What are bad sectors on my hard drive?

Yesterday I scanned my hard drive and the final mesage was " 4.096 Mb in BAD SECTORS". I defragmented my hard drive, but it didn't find or show any bad sectors. What is going on? Do I have bad sectors or not? If so, what can I do?

Thank you.

This question was answered on May 4, 2002. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Depending on how you answered the ScanDisk questions and how damaged the sectors were, Scan Disk may have repaired any bad sectors Your ScanDisk tool may also be configured to automatically repair any bad sectors that are found

When you defrag your hard drive, it basically relocates particular files to locations that are faster and easier to access The files that are relocated are files that your computer uses to launch applications, perform certain tasks, etc These changes are all internal within your operating system, so you will not even know that anything has been changed, it's just something to help the operating system function more efficiently and quickly.

If you would like to learn more about this subject, there is an abundance of useful information on the Internet www.microsoft.com is one of the most popular sites, although there are many others You might try going to www.google.com and enter 'hard drive defrag' in the search window.

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Posted by Debbi of Chandler-Gilbert Community College on May 4, 2002

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