Bad blocks on Toshiba HDD & Win10 OS probs

My 2 year old Toshiba notebook started taking 5 - 10 minutes to boot last week. The Windows 10 system log file reports dozens of Harddisk0\DR0 bad blocks. After the system boots the Windows menu doesn't open, though its context menu does. Programs launch from the taskbar, though the icon for Edge is gone. I'm able to run other programs pretty successfully by navigating to their executables.

I ran the copy of Data Lifeguard Diagnostic that came installed, but in less than an hour it aborted complaining it found too many bad sectors. I tried booting the most recent Ultimate Boot CD and running the utility from there, but maybe because I have to change UEFI boot to CSM boot in bios/setup in order to boot from an optical disk, the utility didn't find any compatible drives.

At this point I have a couple questions I'm hoping the good people here might be able to answer.

* Is anyone aware of a utility I can boot off of that might be able to scan and repair this Toshiba MQ01ABD100:TI1071800E HDD?

* And my hopes are not high for this one: Do you think there is any chance the OS can be repaired. I ran sfc /scannow, but it failed after 5 - 10 minutes,

After backing up some data, I now find Windows 10 wants to update on shutdown. I'm afraid that could make matters worse. I've googled for ways to shut down without applying the updates. The basic option "Shut down" isn't there on the Alt + F4 menu. And I'm not comfortable with deleting C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution. I'll just leave the system running and check back to see if anyone has a suggestion on this too.

Thanks for any feedback on all this.
O

@ohante, you need to face the fact that the hard drive is failing fast. The longer you use it, the more data you are going to lose. I hope you have nothing important/sentimental on that drive.

Bad blocks can't be repaired so there is no point in testing your only option is to get a new drive and do a clean install don't even try to clone the disk it will either fail or copy bad blocks to new drive you also don't know what files have been corrupted

Thanks so very much for everyone's feedback on this. This is about what I was expecting. The notebook is becoming more and more unusable... no surprise to anyone. There's no data on the drive that's of any real importance. I've backed up the few files and folders I do want to save.

So new HDD it is. Only problems there now will be:

1. Reinstalling Windows 10 if it requires a signature fro the existing HDD.
2. Reinstalling all the original driver & software that came with the notebook.

On the 2nd point, I'm guessing that's not going to be possible. The last Toshiba I bought back in 2006 had a system restore disk. This Toshiba didn't come with one. But I found the system restore disk for the old Tosh to be pretty useless when I did eventually have to use it.

So... I'll google it... but since there's so many very friendly and helpful folks hanging out here... maybe someone can point me to a URL with instructions on how to install a certified copy of Windows 10.

I did get the system to shut down without installing the updates from the ctrl-alt-delete > Shutdown menu.

Was up all night with this, so I'll be checking in later in the day for any further input from you kind folks.
O

swarfega said:

You should be ok just replacing a hard drive, if you choose i dont have the key, it should automatically activate.

Depending on the make of your notebook, the manufacturer should have all the drivers you need on their website.

Thanks for that swarfega. I have downloaded drivers from the Toshiba support site to re-install Windows Vista in the past and was pretty successful. My faith in Toshiba isn't what it was back in 1998 though.

swarfega said:

If they have something like a driver downloader program, install that too as it'l prompt you to update them.

Another good idea. Thanks