How To Repair Bad Blocks on a Hard Drive?

How To Repair Bad Blocks on a Hard Drive?

You can use the ‘CHKDSK’ command to repair and scan for bad blocks/sectors on a hard drive.

Below is the syntax and parameters that you can use with the “CHKDSK” command.

CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]]

volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
filename FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation
.
/F Fixes errors on the disk.
/V On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file
on the disk.
On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
/R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
(implies /F).
/L:size NTFS only: Changes the log file size to the specified number
of kilobytes. If size is not specified, displays current
size.
/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid
(implies /F).
/I NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
/C NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder
structure.

The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by
skipping certain checks of the volume.

e.g. chkdsk /f /r

One other thing I have learned as a Desktop Support specialist, is that sometimes, you have to physical remove the hard drive and connect it onto another computer for scanning. This is because sometimes bad sectors can occurred on the systems boot sector and it will corrupt the booting cycle which can prevent the computer from booting altogether.