Today bad sectors are rare and means we get to replace the hard drive.
You didn't tell the make or model of the drive but when you get that, go to that maker's web site and find their SMART DRIVE TEST program.
For example here's Seagate's at http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=SeaTools&vgnextoid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
Bob
Last month my computer (running Vista Home Premium ed) crashed after a McAfee update was automatically installed; it would not accept any kind of input (mouse, touchpad or keyboard). I spent hours with Dell who checked my system and said this was not a hardware problem (everything works fine in safe mode) but a software problem. I went to the McAfee forum and they helped me to uninstall McAfee from my system which allowed my computer to once again accept input from all devices. I have tried to restore my computer to the day before the crash, but get a message that there is a bad sector on the C: drive and I must run a chkdsk to fix this. I again asked Dell for help and we tried multiple ways to do a chkdsk to no avail; Dell recommended doing a backup, then booting up in safe mode and then restoring to factory settings (2 1/2 years ago). OK, I tried to do the backup but get a message that I must fix the bad sectors on C: before I can do a backup. I feel like I am running in circles.
Any help would be appreciated; BTW, I'm not entirely sure that McAfee is entirely at fault but really don't know what went wrong here.
Christine

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic