The Message Board
at Installations Plus+

[ Installations Plus+ PC Forum ] [ Archive Sep-Dec 97 ]

Posted by: Louis Bruno on December 08, 1997 at 11:47:37
Homepage: Installations Plus+ (websites, upgrades, PCs, repairs, training)
In Reply to: "can't read sector" posted by Bert Verleg on December 08, 1997 at 11:46:01

Subject: Re: "can't read sector"

I know it's hard to believe, but if Scandisk is reporting bad sectors on a new hard drive it's most likely the case that your new drive is damaged! Is your equipment protected from power-line (mains) and telephone line surges?

It is possible, but unlikely, that the BIOS settings are incorrect, but you can check that by going into setup to see if the cylinders, heads, and sectors match those given by the manufacturer. Normally, when the BIOS is wrong, the error is not "can't read" but failure to boot.

It is vaguely possible that the I/O card is bad. It could give a "can't read" error, but usually a bad I/O card generates error messages that point to the controller.

Given the equipment you have on hand there are two ways to figure out the problem:
(1) Put your old hard drive back in. Re-format it, which will mark the bad sectors, and load up DOS, including Scandisk. Run Scandisk five or ten times and see if any additional sectors (beyond those marked by the re-format) are found bad. I think you won't find any.
(2) Mount your new hard drive to a similar motherboard (perhaps a friend has one and will work with you -- there can be no damage to his system, just a bit of bother). I think you'll find Scandisk continues to report new bad sectors and you'll continue to get "can't read sector" errors.

Hope this helps.


Follow Ups: