[ArchiMage]

I think there's a series of steps you should take:
1. lo level format
2. fdisk and simple safe format from dos
ny this format you can see where the bad clusters are (more or less)
3. resize the disk using fdsik and format again to a safe area
4. install winxxx , pqmagic
5. using pqmagic resize the disk again to several disks bypassing the bad sectors
6. all of this is effective only if it isn't the boot(0) sector or the bad clusters are not taking wide spread and too large.
7.find the reason (if it's from careless transporting than it should help but if your hd is simply too old or has been unsealed then you should use a gun or your credit card to buy a new one :-) );
8. this should take about 3 h. of work (give or take 15 h.) .