copying HDD with bad sectors

[commentator8]

I have a HDD with a lot (stress lot) of bad sectors. Strangely they are not interfering with windows or any of his regular files so he didn't notice it till the check up.

Clonezilla took 8 hours to do 30% with rescue mode on (without it it wouldn't work), and chkdsk doesn't look to finish this year. I tried copying the windows, program files and documents and settings folders to the new drive (and trying fixboot/fixmbr) but aside from my first try when all worked well (but had to be scrapped for other reasons but definitely worked), it wont boot and gives a c000021a 0x0000135 BSOD. Including when i tried copying all files (using unstoppable copier) to copy teh whole drive. Logic being that the only bits which weren't copied or copy-able were random folders in the root of c which are irrelevant so i could avoid the bad sectors.

What other options do i have and better - why wont the manual copying method work? And nuke and pave is not an option as some programs can not be reinstalled easily. The initial hard drive still works and boots fine.

Edit: Just thought of the missing 7mb partition that windows puts on each drive when it installs.

 

[MobileTechie]

You could try another imaging app like Acronis or Paragon and set them to ignore bad sectors.

You could try running HDD Regen over the disk first to "repair" the bad sectors and then clone it - that's what I'd recommend (assuming you have a backup of the user data, just in case). It will take many hours - any operation of this kind will if the disk has many bad sectors. You could be looking at leaving it running for a whole day or more.

A clone/image copies more than just files, it copies the MBR, partition sectors etc. I can't quite think of what else a file-level copy is missing to be honest. Maybe the NT signature and boot flag? I think imaging apps that do non-sector images are just doing a file-level copy and recreating the other elements on restoration so it must be possible to do it manually too.

 

[codegreen]

If you're comfortable with command-line Linux, or are willing to get comfortable, I recommend ddrescue. I've used it to image drives with many bad sectors with great success. It's included on SystemRescueCD.

 

[johnrobert]

As mentioned above HDD Regenerator is the way to go
leave running all day and night if neccesary, dont worry about losing data I have used it hundreds of times never a problem
If you dont have it, its on Hirens CD
I have the exact same problem and running HDD regenerator 0n a 650 gig laptop

 

[Shark]

If you're comfortable with command-line Linux, or are willing to get comfortable, I recommend ddrescue. I've used it to image drives with many bad sectors with great success. It's included on SystemRescueCD.

I agree with this. DDrescue can work backwards and forward and will also copy everything good first and mark the bad sectors and come back to them.

Very good program.

 

[commentator8]

I ended up using hdclone, it took only 10 hours and as with the above mentioned program, copied the good stuff first then retried the bad. Thanks for the suggestions though. Still curious about why the manual copy didn't work after the first time.

 

[commentator8]

... and to add, now with the cloned drive chkdsk wont complete (maybe if i left it for hours but the client doesn't have the time to try). I am running HDD regenerator in the meanwhile. It seems that the bad sectors were cloned with the good ones.

 

[MobileTechie]

... and to add, now with the cloned drive chkdsk wont complete (maybe if i left it for hours but the client doesn't have the time to try). I am running HDD regenerator in the meanwhile. It seems that the bad sectors were cloned with the good ones.

Yes that's right they are if they were already known about by Windows. I believe the remapping is held in the MFT and so the clone copies that along with the reallocations.

You can remove them from the new drive by using Chkdsk /b. This is only available in Vista and 7 but will work on offline drives running XP too.

This is one reason it's best to use HDD Regen or similar on the old drive before cloning it. The other being that if you just ignore bad sectors then you run the risk of having a bit of swiss cheese effect on the file system which might include Windows system files.

 

[commentator8]

Wasn't aware of the b switch. Much obliged!