How does a corrupted sector in the data area of a hard drive affect the corresponding cluster number on a FAT?

When a sector within a cluster becomes corrupted on a hard drive, it leads to a significant impact on the File Allocation Table (FAT), which manages how the data is organized on the disk. In this case, when the hard drive recognizes that a sector is corrupted, it will mark the entire cluster containing that sector as bad in the FAT.

This action ensures that any attempts to read from or write to that cluster are aborted, preventing potential further data corruption or loss. The system's ability to access the data in that cluster is compromised because the integrity of the entire cluster is called into question. By marking the cluster as bad, the file system is protecting itself and maintaining overall stability and reliability.

Thus, when the cluster number corresponding to the corrupted sector is marked as bad, it is a measure to avoid using that cluster for future data operations until it is repaired or remapped if possible. This process helps maintain the overall health of the file system and prevents the spread of corruption to other data areas.