An error on a drive is not always a 'bad sector'.. most of the time the the errors are just in the file allocation tables, not physical parts.. In any drives that I have had that had bad sectors, these sectors were unrecoverable, and usually due to a sharp drop or something causing damage to the platter itself.
You won't cause physical damage by just turning it off just as said in a previous post (I remember having to run the park utility on really old HDs.. ugh)..
Like I said, I have run my mp3 player in the car for a year and its always just shut down by pulling the plug.. no problems. *shrug*
|