I remember on the IBM (pre-Hitachi) Deskstars (which I lost many of) they used to have a format utility that "repaired" damaged sectors and did what it called a low-level format. It made the drive work again for about a month then you either formatted/repaired again or bought a new one. It was painful and made me refuse to ever go near those drives again.
I used to have an IBM Deathstar. Lasted not too long..tick tick tick....bin