i am trying to redo a friends computer it is a Acer Aspire One it had Windows XP on it and Ubuntu Netbook wont install on it i am downloading Linpus Linux Lite that acer uses on its Aspire Ones only thing is i know nothing about Linpus how easy is it to use compared to a long time windows user and is it Ubuntu (.deb) based or Fedora (.rpm) based?

I’m fixing laptop, and the hard drive has several bad sectors on it. My intent is to get windows back on it (it is a friends computer), but windows won’t install until these bad sectors are fixed. I was able to load ubuntu on the laptop as a temporary fix and so I have an os to help the diagnosis and extract some data from the corrupt windows installation. Is there any disk checking utilities avaliable for linux that also attempts to repair bad sectors?