What to do with Error Code 7 in Hard Drive Diagnostics

I started having program crashes (explorer, fifa, etc) a few days ago. Ran spyware checks and found nothing. Ran ScanDisk and found 4Kb in bad sectors (?). Ran Hard Drive Diagnostics at the boot menu which reported Error Code 7. Went to Utility Partition from boot menu and ran hard drive tests, which found a bad block.

I was going to buy a new HD since my PC's out of warranty, but came across someone's post recommending SpinRite v6, which IDs and puts away isolated bad areas of a hard drive.

I went to wikipedia's page on the program and saw a free alternative called Victoria. Unfortunately it doesn't offer English manual or help, only an English interface.

I didn't want to spend the money, so I tried the Windows version on hdd-911.com (if you use and can boot into Windows). Currently the latest version is 4.3beta, at http://hdd-911.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=docclick&Itemid=31&bid=79&limitstart=0&limit=15

To find the link yourself, use the Babelfish translation engine at http://babelfish.altavista.com/ to translate the page from "Russian to English" to find the download link. See the link called Files on the left of the page, currently the 3rd link in the menu. You'll have to remember the position of that link and go back to hdd-911 because Babelfish will mess up the file download link.

Now, start the program and click on the "Tests" tab. There's an area where you choose Ignore, Remap, Erase, and Restore.

I clicked Remap, then the Start button (in Victoria). The program found 3 bad blocks and remapped them so they aren't used anymore. You may want to try Recover instead which probably attempts to restore the data on the bad blocks.

Now all the diagnostic tests show the drive passing and without errors.

Of course, if these bad sectors keep popping up, your drive really is failing.