old C deleted, boot from a DOS floppy, do the FDISK thing to make the partition active, reboot from the floppy, run "sys c:", and there you go. Remove floppy, reboot from your new C:.
 
Oops, you might have to break out the big guns like "partition magic". I am not sure that you can make the first partition in a extended partition active. I never tried it.

If you don't have current backup of D: and E:, I would strongly recommend you get some, unless all the stuff is reinstallable. One mistake with the partition stuff and your D and E are gone.
 
Hi
I still don't think you can get away from using the first part of the disk
for C drive. As Chuck has said, it is possible to have a partition that
isn't used between the C and D drive. I just don't think the unused
partition can be the first partition. I believe the system always looks
there first to boot and then loads the software that is needed to deal
with partitions.
Dwight
 
Depending on this computer, I don't think PM will work. I think it requires a 386SX...

Also, you might be able to pull off what my Dell laptop does.. It makes the first partition have no letter, hidden, and not active... But then again, I don't know.. My BIOS might just support this "trick" they do (for it's built in Windows XP CD)
 
Actually, the only "fixed place" is track zero. That's where the partition table and boot code is located. You could easily have a disk with a tiny Primary partition at the END of the hard drive and it would work fine. Of course, I'm not going into all that cylinder 1024 stuff. The computer stuff is always a tad more complicated than you would expect.
 
chuckcmagee said:
The computer stuff is always a tad more complicated than you would expect.
Click to expand...
Ha, I hear that(agree with)! That is the situation I find myself in every time I decide to do something new with an old computer(aside from booting, like installing something, or popping off the case). Something so simple can be so dificult. For instance, one of my customers ordered a 5.25 TEAC drive off me, and a modem for their Tandy 1000TL, and I had one I used in my Tandy 3000. The TRS 1000 and the TRS 3000 drives where "virtually" identical, aside from a few parts, and color, but the 3000 drive won't work in my TRS-1000. I have tried everything, and it makes no sense. Well, long story short, I am only charging for the modem, and get to try to figure out what the problem is.
 
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