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Recovering Data from Bad Sectors

A bad sector in a hard disk drive is the unusable space on which data cannot be written; and if the data already exists, it cannot be read. Bad sectors in hard disk drive normally occur because of improper computer shutdown, which forces the platters of the hard disk drive stop abruptly, hence making them vulnerable to the scratches that may occur because of the friction of the read/write heads on them. Although there are rumors that bad sectors can easily be removed, the fact is that bad sectors can never be removed whatsoever. The third-party applications that are available in the market can only prevent the operating systems from scanning and reading the unreadable (bad sectored) areas of hard disk drives. Microsoft Windows 7, on the other hand, offers a built-in tool to recover the bad sectors. The built-in tool integrated in Microsoft Windows 7 does not repair the bad sectors of the hard disks, but it allows the operating system to recover the data that is stored in the bad sectors and is unreadable under normal situations. Administrators of a Windows 7 computer can retrieve data from the bad sectors by following the steps given below:

1. Log on to Windows 7 computer with administrator account.
2. Click Start, and from the menu click Computer.
3. On the opened window, right click on the partition (volume) from where the data has to be recovered, and from the context menu click Properties.
4. On the opened properties box, go to Tools tab and click Check now button under Error-checking section.
5. On the opened box, check Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors checkbox and click Start.
   

   Recover Data from Bad Sectors

6. On the appeared box, click Schedule disk check to schedule scanning and fixing process at the next time the system starts. (This only happens when the target drive is system drive, i.e. C: in most cases).

Compress Volumes to Save Hard Disk Drive Space

Although there are several third-party compression tools available in the market, Microsoft Windows 7 also provides a built-in file and folder compression feature that allows users to store files in zipped folder. A zipped folder is a container that stores several files and folders in it and compresses them before storing. Although this container is known as a zipped folder, technically it is a file that has .ZIP extension.

Apart from saving files and folders in a zipped container, Microsoft Windows also offers compression feature which allows administrators and users of the operating system to enable compression on per volume or files and folders basis. When this compression tool is used to compress objects, the color of the text of labels turns from black to blue. Because of the blue color, users can identify that that contents of the container are compressed. In order to enable compression, administrators and users must follow the steps given below:

1. Log on to Windows 7 computer.
2. Click Start, and from the menu click Computer.
3. On the opened window, right click on the volume (partition) which has to be compressed, and from the context menu click Properties.
4. On the opened properties box, make sure that General tab is selected, and check Compress the drive to save disk space checkbox.
5. Once checked, click OK button and on Confirm Attribute Changes box, ensure that Apply changes to the drive <drive letter> subfolders and files radio button is selected.
   

   Compress Files

6. Click OK button when done.

Note: Enabling compression on the volumes may decrease the read/write speed. However, the decreased speed is negligible and is almost transparent to the users.