Bad sector on external HDD

[rhitwick]

I've a 2TB HDD with 200KB bad sector.

IS there anyway I can isolate/block this bad sector part and continue using this HDD.
With bad sector it stops working seldom and copying to and from data has become a PITA.

Any help would be really appreciated. Unable to use a huge space due to such issue.

 

[topgear]

perform a full [ don't use quick format ] format - it will detect and put aside bad sectors and format the HDD based on usable sectors. But if the bad sectors are increasing you better backup data and don't use the HDD. Use HDTune / Crystal Diskinfo to keep an eye on the number of bad sectors.

 

[BadalGulati87]

I second topgear it would be the best bet to format the HDD. It might work as per your expectations but always keep the data backed up just to be on the safe side. I had lost quite a lot of important data once due to this but was able to recover quite a good amount of it after data recovery.

 

[rhitwick]

I've already backed up the date. Bought a new 4TB HDD.

But, my question is ... is it possible block the bad sector/isolate it any how?

I've an idea.
If I can recognize where the bad sector is I can create partition(can I on a external HDD?) and use rest of the space.

Again, this total thing depends on following:-

-->Trace Bad sector
-->Create partition on external HDD to isolate the bad sector part

can these be done?

 

[topgear]

I've already backed up the date. Bought a new 4TB HDD.

But, my question is ... is it possible block the bad sector/isolate it any how?

I've an idea.
If I can recognize where the bad sector is I can create partition(can I on a external HDD?) and use rest of the space.

Again, this total thing depends on following:-

-->Trace Bad sector
-->Create partition on external HDD to isolate the bad sector part

can these be done?

A Full Format will do these for you but without creating any sort of special partition for it. If the number of bad sector is increasing you can't contain it within a separate partition.

 

[rhitwick]

I used "Acronis Disk Director" for Full Format.
It did format the HDD. Showed 208KB of bad sector.

I then used the same tool to partition the HDD.

It did everything, like format again, reboot system to commit changes etc.
BUT, when system rebooted it again showed a whole 1.8TB hdd not partitioned parts.

I'm going to do this again.

b/w Split or Partition what should I try next?

 

[whitestar_999]

200kb may seem small but it is not a single sector.Sector size varies from 512 bytes to 4096 bytes.200kb will consist of multiple bad sectors which may be spread throughout hdd so physically isolating them by creating partitions is out of question.Try running chkdsk /r(expect ~10 hours to finish) which will attempt to retrieve data from bad sectors & will mark them as unusable to OS after failing to retrieve data.