bad sector


bad sector

[‚bad ′sek·tər] (computer science) An area of disk storage that does not record data reliably and therefore is not used.

bad sector

A segment of disk storage that cannot be read or written because of a physical problem in the disk. Bad sectors on hard disks are marked by the operating system and bypassed. If data are recorded in a sector that becomes bad, file recovery software, and sometimes special hardware, must be used to restore it.