Reference number: CH000180

I'm getting Bad Sectors, Clusters, and/or Missing Allocations what should I do?

Issue:

I'm getting Bad Sectors, Clusters, and/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 and/or other disk utilities and encountering errors about your hard disk drive being bad and/or that it has bad sectors it is recommended that you backup your data and attempt to format the hard disk drive and start over. Additional information about how to do this can be found on document CH00186.

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 and/or have it serviced to have a new hard drive put in the computer for your.

• Buying tips on a hard disk drive can be found here.

Do not encounter errors:

If no errors are encountered during the format process it's likely you simply 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 our bad sectors dictionary definition for additional information and related links on this term.