Hard drive acces methods - Is possible to read less than 512

Hi everyone (again)

A quick question about hdd access methods for you brainers: :cool:

When mhdd or pc3k detects a bad sector, they detect an lba sector, correct? If so, this means that all 512 bytes in that sector become marked as bad.

Is there a way to read just the good bytes inside the 512 sector and discard the bad ones? Or hdd access protocol (ata) does not allow reading/writing of less than 512 bytes?

Thanks to all

Regards,

-=pc3krules=-

I am a noobie so don't put too much stock in what i say now!

From my research, the whole sector is bad, unless you were grouping sectors together like some old and hush hush OS's, say 1024 or 2048 sectors, then i think it would work.

My research can conflict each other, at times. I read that the sector is dead forever, and other reading say it is a data issue and once the data is cleared it is ok, then why the read errors?

Well i have typed enough, i will crawl back into my little hole.

ME!