Solved can I rearrange partitions?

[windows 78]

Recently I have been having to reinstall windows 7 every 2 or 3 weeks.
I believe this is because the hard disk is now a few years old.
a programme I used showed that a couple of sectors at the beginning of the disk are/were corrupted. Chkdsk would fix them but problems and blue screens would keep ococcurring.
Money is tight, so a new hard drive isn't an option at the moment.
My question is can I swap the C and D drives around. The toshiba disk that I reinstall with sets the laptop up
like this :

(C drive )(D drive )

but partition programmes show this:

(Boot 400MB)(C drive )(D drive )

so if the problem part of the disk is at the front, can I swap the partitions around so it looks like this? :

(D drive )(Boot)(C drive ) or (D drive )(C drive )(Boot)

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm assuming that C, D, and boot are in fact just 3 separate partitions on the same drive--rather than separate drives.

Do you have any reason other than mere speculation that your sector problems are the reason you have to reinstall so often?

I don't think that the way partition programs display drives is necessarily an accurate representation of what comes first, second, or third on a disk---at least not in an accurate enough way that you could make assumptions about whether or not certain sectors would be included in certain partitions. What partition programs do you mean?

I'd generally be skeptical that your idea would help.

Does this disk fail SMART tests or is the number of bad sectors rising?

 

[windows 78]

Thanks for answering.

Yes, these are partitions not separate drives.

This is all speculation on my part. i used HD tune which showed damaged blocks before and still is following this most recent reinstall. crystaldiskinfo is showing caution warnings of Reallocated Sectors Count and Current Pending Sector Count, whatever these words mean.

Maybe I should just wait until things start going wrong this time, and work out why then. The most annoying thing is the cost of having to download all the windows updates every time I reinstall.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Disks ship with a certain number of spare unused sectors, which are brought in as need to replace failed sectors. Those warnings mean that you are starting to use up your spares, which will eventually run out. You should keep an eye on that reallocated sector count---once a drive starts to develop bad sectors, they tend to multiply.

I'd start saving for a new drive.

What may be happening is that your using checkdisk brings in some more spares, which solves the problem only temporarily because more sectors are going bad all the time--which causes more blue screens.

 

[windows 78]

Hmm. OK thanks.

 

[gregrocker]

Test your hard drive using the tools specified in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

Perhaps something is lacking in the install you're doing. Compare it with the perfect install in Clean Reinstall
Windows 7 which compiles everything that works best in tens of thousands of installs we've helped with here.

 

[paul1149]

You should be able to place the partitions wherever you want. If D is a factory recovery partition, though, you might lose that functionality if it's not sitting where the BIOS expects it to be. (You might still be able to boot from it manually, though, but really, a third-party system image is better than a factory reset if the system you're imaging is running well.)

What I would do is delete all partitions, create one new partition, and run chkdsk /r on it. Then go ahead with the restore. If D is recovery, I probably would forget about it and use the space for a system image. That way you won't have to go through all the updating again.

Also, you can get used HDDs pretty cheap on ebay.