> Hello all,
>
>   I have a NetBSD system which has a broken harddrive. I'm just playing
> around with it until I build a new system. The problem with the hard
> drive is that a few sectors can't be read. In OS/2, I would perform a

very often

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rwd0d bs=1m progress=1

not only wipes the drive, but "fixes" such sectors forcing 
built-in remapping to work.

> chkdsk, and it would mark those sectors as bad, and never try to use
> them again.
>
> It is possible to do something similar in NetBSD?

simplest way is to create partitions the way that this bad blocks won't be 
used.

anyway try badsect(8)

>
>   I am aware of that physical faults on a harddrive have a tendency to
> spread. But as I stated eariler, I'm just playing around with it (trying
> to decide how my future install should look like).
>
> -- 
> Kind Regards,
> Jan Danielsson
> Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
>