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Question

Question about CHKDSK /R

May 5, 2012 3:38AM PDT

I ran chkdsk /r on a Windows drive that detected a couple bad sectors. (Windows was freezing)

It notified that it found and fixed all errors successfully.

My question is, how long could this fix work for? What are people's success rates with this when ALL bad sectors ARE fixed?

Because my understanding is that bad sectors could spread causing even more drive failure. Alternatively could a bad shutdown or power outage cause bad sectors, therefor causing the drive to still be good in all other areas? In which case a chkdsk /r would be a permanent fix.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
The honest answer is
May 5, 2012 5:56AM PDT

We can't know the future for this drive. Today's drives are made to have zero bad sectors as the drives map in spares and more. I must avoid a deeper discussion about how that works but when a drive fails to the point it is showing bad sectors to the OS then you know to not trust it.

That is, backup now or don't complain later.
Bob

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Answer
After running the MS chkdsk /r
May 6, 2012 8:13PM PDT

you might consider downloading and running the HD manufacturer's diagnostics utility and do a thorough read/write analysis. If the utility finds errors in media integrity, it may be able to remap the bad allocation units to spares. If any such repairs are needed, it's time to get a replacement HD on hand ASAP. Backup or, better yet, create a full image of the drive on another one while waiting for arrival of the new drive.