How to Recover Data from a Hard Drive with Bad Sectors

Updated by Tracy King on January 19, 2022 to Disk/Partition Clone | How-to Guides

"My Windows 10 computer is stuck in a Startup Repair loop. After some investigation, I found bad sectors, especially in System32. I want to retrieve data from the old hard drive. How can I recover data from a hard drive with bad sectors?"

What does “Bad Sector” Mean in Windows 10/8/7?

Bad sectors usually occur when the disk surface is physically damaged or there are issues with transistors. Typically, bad sectors on a hard drive or external storage device are either inaccessible or unwriteable. As the number of bad sectors on a hard drive increases, you stand to lose more data. The hard drive may even fail to work or operate normally.

Considering this feature of bad sectors, we highly recommend you back up data from the hard drive to a new storage device before the bad sectors spread and take over the whole hard drive.

Tip 1: Clone and copy hard drive data to a new one, skipping bad sectors

When your hard drive has bad sectors and fails to work properly, the direct solution is not to repair the existing bad sectors, but to clone the hard drive to a new secure one instead. Here we recommend you try a 100% effective disk cloning software - Disk Copy tool, which fully supports cloning all Windows system disks or upgrading hard drives with just a few simple clicks.

It can be used to clone the data from a hard drive without bad sectors to a new one. To ensure a higher success rate, we recommend creating a bootable disk in advance. You can start the operation by following the tutorial steps below:

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.”

Step 2: Select the target disk.

Note: If you are copying or cloning a source disk, the target disk should be at least as large as the source disk, or larger.

If prompted to erase the contents of the target disk, click OK.

Step 4. Check and edit the disk layout.

If your target disk is an SSD drive, make sure to check the “Target is SSD” option.

Step 5: Click “Continue” to start the hard drive cloning process.

If your hard drive is failing or won't boot at all, refer to How to Clone a Failed Hard Drive to a New HDD/SSD.

Tip 2: Recover Data from a Hard Drive with Bad Sectors

Another way to retrieve your data from a hard drive with bad sectors is to recover both existing and lost data to a secure disk or an external storage device.

The professional hard drive data recovery software - Data Recovery Wizard tool can find all existing and lost data from a bad sector hard drive. In addition, this data recovery utility can:

• Easily recover lost or deleted files, documents, photos, audio, music, emails, and more.
• Recover files from SD cards, emptied recycle bin, memory cards, and flash drives.
• Supports data recovery due to accidental deletion, formatting, hard drive failure, and virus attacks.

If the hard drive with bad sectors is still running on your computer, you can try to recover and retrieve data from it by following these steps:

Step 1: Select the disk where you lost data and click on “Scan”.

Select and scan the hard drive

Step 2. Once the scan is finished, use the "Filter" or "Search" option to look for the lost files.

Step 3. Select all the files you want to recover and click on “Recover.” Browse and choose a different secure location to save them.

If your hard drive is completely dead, refer to Recover Data from a Damaged External Hard Drive as a guide. The process is similar with an internal hard drive.

Additional Tip: How to Fix Bad Sectors on a Hard Drive

After cloning the drive and recovering your data, you can proceed to fix the disk by following these steps:

Download and install CleanGenius on your computer. Let's now start to scan and fix file system errors on the device.

Step 1: Click "File Display" to proceed to the next step.

Click to display the file as shown below：

Step 2. Select the target device and check the box next to “Check and repair file system errors.” Click “Proceed” to start fixing the problematic device.

Step 3: When the process is complete, click here to open and use your device.

Conclusion

Bad sectors on a hard drive can cause it to become completely inaccessible and lead to data loss. If your hard drive has some bad sectors, try the solutions in this article. The Disk Utility app makes it easy to fix hard drive errors.