I'm getting Bad Sectors, Clusters, or Missing Allocations what should I do?
Issue
I'm getting Bad Sectors, Clusters, or Missing Allocations what should I do?
Cause
Either of these can be caused by either bad or corrupted software or generally a failing hard disk drive.
Solution
If you are running scandisk or other disk utilities and encountering errors about your hard disk drive being bad or that it has bad sectors it is recommended that you backup your data and format the hard disk drive and start over.
Encounter errors
If while the hard disk drive is being formatted you encounter bad sector errors or bad or missing allocation units unfortunately your hard disk drive is bad or on the verge of becoming bad. We suggest you purchase a new hard disk drive or have it serviced to have a new hard drive put in the computer for your.
Do not encounter errors
If no errors are encountered during the format process it's likely you had corrupted software or data on the hard disk drive that was causing your earlier errors. Running the format and restore process should have resolved these errors and this issue should be fixed.
Can bad sectors be repaired?
No. If a software utility such as scandisk detects bad sectors they're marked as bad and will be skipped any type data is being saved to the hard disk drive.
Additional information
- See the bad sectors definition for further information and related links on this term.