Hi
Firstly, congrats on the new look website--it looks really great
My computer is XP Home Edition with 2 partitions.
Here is the partitioning: Partition 1:. under "volume" it is blank,. partition is NTFS 5.58Gb
FREE =671MB 11% FREE
Partition 2: C. partition NTFS 180.30 GB , 166.85gb FREE
92% free
Tonight I ran Acronis True Image and these were the results: Hard Disk=1. Drive letter=C
File System=NTFS
"OPERATION ERROR. UNABLE TO RESIZE PARTITION WITH BAD BLOCKS"
I really have no clue what this means and would appreciate your advise in repairing this "bad block" --if it is possible to repair.
I only have a recovery disk as Windows XP Home edition came preinstalled on my Sony Vaio.
Hope I have given you enough info
Merry Christmas to everyone.
Thanks

Hi Snoopy,

I know you were probably looking for an easy fix here, but it's not quite this simple. A "Bad Block" (or bad sector) is an area of disk that is damaged. Bad Blocks are often caused if the Hard Drive has taken a knock, overheating or early signs of hard drive failure.

The first thing you should do is check the disk, go to My Computer, and right click on your hard drive. Go to Properties, Tools tab, and under "Error-checking", click on Check Now. Tick both check boxes and then click on Start. You'll need to reboot for this and can take several hours.

Take a look at this site: Recovering Hard Disks with Bad Blocks | Hardware Secrets - However, I have found from personal experience that formatting a disk this way only really hides the real problem, and the problem can often return. Bad Blocks can cause data loss. In many cases, the only way to fully recover from bad blocks is to replace the disk itself.

If your looking for an alternative to resizing your partition without losing any data, the only way you'll be able to do it with those problems is to take an image of the disk first. Delete the partition and create a new one the size you want it, and then restore that image to the new partition.

Hi MadMomkey
Many thanks for your concise reply. I ran the check disc as you suggested. It ran all 5 checks and then rebooted itself. If there was a problem would it have fixed the errors or left a message as to what the errors were. ?
Thanks again

Just to throw my two cents in, I have run into this problem many times. A hard drive with bad blocks is not to be trusted, I second madmonkeys suggestion and replace your hard drive ASAP before you lose your data. Let us know how it works out.

The process was to confirm those errors more than anything, it would have displayed any errors on the screen during the check? The check can't actually fix the problem, but it does identify and mark that particular sector/block as bad, so that data isn't written to that area of the disk, which would most likely cause data loss. If your unsure about replacing the disk, I would regularly check the disk to make sure the problem is not getting worse.

You may be able to see the results of your check in Event Viewer. Go to My Computer, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer. Under the category of "Application", look for "WinLogon" under the field called "Source". The ones your looking for will appear immediately after "chkdsk".

Hi MadMonkey and Michael G
Thanks guys--appreciate your help.
I think the solution is to replace my Hard Drive. I shall have to do this eventually, so I may as well do it now. I obviously cannot backup my hard drive so will have to reformat the whole lot!! I hate computers when they go wrong!!!
Thanks' and Merry Christmas.
S