"Arno Wagner" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message news:55qieeF25e4r5U4@mid.individual.net
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Jax <invalid@no-mail.com> wrote:
> > Home user with XP Pro.
>
> > I bought some 160 GB hard drives a couple of years ago and they got
> > filled up with data.
>
> > I have now migrated all the data off these 160 GB hard drives and will
> > now use the drives to hold backups.
>
> > QUESTION ---> As the HDDs are now empty is it worth writing zeros,
> > before using them again, in order to force the HDD to map out any
> > defective sectors?
>
> Not really needed, since if you write new data, this will happen anyways.
>
> > QUESTION --> Or will mapping out of any defective sectors happen
> > automatically when any bad sectors are next written to, which means it
> > is not worth writing the zeros?

> It will.

No, it won't for new bad sectors that have not been detected before.

> But you may want to run a long SMART selftest to find weak
> sectors before using the disks.
>
> Arno