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Best software for fixing bad sectors on hdd?
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Between a Peg and a Hard Place
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My iBook runs great usually but now and then it seems to hit a section of my hdd with bad sectors (I'm guessing) where it sits and does the "ch ch ch" pause thing. It'll sit there with the spinny rainbow for a while before giving up on opening that file and then the program usually crashes 
Anyways what's the best software for fixing this? Is there anything built-in to OS X? Is there freeware/shareware? Or should I just go big guns and get Disk Warrior?
Oh and it is bad/damaged sectors right?
Thanks
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Mar 2004
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This is a computer-generated message and needs no signature.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2003
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What he said. Hands down.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2001
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Ok, I tried DiskWarrior and it didn't work. I did a rebuild and replace after booting up but when I go back to the OS I still can't open some picture files, it just sits there going "chich chich chich chichech". If I connect through firewire it hits those files and then times out 
What now?
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Dec 2000
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DiskWarrior is a great program, but it doesn't do bad sectors.
TechTool Pro was great at finding bad sectors back in the day when I used to use it, although that was back in the OS 9 days. No idea how good it is at repairing them, since I never opted to do so. There are also a few new utilities out there - one of them is Drive Genius, which appears to be based on DiskGuardian, but as it's still the new kid on the block, TTP has a longer track record. You'd think Drive Genius would be a good app, since it's made by the same people who make Data Rescue, but one person on these forums has reported that he messed up his hard drive by running it, so caveat emptor.
Basically, no matter what utility you use to try to fix this, I'd backup your important files first.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 1999
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Your drive might be more than just bad sectors. It might be on it's last legs.
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"Evil is Powerless If the Good are Unafraid." -Ronald Reagan
Apple and Intel, the dawning of a NEW era.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Los Angeles, CA.
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This happened to me before OS X crashed.
I was getting a lot of "ch ch ch" pauses, and then I attempted to fix it with TTP and DW.
Eventually, OS X couldn't boot up anymore and I had to reinstall OS X again.
From what I've read, "zeroing" out your HD when you reinstall OS X will help you prevent this from happening next time because it'll map out all of the bad sectors on your HD, and won't use them anymore.
I've been running fine since.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Jax, FL
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My philosophy with hard drives like that is to just chuck them in the trash. It's not worth the hassle.. how much time have you spent already just trying to find a good program to help with bad sectors?
Get a new drive and save yourself the trouble.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jul 2001
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Originally posted by Randman:
DiskWarrior.
That app does not check for bad sectors, you need something like Tech Tool.
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"Curse my metal body, I wasn't fast enough!"
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Dec 2001
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Originally posted by badtz:
This happened to me before OS X crashed.
I was getting a lot of "ch ch ch" pauses, and then I attempted to fix it with TTP and DW.
Eventually, OS X couldn't boot up anymore and I had to reinstall OS X again.
From what I've read, "zeroing" out your HD when you reinstall OS X will help you prevent this from happening next time because it'll map out all of the bad sectors on your HD, and won't use them anymore.
I've been running fine since.
I don't think the drive is on it's last legs because I've been having this problem for about 6 months and everything else works fine. I've backed everything up so maybe I'll try the "zeroing" out...I'm assuming that means doing the write over all sectors in the erase right? If that doesn't work I guess I can try out TechTool.
Thanks for the advice everyone
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Dec 2000
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Originally posted by kenazo:
I don't think the drive is on it's last legs because I've been having this problem for about 6 months and everything else works fine. I've backed everything up so maybe I'll try the "zeroing" out...I'm assuming that means doing the write over all sectors in the erase right? If that doesn't work I guess I can try out TechTool.
It means choosing the "Zero all data" option in Disk Utility. And yes, that would probably be the surest way of getting those sectors remapped.
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