Hard Drive With BAD SECTORS HELP!

I suspect it's a WD drive due to a look at the specs showing a 640gb drive 5,400rpm model comes with it. WD has the 640gb as a rule for that particular size. HP Pavilion dm4-3099se Entertainment Beats Edition Notebook PC Product Specifications HP Pavilion dm4-3099se Beats Edition Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

If you have the bios option to disable the HP Logo screen even without any OS on the drive the post test screen would then be seen showing the make and model series number which could be WD, Seagate, or Intel being what it appears HP has been using for the last few years now.

The DBan tool wasn't the best option to wipe the drive with however. Eraser being an open source security tool or simply booting from a live cd like GParted, Partition Wizard, or any other free drive tools program would allow you to simply nuke the existing C primary to see two new fresh primaries for the dual boot you were planning.

The DiskPart clean is what some will point at as well but only if you have a 7 repair cd available. Windows 7 Repair and Recovery CD Download | The NeoSmart Files

ed123,

Now I have no idea what a hard disk regeneration program is but whatever it is, stop using it.

You have a Win 7 DVD.

All you need to do is:
Boot up from the win 7 dvd.
go to a command prompt
run diskpart,
prepare the hard disk

Now that was the overview:
Here comes the nitty gritty:

GO TO A COMMAND PROMPT USING YOUR WIN 7 DVD


Booting from a DVD/CD
On some computers, immediately after pushing the Power ON button, start tapping the F12 key and choose the option to boot from DVD/CD.

On some computers, this capability is assigned to another function key.

This is a one-time boot and doesn’t change your normal boot sequence.

If your computer doesn’t offer this capability, then you will need to boot into the bios and change the boot order there so that Boot from DVD/CD is the first choice.

You will need to consult your computer manufacturer’s documentation.

STEPS TO BOOT TO A COMMAND PROMPT USING A WIN 7 DVD
Ø Insert your Win 7 DVD into the optical reader
Ø Power down your computer.
Ø Power up your computer.
Ø Boot from the Win 7 DVD using the procedure applicable to your computer.
Ø When the following is displayed on your screen,
press the key combo of SHIFT + F10.

Do NOT click on Next.
Press the SHIFT + F10 key combo.

You will have a X:\Sources> command prompt.
X: is a ram drive created by Windows 7.
X: contains a mini-version of Windows 7 called a PE (pre-execution environment).

If you do not plan on installing windows at this time, you may now remove the DVD.

If you plan on continuing with an install, then do not remove the DVD.

Execute the desired commands.
Use the EXIT command to return to the Win 7 installation procedure.

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Here are the desired commands

Script:

 USE THE DISKPART PROGRAM TO “CLEAN” THE HARD DISK
  Type the commands shown, hitting the Enter key after each.
   
  Do not proceed to the next command until the current command is finished.
   
  ·        DISKPART (the command prompt will change to DISKPART>)
  ·        LIST DISK (this will list the disks present)
  ·        SELECT DISK 0 (assuming disk zero is the desired hard disk)
  ·        DETAIL DISK (this will show you info regarding the disk you selected)
  ·        CLEAN ALL (this is the command to write zeros to entire disk)
This can take half a day for a 2 Terabyte disk.
  ·        EXIT (this will exit you from the DiskPart program)
  ·        EXIT (this will exit you back to the Windows 7 install program) 


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Now that clean all is going to take some time, however, in your case the clean all is necessary. Any bad spots will be marked as such and not used by the Win 7 install program.


Since you may have bad sectors, then that CLEAN ALL is a necessity.


have fun, karl

First off did you create a set of recovery disks for seeing 7 put back on? Or you would need to borrow someone else's 7 dvd for the same edition if you are without an OS.

Generally the recovery disk set or fresh clean of 7 will tend to skip around a few bad sectors the installer detects on a drive. At least MS has had one smart thing in each version's installer for several versions now. The report on a bad sector could also be simply a drive error where if you still had 7 running you would simply schedule a run of the Check Disk tool.

As far as what to do next depends on what options you have to see the drive running with 7 again. If you keep the recovery partition intact you still be able to download the recovery disk creator tool from HP in order to see 7 put back on. First you will want to nuke the present C volume and start off with a fresh primary as well as get around any bad sector. That will eliminate any present errors with the existing C primary you were trying to remove.