Windows 7: Hard Drive diagnostics report bad sectors

Hello,

I am having serious corruption problems with my hard drive. I have reinstalled windows a few times now, but it always ends up being unable to boot. At the moment, my computer cannot even boot up in normal or safe mode, all my restore points have been deleted, and startup repair cannot do anything.

After backing up my data and running a test with the Seagate SeaTools diagnostics in DOS, it was reported that there were bad sectors found on my Hard Disk. But I actually can't use this software to repair the bad sectors tough since it's a Western Digital drive. Is there any software that I could download to repair these bad sectors, or am I going to have to replace the whole drive? Thanks.

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
4Gb Ram
AMD Phenom X II @ 3.7Ghz
2 x ATI HD 6870 in crossfire
1 TB HDD at 7200rpm

If you have used SeaTools, and the drive cannot be repaired by it, you will need to purchase a new drive. If you need to get data from this drive, it is POSSIBLE to use Knoppix (free) to view data and copy it.

If you have another PC go online to >>HERE<< and get WD Lifeguard diagnostics for DOS. They also have other tools that may help.

I would possibly be looking at a new HDD for my main drive. But given the cost of HDDs you may be able to use it for other purposes if the bad sectors are stable.

For WD try WD Lifeguard
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=113&sid=3〈=en
From a Windows 7 system repair DVD/CD
Run Chkdsk /f /r from a command prompt
Chkdsk
Then use CrystalDiskInfo to monitor bad sectors over time. I would say one or more a month - dump the HDD. PS: pulled that figure out of thin air - but it would make me uneasy.

Forget about repairing bad sectors - get a new HDD.

My understanding is that new HDDs can have bad sectors mapped out. I may be wrong here.
If you don't get another bad sector in say a 12 month period I'm not so sure dumping the HDD is needed.

An easy way to keep tabs on things - In CrystalDiskInfo you go
Function > Health Status Setting
then set Reallocated sector count to say 1 more than it is now. If you keep getting frequent Health Status warnings the HDD is clearly on the way out.