I just had a few problems with my laptop's internal HDD a few weeks back; and not had to re-install the OS (incl. reformat etc).

I'm still a bit concerned about getting bad-sectors, and don't want to lose any data; can anyone recommend a good app, that will scan my HDD and report any bad sectors, maybe mark then as bad too, so they don't get used.

Cheers,

Hi Waldo, i would recomend that you go to the hard drive manufacturers website they always have diagnostic tools and i find that the manufaturers tools are the best to use

Mr Radish

Replace the hard drive with a similarly-sized one and use the original in an external housing for backup purposes - ideally cloning your original onto it and then doing incrementals - a number of applications offering this facility. Having said that I'd not use a suspect drive for anything other than transferring data from place to place.

Run CHKDSK /R at the command prompt then reboot your machine.

I had a damaged hdd and used all sorts of tools and each one I used caused more and more bad sectors each time I used it, in the end I just said to myself "screw it" and copied all the data off, luckily I managed to get all of it.

That is always the first thing you should do, programs to check for bad sectors can often cause more.