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Free Image Format ConversionWD (Western Digital) hard drives are among the most popular in the world. Bad sectors on the disk, especially on a WD My Passport external hard drive, can lead to disk crashes or failures, performance degradation, data loss disasters, and system booting issues, etc. If your WD HDD has bad sectors, it can be very troublesome and annoying.
Read this guide to learn how to check bad sectors on Western Digital hard drive and replace WD HDD without losing data. Also, three simple WD HDD repair tools and solutions are introduced to fix damaged WD HDD effectively.
| Method | Effect | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Perform Low-Level Format | Moderate - Adjusts the disk layout and structure but inevitably leads to severe data loss. | ⭐⭐ |
| Replace the Bad Sector WD Hard Drive with a New One | High - Clones the bad sector hard drive to a new one without any data loss. | ⭐ |
Recommended reading: "WD Clone Software"
Part 1: How to Check Bad Sectors on WD Hard Drive
When your WD hard drive has bad sectors, the first thing you need to do is get a sense of how bad the situation is. You'll want to check for bad sectors.
There are free utilities you can use to scan your hard drive for bad sectors. Pick one and see how many bad sectors your drive has.
1. Use a Free Partition Manager to Check Bad Sectors on WD Hard Drive
Trusted and recommended by millions of users, the "AOMEI Partition Assistant Free" with its "Surface Test" feature can detect bad sectors on hard drives, USB flash drives, USB sticks, SD cards, and other storage devices without formatting them. By scanning the hard drive, the "Surface Test" function can identify bad sectors.
Step 1: Launch Partition Assistant, right click the disk which you want to check and then choose “Surface Test”.
Step 2: The scan starts immediately, and any bad sectors found will be highlighted in red.
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Upon detection of bad sectors, it will mark them in red and prohibit the operating system from using these sectors, thus protecting your saved data. From the test result, you can know how many bad sectors exist on your WD hard drive.
- Caution:
- If there are too many bad sectors, the scan might freeze. Please wait patiently.
- If the hard drive makes unusual noises during inspection or shows other severe issues, it is recommended not to clone a data-containing hard drive.
2. Use Western Digital Data Lifeguard to test for bad sectors
Many users mistakenly regard Western Digital Data Lifeguard as a bad sector repair tool since it can test existing bad sectors on WD HDD and other types of storage devices.
Its Extended Test is actually only for bad sectors detection, and the test may take hours depending on the size of the disk (it's not as efficient as Partition Master).
Step 1. Download the Data LifeGuard Diagnostics tool (WinDlg_124.zip) and extract WinDlg.exe from the ZIP file.
Step 2: Right-click on WinDlg.exe and select Run as administrator.
Check the “I accept this agreement” box and click “Next” to proceed. This will allow the program to scan your computer for installed hard drives.
Step 4: Select and highlight the hard drive you want to test, and click the “Run Test” button.
Step 5 In the DLGDIAG, select [Options], then choose [EXTENDED Test].
Use Western Digital Data Lifeguard to detect bad sectors
Step 6: Click “Start,” and wait for the test to finish.
Step 7: Close the test window, and then click “View Test Results” in the new pop-up.
Part 2: How to Fix Bad Sectors on WD Hard Drive Without Losing Data
After the scan, choose different handling methods according to the number of bad sectors.
- Tip
- If the bad sectors on your hard drive aren't affecting its performance and you don't plan on replacing it immediately, you can back up your important data to another device first. Then try fixing the bad sectors with one of these tools. However, be aware that some of them might cause data loss.
1. Perform a low-level format on the WD HDD to fix bad sectors
If bad sectors on a WD hard drive are detected, you can attempt to use low-level formatting to remove or repair the bad sectors. This will regenerate the disk layout and structure. However, it's not recommended as it leads to significant data loss, and it's not a procedure that ordinary users should attempt, as it can result in severe data loss.
The best solution to this problem is to replace the faulty WD drive with a good one, as recommended below. However, if you insist, back up your data to another drive first, then take the disk to a local repair shop or the manufacturer for a low-level format.
2. Replace a Western Digital hard drive with bad sectors with a new one
If the disk is severely damaged, bad sectors cannot be repaired. In this case, the sensible option is to replace the problematic WD hard drive with a new one.
To avoid data loss, we suggest you use a powerful hard drive cloning software - Disk Copy to help clone WD HDD to the new one for hard drive replacement. This powerful disk cloning tool enables you to clone a bad sector hard drive, clone unbootable hard drive, clone HDD to M.2 SSD, and so on. Besides, you can easily and quickly migrate Windows 10 from HDD to SSD without losing data with it.
Video tutorial on hard drive cloning
For disk cloning, the video has listed all the details you need to mention. Watch the video tutorial to learn how to replace a bad Western Digital hard drive with a good one.
Before cloning a Western Digital drive with bad sectors to a new, good one, make sure the healthy drive is connected to your computer as a storage device. The utility Disk Copy will bypass bad sectors and copy just the readable data to the new drive.
Step 1: Download, install, and run the Disk Copy utility on your computer.
Click “Disk Mode,” then select the hard drive you want to copy or clone. Click “Next” to continue.
Step 2: Select the target disk.
Note: If you're copying or cloning a hard drive, the target disk should be the same size or larger than the source disk.
Step 3: Check and edit the disk layout.
If your target disk is an SSD, check the “Target is SSD” option.
If prompted, confirm that you want to erase the data on the target disk.
Step 5: Click “Continue” to start the hard drive cloning process.
Just wait for the process to finish. You can apply and activate this software to help you upgrade and clone a hard drive with bad sectors and recover data as much as possible.
When the cloning is complete, shut down your computer, install the upgraded drive into your computer in place of the original Western Digital drive, and configure your BIOS settings to boot from the new drive rather than the old one. You should then be able to see all your important data intact.
Part 3: 3 Best WD Hard Drive Repair Tools and Solutions to Fix a Damaged HDD
Bad sectors on a hard drive refer to physically damaged areas that can't be repaired. However, logical damage to a WD HDD caused by issues like a corrupted file system can be fixed. Here are three methods to repair a damaged WD HDD.
1. Run a disk check in File Explorer
Step 1: Open File Explorer and right-click on the WD hard drive partition. Select “Properties.”
Step 2. Click the Tools tab and then click the Check button at the top. In the Error Checking dialog, click on "Check for errors" and then "Scan drive" or "Repair errors" for the drive you want to check.
Bad sector in disk check
2. Run the CHKDSK command and format the hard drive
Step 1: Run the CHKDSK command to repair soft bad sectors.
- 1. Press the Windows key, then type **cmd**.
2. Right-click "Command Prompt," then choose "Run as administrator."
3. Type **chkdsk E: /f /r /x** and press ↵ Enter. (Replace "E" with the letter of your hard drive.)
Step 2: Format the hard drive for reuse
- 1. Open File Explorer on Windows and right-click on your hard drive.
2. Select "Format," reset the file system to NTFS, check the "Quick Format" box, and then click "Start."
3. Use an Alternative CHKDSK Tool – Free Partition Master
The "Check File System" tool is a free alternative to the CHKDSK command. You can also use this feature to fix logical bad sectors on a WD HDD.
Please refer to the full guide on how to use a partition management tool's check file system feature to fix a corrupted WD HDD.
In sum
This page mainly discusses how to check bad sectors on WD hard drive and how to fix bad sectors on WD hard drive.
- • You can detect bad sectors by using the Surface Scan tool in Partition Master or running the “Extended Test” in Western Digital Data Lifeguard.
• To protect your hard drive from bad sectors and prevent data loss, it's recommended that you clone the hard drive and replace the WD hard drive with a good one.
Lastly, you will learn three useful methods to fix a corrupted hard drive by checking and repairing the damaged file system. Hopefully, these guides will come in handy.
Frequently Asked Questions About Western Digital Hard Drive Repair Tools
1. Can chkdsk fix bad sectors?
Chkdsk can scan your hard drive and just report on it, or it can scan the disk and fix any bad sectors or file problems. Issues with the Windows file system are called file errors. A part of the hard drive that can no longer save data is called a “bad sector.”
2. What is Bad Sector on HDD?
Brand-new hard drives can also come with a few harmless bad sectors due to manufacturing defects, and over time, bad sectors can increase due to head crashes, wear and tear, physical damage, or ingress of dust.
3. Can formatting HDD fix bad sectors?
Bad sectors on a hard drive cannot be repaired by formatting. The areas on a hard drive referred to as "bad sectors" are physically damaged or malfunctioning, and they cannot be fixed by formatting the drive.