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cloning defective HDD
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:33 am
by JPG
I have been experiencing various performance issues(temporarily locking up) with my laptop. I have come to the conclusion that it is being caused by defective sectors on my hard drive. Last week two windows updates failed which resulted in my losing wifi function(partially) until they eventually completed successfully.
I decided to get a SDD replacement and also acquired MACRIUM REFLECT software so as to clone the HDD onto the SDD. It does work for the partitions that do not have defective sectors. Repeated attempts to repair/fix errors by running CHKDSK(a very looooong process taking several minutes per bad sector= several hours per attempt).
So I am seeking advice regarding the availability of something to clone a partition with bad sectors(thinking just ignore/mark bad the offending sector on the reflected sdd).
I have not (yet) done a search on line.
HELP (again)!!!!!
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:55 am
by RFGuy
I think you can tell Macrium Reflect to ignore bad sectors (see link below). If this doesn't work, what has been helpful for me in the past is using a HDD duplicator. These are fairly cheap and do a bit-by-bit copy of the source drive to the destination drive, so tend to be a bit more robust in copying a suspect HDD. I have had hard drives starting to fail that I was able to successfully copy (albeit with some potentially missing/corrupt data) using this kind of a hardware solution like this. I hope this helps...
https://forum.macrium.com/Topic3849.aspx
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07M6 ... UTF8&psc=1
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:25 am
by garys
If the drive has bad sectors, you don't want to clone is as you will be cloning the bad sectors and end up with the same problems you had. A picture of a crashed car will not give you a restored car, and cloning a bad drive gives you another bad drive.
You want to do a clean install of your operating system on the new drive. Then, do a clean install of your software on the new drive.Then, connect the old drive to a USB to SATA adapter and copy over only your personal files to the new drive. That way you get a new working drive with your old software and your personal files.
Or, you can copy those personal files from your backup system if you have one.
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:49 am
by dusty
JPG wrote:I have been experiencing various performance issues(temporarily locking up) with my laptop. I have come to the conclusion that it is being caused by defective sectors on my hard drive. Last week two windows updates failed which resulted in my losing wifi function(partially) until they eventually completed successfully.
I decided to get a SDD replacement and also acquired MACRIUM REFLECT software so as to clone the HDD onto the SDD. It does work for the partitions that do not have defective sectors. Repeated attempts to repair/fix errors by running CHKDSK(a very looooong process taking several minutes per bad sector= several hours per attempt).
So I am seeking advice regarding the availability of something to clone a partition with bad sectors(thinking just ignore/mark bad the offending sector on the reflected sdd).
I have not (yet) done a search on line.
HELP (again)!!!!!
Yes, you can attempt to clone a HDD with bad sectors - BUT
https://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50121.aspx
However, there is free software available to do this by simply ignoring the bad sectors. Question being - what was on those sectors that is critically important.
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:52 am
by dusty
dusty wrote:JPG wrote:I have been experiencing various performance issues(temporarily locking up) with my laptop. I have come to the conclusion that it is being caused by defective sectors on my hard drive. Last week two windows updates failed which resulted in my losing wifi function(partially) until they eventually completed successfully.
I decided to get a SDD replacement and also acquired MACRIUM REFLECT software so as to clone the HDD onto the SDD. It does work for the partitions that do not have defective sectors. Repeated attempts to repair/fix errors by running CHKDSK(a very looooong process taking several minutes per bad sector= several hours per attempt).
So I am seeking advice regarding the availability of something to clone a partition with bad sectors(thinking just ignore/mark bad the offending sector on the reflected sdd).
I have not (yet) done a search on line.
HELP (again)!!!!!
Yes, you can attempt to clone a HDD with bad sectors - BUT
https://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50121.aspx
However, there is free software available to do this by simply ignoring the bad sectors. Question being - what was on those sectors that is critically important. I use Macrium Reflect (paid version) on five different devices. I highly recommend it. Be prepared - there is a learning curve. To get maximum benefit involves a steep learning curve.
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:59 am
by garys
If the computer was locking up, at least one of the bad sectors is part of Windows. The new drive won't run any better with that part missing than the old one did.
If you really want it to work right, just follow my instructions above and fix it right.
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2019 1:00 am
by JPG
Thanks to those who have responded.
I need to be more specific re my clone failure(by two different cloning programs).
Bad 'sectors'(contents unreliable) are not the problem. I believe I have corrupted/missing/... sector headers. They simply cannot be found and attempts to access them causes the read io errors.
Chkdsk should have made cloning possible since the 'bad' sectors are marked as such and not available for use.
As a result of multiple passes with chkdsk(which cleans up bad sector issues), the computer runs more smoothly(or at least gives that appearance). I believe searches for those sectors with bad headers are reduced for some reason???
Still searching for a clone that will work.
As for 'rebuilding' by installing windows then applications, there is over 4 years of history involved!!!! Yes that makes for a 'clean' result, but it is quite impractical to do that. Then there is all the 'data'(non program) files - the lions share of the partition.
I haven't lost the faith, but am not optimistic.
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2019 6:22 am
by RFGuy
Just so I understand, it sounds like your cloning was successful, i.e it worked right? Now the problem is perhaps stability and you suspect the cloned drive has some performance issues or glitches. Is this correct? On the new HDD that is the clone, have you tried running "sfc /scannow" from a command window? This will check the main windows 10 system files and replace them if any are corrupt. A more advanced procedure to cleanup and fix system files is to use the DISM utility from a power shell in windows 10 (see link below).
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ins ... f3ee3ae699
For the old, suspect HDD am I to understand that you have been running and re-running chkdsk on that drive? I would caution against that. I mean if this HDD was failing there is no telling when it will simply die on you. A safer solution is to clone it immediately which will only read from the HDD (not write to it). Any time a HDD is starting to fail, writing more data to it (even to mark bad sectors) could precipitate a failure. At least that is what I have read before.
I know it is a pain in the butt, but the best long term fix is clone the drive now to preserve your data. Then get another HDD and install a clean OS on it. Reinstall all of your programs again and then copy your data over. If you want to greatly minimize the chance of this happening again in the future then install RAID so that if one HDD fails you can simply replace it. I think you said it is a laptop, so a bit harder to do though.
Good luck with it. Computer problems
can be fun to debug, but they are a real PIA when you have potential data loss or they are blocking you from important work at a deadline. In other words, I feel your pain. Hope you get your system back up and running soon...
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2019 9:01 am
by JPG
No I had not
then successfully cloned.
Macrium reflect
insisted upon the chkdsk routine. Then was fussy about sectors it could not find???
No joy there afterward but the previous noted improvement occurred.
Tried another clone program
https://www.minitool.com/backup/system- ... -pw-loader
SUCCESS!!!!! 
BONUS - main(Windows) partition is now 180 GB larger(original hdd was 320, new ssd is 500). Did that and kept the 'other' partitions intact.
Not yet done, but I
will run chkdsk against the new ssd.
YIPPIE!!!!
Re: cloning defective HDD
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2019 11:23 am
by JPG
As a followup, I have been running with the cloned SSD for a couple of days. Gad what a difference! I had not realized how the squirrely HDD was affecting performance. No more crazy delays.
As for what was in those 'bad/undiscoverable[i/o errors] sectors', I have no clue and have not noticed any effect of their being missing other than the absence of the crazy delays.
Chkdsk on the SSD(new/cloned) discovered 4 bad sectors - not bad for a half terabyte drive(63 bytes/sector x 4 = 252 bytes out of 351,668,961,380(windows partition size).
BTW in spite of marketing types stating a KB = 1000 bytes, actually a kilo byte is 1024 bytes. which leads us to a tera byte is actually 1073741824 bytes, not 1,000,000,000 bytes so an alleged 500 GB drive is actually about 465 2/3 GB.
Oh well I am enjoying the effect of a newly responsive laptop. Removes my apprehension that an undetectable gremlin had invaded it.
Also the things I was blaming on Windows updates were apparently the result of failed(partial updating) updates caused by the 'undescoverable sectors'.
I will keep the HDD as a backup(I can still read it via a USB adapter), but will not be using it day to day. It seems to read/write ok - time will tell.
Again thanks to all who responded to my plea for help.