• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Toshiba Hard drive repair software?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Darur

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2006
Hey folks,

I was recently given a laptop to fix as it could not boot into Windows. After a couple of tests I discovered a number of sectors on the drive were corrupt. Because its a Toshiba drive, there are very few free applications to fix this problem. The owner does not care if the data is erased so thats no problem.

I attempted to wipe the drive to see if that would fix it but no luck. Does anyone know of a bootable program I could use to fix the problem? Many thanks!
 
Meh, get a new drive and try copying any files that are absolutely needed with an external enclosure or something, then toss it.
 
moz_21 said:
Meh, get a new drive and try copying any files that are absolutely needed with an external enclosure or something, then toss it.

Thats just it, they don't need any of the files nor do they want them. I could easily swap drives but I am trying to do this for free. I don't mind spending a little money on a program if its needed because I can always use new tools, just so long as the program creates bootable CDs. My last resort would be buying a new drive.
 
Darur said:
Thats just it, they don't need any of the files nor do they want them. I could easily swap drives but I am trying to do this for free. I don't mind spending a little money on a program if its needed because I can always use new tools, just so long as the program creates bootable CDs. My last resort would be buying a new drive.

Well most drives are supposed to remap bad sectors to a reserved new one. Since you can scan it and find some, either this drive doesn't do that, or it has already used all of the reserved sectors. Have you tried running a SMART tool on it? I guess I feel that if it's bad now, it's only gonna get worse over time.
 
Like moz_21 said the drives probably already remapped as many bad sectors as it can. the best solution IMHO is replace the drive, because it will happen again (and the bad sectors always appear where the critical files are :confused: ) 30 quid
 
New HD time. If anything download the Toshiba HD diagnostic, run the extended test and at the end it should show the bad sectors. Then it should prompt you for sector repair (hopefully) and go from there.
 
Well, I'm running a very nice tool called mhdd32 and it seems to be repairing the damaged sectors. I'd like to see if this drive can be salvaged at all but I'm starting to see thats likely only going to be temporary. I alerted the owner and they are ok with buying a new HD so I'll go from there.

Many thanks folks!

EDIT:

I just had an terribly crazy and even more stupid idea. The owner is already going to order a new drive, and they don't really want the old one back or need it back. What if I were to set-up a sterile, low humidity, contained environment, opened the drive, and cleaned the platters using a method which makes no contact with the platter? A search around showed some similar jobs done dealing with the platters of hard drives which were successful. I may be totally off, but as I understand it, the sectors on the platter were physically obstructed or physically damaged, rendering them unusable. If the sectors were cleaned somehow, perhaps some would be made accessible or enough for the drive to work somewhat? I could use a steady, gentle stream of dry, clean air over the platters or some similar method.

Again, I realize this is unbelievably ridiculous but what have I got to loose? Either a worthless drive gets trashed or finds a little use. I realize it would likely not fix the problem completely and most likely it won't work. I also have an endless supply of old drives which can be trashed without any complaints to practice on. Should I go for it? Thoughts, input?
 
Last edited:
Back