I've done some searching for this but not had much luck.
I'm looking for a program (bootable CD hopefully) that will scan a hard drive and mark defective sectors bad/unusable and not spend any time trying top recover data from the bad sector first. I'd like something that could scan a 160GB drive in 30 minutes or less, preferably less.
I have SpinRite which is a very good tool but there does not appear to be any way to tell it to just mark bad sectors Unusable. It always wants to spend 5-10 (or longer) minutes on each bad sector trying to recover data I don't care about or want. This makes running SpinRite on a drive with some bad sectors and excruciatingly long, boring experience.
If I had a tool that would simply scan the drive and mark defective sectors Unusable, then I could format the drive and use it. I know some will think this is not the best idea but ignoring that, is there such a tool?
Rich,
I do not know of any such utility.
And I have just re-read the various MS and other descriptors and how-to's, regarding CHKDSK without finding anything that would satisfy your criterion.
I do have one thought about possibly speeding up the process…
Since CHKDSK is significantly dependent upon CPU processing, you might benefit from removing and fitting the drive into a machine with a faster cycling CPU.
For instance, if the drive is presently in a machine with core 2 duo running each core running at 2.0mhz, it would conceivable complete the task faster if placed into a machine with an older P4 single-core running at 3.0mhz.
Hope you find what you're looking for and enlighten the rest of us when you do.
Doug
CHKDSK doesn't do what I need. SpinRite does but it can take literally 12 to 24 hours (or more) depending on how many bad sectors there are and how long it tries to recover data from each before marking it U (Unuseable), assigning an alternate and moving on. I know people will say that if the drive has bad sectors you're better off to scrap it and buy another, and I agree, but we work on a $0 budget (Church Thrift Store) so I don't spend money unless absolutely necessary and if I can salvage a 160GB drive I'd like to give it a try.
