I don't think I've ever seen a case where bad sectors were misreported.  Every time I've encountered this situation the drive has continued to deteriorate.

GRC's 'Spinrite' is supposed to be able to work magic with deteriorating hard drives but I've tried it several times and it's never worked for me.  Plus it costs about as much as a new drive.  It's amazing reputation seems to exist mainly in the mind of it's creator Steve Gibson.

If I were you I'd be looking to clone your ailing drive.  Drive2Drive is great for cloning W98 drives and it's cousin, Casper is excellent for XP.

Ian Porter
Computer Guys Inc.
Arrowtown
New Zealand
[log in to unmask]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: [log in to unmask] 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2003 6:49 PM
  Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] PCBUILD Digest - 10 Sep 2003 to 11 Sep 2003 (#2003-253)


  I'm hoping the problem I'm having is a software issue, rather than a hardware
  one. The OS is Win98SE (all updates) and I've encountered a problem with disc
  defrag. It hangs at 90% and informs me that it can't read a portion of my
  drive. Scan disc hangs near the end  of scanning sectors, and Norton System Works
  2002 does not open from the shortcut (although it will open in
  Start\Programs\System Works). I enabled a full scan on bad shutsown, hit the reset button
  and when in DOS, Scan Disc indicated there was a bad sector at the end of the
  drive. I haven't tried going through all of my programs and files, but at least
  one application hangs and forces a reboot. In addition, now the computer will
  not shut down. I suspect that the HDD is on the way out, but if I've
  overlooked something, any help would be appreciated. TIA.

  Chris Ryan

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