[GLLUG] Off Topic Hard Drive Question

[Mark Tarquini]

Question:

I have a laptop which I have determined has a hard drive with bad
clusters on it.  Can I partition around the bad clusters and only use
the partitions that do not have bad clusters?

The problem I'm running into is that Windows ME cannot copy it's setup
files to the HD when I run setup.  

Windows 2000 and XP completely lock up at random times.

At first I thought it was an over heating problem because there is a
loud screeching noise that comes from the laptop every once in a while,
so I thought either the bearings on the fan were going out or the hard
drive was bad.  

When I did a format from a DOS prompt today with Windows98 I said
something about counting bad clusters...

Eventually I will have to replace the hard drive, I assume, but in the
mean time, will my idea be a sufficient work around or will windows
still try to read those bad clusters even if they are unused partitions
without a file system on them?

Thanks a million.
-- 
Mark Tarquini <mark at iametarq.com>