Bad sector in Boot block

Solaris 8 on a sparcstation 20 to an external disk drive bay
This system was installed and working. I needed to do a fresh install and I started having problems. The install appearrs to work fine. It get s to the point of reboot. Then it fails to come up with an error or Can't find boot sector in boot block.
Any ideas what might be going on? Or what I might do to get this fixed and get my system installed and running again?
I have verified that the disk is fine and has no hardware problems. This has been installed 2 times before and I never saw this issue.

You can try either running a disk check through Windows and setting it to automatically fix errors (which will mark bad sectors) or you can try reformatting the iPod disk (a full format, not quick). A full format should also mark bad sectors. Once a sector is marked "bad" no data will be written to it.

Similar Messages

Zfs boot block size and ufs boot block size

Hi,
In Solaris UFS file system , boot block resides in 1 to 15 sectors, and each sector is 512 bytes total makes 7680 bytes
bash-3.2# pwd
/usr/platform/SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise-T5220/lib/fs/ufs
bash-3.2# ls -ltr
total 16
-r--r--r-- 1 root sys 7680 Sep 21 2008 bootblk
for zfs file system the boot block size is
bash-3.2# pwd
/usr/platform/SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise-T5220/lib/fs/zfs
bash-3.2# ls -ltr
total 32
-r--r--r-- 1 root sys 15872 Jan 11 2013 bootblk
when we install zfs bootblk on disk using the install boot command ,how many sectors it will use to write the bootblk?
Thanks,
SriKanth Muvva

Thanks for your reply.
my query is when zfs boot block size is 16K, and on disk 1 to 15 sectors(here boot block going to be installed) make around 8K,
it mean in the 16K,it writes only 8K on the disk
if you don't mid will you please explain me in depth
I m referring the doc for UFS, page no 108 ,kernel bootstrap and initialization (its old and its for Solaris 8)
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=r_cecYD4AKkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
please help me to find a doc for kernel bootstrap and initialization for Solaris 10 with zfs and boot archive
Thanks in advance .
Srikanth

How to know the size of bad sector block after zero out erase?

I found some problems on my USB external harddisk recently. After I backup all the files, I erased the whole volume by choosing "zero out data" option. According to some web articles, "zero out" detects and marks those bad sectors to avoid further read/write action on the damaged area.
My question is that how can I know the size of disk space marked as bad sector? Because I can only see how many space is used or available when I check a disk in disk utility. There are about 600MB used for my 1TB hard drive. I guess there is some storage used by spotlight or other hidden files. But I have no idea for how many MB is occupied by bad sector...

Yes you can look at see the original number of spares, the number used, and the number remaining spares.
Disk Warrior for one, writes the SMART data to system.log Other programs can also read and report (not sure which if any write to system.log though) those field values from SMART table entries.
IF the number of spares is declining, time to replace. Trouble is OS X hasn't had a good record of reporting I/O errors, let alone remapping. Some 3rd party utilities will. I've found the vendor (WD, Hitachi etc) have the best utility for their own drives, but those are Windows programs or LinuxCD. Also the best way to zero and map out bad sectors, too.

Does the "Zero Out Data" feature in Disk Utility map out bad sectors/blocks?

I would like a definite answer on this one. I have heard that is does and that it doesn't.

Yes it does.
The way it works is this, your drive normally tries to write to sectors and if it can't write to one or more, then it writes someplace else and maps the bad sectors off in the driver software.
That's how it's supposed to work.
What I believe what happens is drives are made, but not checked for bad sectors at the factory as this is a considerable time consuming process.
So when a computer comes down the line, it's hard drive is just injected factory style the data it needs right on the drive, over bad sectors and everything.
Now it could be that, and or it could be the result of time and the drive sitting and being shipped. Normally the heads are locked.
Whatever, if you move a drive while the heads are over the platters, they can strike the platters and cause data loss from bad sectors. So it's important not to move or jar the computer while the hard drive is spinning, why Mac's have Sudden Motion Sensors built in.
So, if data is laid over bad sectors, or one has possibly damaged their drive slightly and the data on it, could result in glitchy or unexplained behavior.
Large files like video that take much space on the drive are more likely to encounter bad sectors and thus become incomplete when read later.
What the Disk Utility > Erase with Zero option does, is it tries to write 0's to EVERY BIT on the drive. A sector is made up of bits, 1's and 0's so this method ensures every bit is checked if it can be written too or not.
If a sector fails, then it's mapped off, never to be written too again.
When one places their data on the drive after a Zero, it's on 100% reliable bits and sectors. Thus there is less chance of file corruption when it's read later.
A video production guy told me this little trick as they have huge files so thus needed very reliable data retention and recovery.
I've been using this technique with all new drives for decades now and it's worked for me, unless I forget to do it.
Like anything, others may not require perfection. Regular users with small files all the time likely will lose a file here and there and go about living with it.
Big files are a different story obviously. So optional, not mandatory.
If your confident you can reinstall your operating system, then that's one thing, but if your not, then don't bother.

How do I check for bad sectors on the hard drive? (Need help soon!)

I've asked this in a different thread but am not getting exactly the question answered completely. I need to run a check on my drive that will test each sector and if a bad sector is found, it will block that sector from being written to with data in the future.
I used to use Disk First Aid or Apple HD Setup or Norton Utilities to do this. Norton does not appear to be made for Mac OSX 10.4.4 and those other utilities appear to be System 9 and earlier utilities only.
Is there some way of doing this with current Apple tools? My original post is at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1592160#1592160
Thank you. I've been down since Saturday and really need to get an answer so I can move forward and get my computer back up and running.

There is only one way to do this. Make a bootable backup of your drive to an external Firewire drive (you can use the Restore option of Disk Utility.) Then do the following:
1 Boot from your Tiger DVD. After the installer loads select Disk Utility from the Utilities.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
By reformatting using the Zero Data option DU will force checking for bad blocks.
If you wish to forego the above procedure you can purchase TechTool Pro (v. 4.1.1) which has a module for scanning the disk for bad blocks. However, repairing the drive can only be done by reformatting.

How do I "segregate" bad sectors on my hard drive so OSX won't access them?

I have a bad section on one of my hard drive partitions.
Is there a way to scan the disk, identify the bad sectors, and not use those areas for data storage?
Thanks
Len

I don't think it's worth it. Hard drive technology automatically remaps bad sectors to an internal set of spare sectors. Only when that remap buffer overflows do you start to get write errors to bad sectors (read problems are a different story, as the drive diagnoses the problem and will give back corrupted data even if it's remapped).
What this means that if the drive has started showing bad sectors, it has become highly unreliable and will die imminently. I'd reccomend backing up all of the data you have, and either having applecare replace your hdd or buy a replacement online and follow the instructions on removing your hard drive (see www.ifixit.com) from your ibook, reinstall OSX etc.
If you absolutely must continue using that drive, you can try the program suggested, but in all likelyhood more bad blocks will keep occuring, forcing reinstalls of software, lost data, failure to boot properly etc.
Phil

Problem with recovering data from Bit Locker enabled hard disk with bad sectors

Hi,
I have Lenovo T430 laptop with Windows 7 and Bit Locker enabled hard disk. While working I encountered blue screen error multiple times. After some time, the laptop stopped to boot by itself and started showing error 'A disk read write error has occurred.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart' message. I tried to connect the hard disk to a different PC as a secondary drive and tried to check the disk to recover the data. The 500 GB disk is showing as unallocated space and I am not sure how to recover the
data from the hard disk. Appreciate your help to recover the data from corrupted hard disk.
I used the Lenovo Diagnostics tools available in BIOS and it showed 48 bad sector errors on the hard disk. I also used Windows 7 CD and tried auto repair but it looks like it didn't do anything.
Thanks in advance!

Hi SenneVL,
Since there are 48 bad sectors on your hard disk, this means the system can not boot any more, the data might not be restored in a normal way, you'd better turn to data restore company for help.
Regards
Wade Liu
TechNet Community Support

A135-S2326 replacing hard drive (bad sectors) Need advice and opinions Please

Hi, (note pic below of my computers actual specs from this morning)
I have a Satellite A135-S2326. It has the max memory at 2GB, it came with 512 and I upgraded to 2GB. It runs Windows Vista Home Edition...
Anyhow, it accidentally fell off my bed a few days ago (darn dogs) and damaged my hard drive. Boot problems, errors, bad sectors, etc. I have tried everything to fix and to no avail. While I am currently using it I know I need to replace the hard drive ASAP before I can't turn it on at all one day... I am now saving all my files and stuff I need off of it to an external drive. The laptop did not come with a windows Vista restore CD so I am using Acronis software to make an image of the hard disc, hopefully it will work and I won't have to purchase my own copy of windows Vista.
Some questions I have are:
1.) Is it possible to upgrade the hard drive to a faster one / better one when I replace?
     The hard drive that came preinstalled is a Hitachi HTS541680J9SA00 80GB, which I believe from spec's documentation is a 5400RPM Serial- ATA ???
     What is the max size I can get for replacement and what is the max RPM, or do I HAVE to use a 5400RPM???
     What do you suggest?
2.) I have a copy of windows XP Professional w/SP2. Is it possible to put this windows XP Pro.w/SP2 on a fresh hard drive in the Satellite A135-S2326? If so, is there a different hard drive that I must have to do that? Also if an XP install is possible on a new hard drive, which drivers must I have for this laptop when I do it??
3.) And finally, could this laptop handle windows 7 business? Only asking because I can get a VERY cheap copy of windows 7 business from my school...I'm in college at DeVry and can get a copy of Windows 7 delivered to my door in 2 weeks for less then $30.00. So thought that MAY be an option....??? Not sure if my other spec's can handle it though???
4.) What would you suggest I do with the options I have, what is best thing to do in your opinion??
      Please see pic below of my actual computers specs from this morning, using Belarc Advisor...
Thank you in advance
Any help is GREATLY appreciated
Urgently waiting replies,
Tina from Florida
(tinafromflorida)
Computer Profile Summary
Computer Name:
Beanersputer (in MSHOME)
Profile Date:
Monday, September 21, 2009 9:29:54 AM
Advisor Version:
7.2x
Windows Logon:
nello
Operating System
System Model
Windows Vista Home Basic Service Pack 2 (build 6002)
TOSHIBA Satellite A135 PSAD6U-01800D
System Serial Number: 37334232K
Enclosure Type: Notebook
Processor a
Main Circuit Board b
1.60 gigahertz Intel Celeron M 520
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Board: TOSHIBA IAYAA 1.00
BIOS: TOSHIBA V1.20 03/06/2007
Drives
Memory Modules c,d
78.45 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
13.51 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
MAT**bleep**A DVD-RAM UJ-850S ATA Device [CD-ROM drive]
Hitachi HTS541680J9SA00 [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n SB2204SGCULZ6E, rev SB2OC7DP, SMART Status: Healthy
1918 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'J401' is Empty
Slot 'J400' has 2048 MB
Local Drive Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0)
78.45 GB
13.51 GB free
Network Drives
None detected
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last logon
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9/21/2009 9:17:22 AM
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You can use ANY 2.5" SATA hard drive of any size in that system. I would recommend one of the Western Digital Scorpio BLue's as they are reliable and offer good performance.
If it runs Vista it will run Windows 7. I would wait a bit before trying Win7 though as Toshiba hasn't released all of the Windows 7 drivers yet.
As for Windows XP, while it is possible to install XP on that system (and quite easily for that matter) Toshiba doesn't provide any of the XP drivers needed to get it to run properly. You could determine all of the various chipsets the system uses and go to each chipsat manufacturer's support site to see if they provide an XP driver to get it working, but I don't guarantee that they have all of the needed drivers. If you do decide to go ahead with this let me know and I'll post the directions for installing XP onto a SATA hard drive that doesn't ahve a floppy drive.
Right now your best choice is to replace the old hard drive and restore the system from your Acronis image. When ALL of the Windows 7 drivers become available you could install it in a dual boot configuration to determine if you prefer it or not. It is both a step up and a step back from Windows Vista. Some people will like it while others won't. Only you will be able to determine which you prefer.
If you don't post your COMPLETE model number it's very difficult to assist you. Please try to post in complete sentences with punctuation, capitals, and correct spelling. Toshiba does NOT provide any direct support in these forums. All support is User to User in their spare time.

Loose harddrive when upgraded / possibly causing bad sectors

Hello,
Just recently I upgraded my hard drive (2.5in. Western Digital Scorpio Blue: 640 GB) and put my files on it, set up boot camp, ect…, but then my computer was acting funny (errors, slow performance, stalling) on the second week I used my computer (mostly on my windows side). So I ran some disk checking software (Drive Genius 3) and it found 50+ bad sectors on my hard drive and growing. So before I replace my hard drive I want to find out why my hard drive went bad so quickly. After thinking about it, I noticed my hard drive was loose when I installed it, I tried using the mounts that came with my computer, but they didn’t secure it. So if anyone has any ideas about how to properly secure the drive or what can be causing it to have bad sectors, please let me know.
Thanks in advance
Message was edited by: RobWoo

Sounds like you got a bad hard drive. Sometimes hard drives fail prematurely / unexpectedly. That's why it is good to regularly backup your files. If you got it as recently as implied in your post, the hard drive should be covered by the manufacturer's warranty.
As far as physically mounting the hard drive in your computer, you should look at the repair guides on ifixit.com. The hard drive should be seated securely. If it wiggles around you probably did something wrong (ie didn't reattach the mounting screws). See the following link:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/MacBook-Unibody-Model-A1278-Hard-Drive-Replac ement/816/3

I tried to run BootCamp on my new macbook pro, but i could not partition because of an apparent bad sector

I tried to run BootCamp on my new macbook pro, but i could not partition because of an apparent bad sector.
I reformatted the macbook, but the mac could not even boot up Mac OS Lion.
As such, I had to go down to my retailer and reinstall Lion.
What exactly went wrong?

When I tried to bootcamp a few days ago, the partition could not work.
My technician told me that there is a bad sector.
So he reformatted, and Lion disaappeard. There was no O.S at all.
I went down to my retailer just now.
They ran a system check on the RAM, and the HDD.
They did not find any bad sector, and everything was okay.
They reinstalled Lion and now its okay again
But I'm afraid to try and bootcamp again because they same thing might happen?

B570 600GB HDD with bad sectors (Recovery issue)

Hi,
I run into a series issue.
some facts before:
*The 600GB HDD has bad sectors (checked with WD test tool-boot cd)
*The bad sectors are only on the beginning of the physical drive (D partition and LENOVO_PART are intact and fully readable)
*Managed to recover most of the data of C drive (With restorer 2000)
*Managed to clone the D partition and LENOVO_PART to a new 500GB HDD
I can't seems to find a way to use the tiny recovery button, its failing and asking me to boot from cd.
Don't have any of B570 model but I tried to use a recovery cd of T410 to boot. but I can't see any restore partition.
Only cd recovery option.
Any help on how to recover from the cloned recovery partition will be great.
Thanks!

hi get2guy,
Welcome to the Lenovo Forums.
The OneKey Recovery button will only work if the partition structure of the system is not damage. On the new HDD that was cloned with the D-Drive and the OEM Recovery Partition, try to
1. Create a bootable Gparted USB/CD and boot from it
2. On the User Interface, set the OEM Recovery Partition as Active/Boot/Primary
3. Reboot and remove the Gparted USB/CD and see if it boots the recovery partition as shown in this article.
If the above procedure doesn't work, you will need to reinstall the OS using a retail OS or use a lenovo recovery discs (if you were not able to create one using this method then you will need to contact lenovo on how to obtain a copy of the B570 recovery discs).
Hope this helps
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Need to backup NTFS drive with bad sectors and restore to new drive

So far what I've tried is downloading clonezilla and I've tried a drive to drive clone, what this resulted in was the new drive thinking it had bad sectors just like the old. SO since each time I attempt this it eats 2-3 hours of my time and I have to leave soon to go back to school, I don't exactly have all the time in the world; what is the recommended course of action here?
What i've been reading up on is possibly doing a clone to image file? From what I understand a clone to image will not copy over bad sectors (there is very small amount in this drive at this time, not worried about a massive amount of corrupted files) and instead just leaves the files that existed in the sectors corrupted on the new drive. Is this true? How do I go about this correctly so I can successfully re-image to my new drive?
Would like to note I'm trying to backup the entire DRIVE, not just the main partition, boot sector and all.
edit:
Before anyone suggests running chkdsk /r /f in windows I've done this, partition is still giving me reports of bad sectors. This gives me the idea this drive is on its way out and I'm trying to limit my attempts at cloning the entire thing at this point so I dont further my problem, someone has had to have delt with this before?
Last edited by whaevr (2014-02-10 00:14:33)

I've had good success with dd_rescue in the past. The default behavior of dd_rescue is to skip sectors it cannot read (see the man page for a more precise explanation of its behavior). However, it's fairly simple minded, and requires manual intervention if you want to try to maximize the amount of data you recover.
It seems the new hotness is ddrescue, a gnu project apart from dd_rescue which provides a number of improvements. Most notably, It seems to imbue dd_rescue with greater levels of sophistication to make it capable of recovering more data with greater levels of efficiency, reducing strain on the failing drive.
If I were to recover a drive now, I'd probably give ddrescue a whirl.
Hope this helps.
Last edited by hezekiah (2014-02-10 04:28:19)

HDD Bad Sectors question...

It happened like 3 months ago I had to shut down (via force shutdown i.e. holding the power button for over 3 seconds) my Mac after the system became un responsive during an empty trash operation. Then while running apple software update Windows (running Windows via bootcamp) it also locked up (it like completely froze no mouse movement at all). I would like to know if that created a bad sector in my HDD by doing this forced shutdown procedure. I reinstalled Mac OS X just to avoid any problems down the road after the forced shutdown.
Again the question is: Does a forced shutdown can create a bad hard drive sector?
Also, is there a way to recover bad HDD sectors? Disk Utility perhaps?
Thank You for your time.

Kappy wrote:
Snow Leopard's installer is smart. If a system is already present the installer does not erase the drive but installs a fresh system, moves all your stuff into the new system then removes the old one. To erase the drive you must first run Disk Utility from the installer's Utilities menu and use it to erase the drive.
The hard drive and the fans are both starting up at the same time. You may be hearing the fans and not the drive. If you're sure it's the drive making the noise but you don't hear more noise all the time, then it may be nothing. If you are hearing a sort of chirping noise coming from the drive that could be a sign of mechanical failure.
When you open Disk Utility and select your drive's main entry in the sidebar you will get the SMART status reported in the DU status area. If it doesn't say "verified' then the drive is failing. You can also run hardware diagnostics to check:
How to run hardware diagnostics for an Intel Mac
Boot from your original OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer. After the chime press and hold down the "D" key until the diagnostic screen appears. Run the extended tests for a minimum of two or three hours. If any error messages appear note them down as you will need to report them to the service tech when you take the computer in for repair.
Some "common" error indicators:
SNS - sensor error
MEM - memory error
HDD - hard disk drive error
MOT - fan error
Just to clear myself up. When I clicked the "erase" (in Disk Utility) button when I reinstalled OSX 3 months ago on my MacBook Pro, it said in the Disk Utility Progress bar un-mounting image, it took like two minutes. Then I went to install OSX and I had to reinstall iLife, and the rest of my third party apps, so that's why I think I did a clean reinstall.
However, this question of bad sectors came to be because one close friend of mine told me that I damaged my HDD by doing the hard shutdown method (Power button 3-second hold), which of course concerned me. I think I might go ahead and do the zero out disk option when I do reinstall OSX again in the future. As far as disk utility goes, it says that my SMART status is "veryfied" I did also used OnyX SMART status veryfication and it turned out to be ok. I think that I am best off keep using my MacBook Pro until it requires a new OS reinstall or an HDD failure.

Migrating from HDD with bad sectors to SSD

My mid-2010 Macbook pro running OSX 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) has been extremely slow. It passes Disk Utility's Verify Disk step but when I brought it to the Apple store, it failed the diagnostic tests they ran with their ethernet cable. There were bad sectors detected and they figured this was what was slowing me down.
So I decided to switch to an SSD but I have questions about how to restore my files. I tried cloning my HD to an external drive with both Disk Utility's restore and using asr on the command line. In both cases I get an error at the very end
"Checksum failed. Could not restore - cannot allocate memory"
I'm still able to boot from the external drive that was created though. I was also (recently) able to create a Time Machine backup with no error messages. So my question is
1. What is the best way to restore my files?
a) Using the (possibly corrupt) HD clone
b) reinstalling from the OSX Installation DVD and restoring with Time Machine
c) Something else like Carbon Copy Clone

montburns,
Only by doing file-by-file examination against a known good copy, or relying upon a batch process which generates a “I couldn’t copy these” file list (and in the latter case, presuming that the list is due solely to bad sectors).
It means i) — either to put your internal drive in an external enclosure, or to attach it to a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter, then connecting it to the appropriate external port, and then using Startup Manager to select it as the boot drive.
If you have appropriate software, you could, but I’m not familiar with what’s available on OS X — I hope that other people can offer a list of apps from which you could choose.
Between ddrescue and rsync, I’d choose ddrescue for copying from a potentially faulty disk. To my knowledge, rsync will just copy whatever it finds; but if it creates a list of “I couldn’t copy these” files, then that could be a way to find out where bad sectors might be having an effect.

Remapping Bad Sectors on a Drive

Remapping bad sectors - back in the days of SCSI drives - you were able to do what was called a " low level format " which would in effect remap bad sectors on the drive.
I don't see a way to do this with newer software such as disk utility etc.
Example: a friend of mine accidentally tripped the cord to his hard drive in the middle of the drive writing to the disk. Of course this is bad. Remapping the bad sectors would insure that the drive was working properly and not use any potential bad sectors.
Q: How can we remap bad sectors on today's ata and sata drives?
Thanks in advance for your help - RevDave

I don't know if it's anywhere in Apple's documentation, but it's a standard technician practice for that purpose. Here's what Dr Smoke says about it in his X Lab site:
The process of erasing a disk, partition, or volume by writing zeros to every bit on such is called zeroing. Zeroing finds bad sectors and maps them out of service, also known as sparing. When an attempt to write zeros to bad sectors fails, the bad sectors are both marked as occupied in the directory and added to the bad blocks file of the file system. Once the bad sectors have been spared, no attempt will ever be made to read-from or write-to them again.
Matt
2.5GHz|3.5GB G5, 1.5GHz|512MB PB12, iSight, 4G iPod Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Bad sector in Boot block

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