How to check if bad sectors has affected windows installation?

nevesswodniw · 19 Jan 2012

TVeblen said:

nevesswodniw said:

So really I'm just worried if there's any impact of the bad sectors on the image, which is restored on the new hdd, because it's running perfectly, but I don't want errors to start coming up later on.

You are looking for a confirmation that no one here can give.

If you run SFC and it shows no Windows System Files are missing or corrupted then you can be reasonably assured that the new image and OS are fine.

If you can not be satisfied by the results of the System File check and your own observations, then you know what you want to do.
I wouldn't bother.

I think I'm just not explaining myself properly in my posts

I'm just after info on whether all the scans I've run on the new hdd indicate that it is indeed error free, which in turn would mean that the bad sectors on the old hdd didn't impact the OS negatively when imaged.

I was assuming that there were scans and software that would tell me that the OS is definitely running 100% fine. Thats all really.

Now, if running chkdsk /f /r and SFC, and file system checkers means that everything is fine, then thats all I wanted know :)

I bolded the bit in your post, that I was after

On the other hand, if you said, all the scans in the world wont tell you the OS is fine, then that's fine too, just means I'll have to reinstall windows.

BTW, I checked the old HDD and found out that all sectors between 55000000 and 76000000 are occupied by hiberfil and pagefile.
All the LBA errors are between 55000000 and 76000000. Assuming defrag cant move hiberfil and pagefile around, I'm guessing that the bad sectors were only used by them, which is maybe why my image is running fine

TVeblen · 19 Jan 2012

If you ran System File Checker, and the scan came out clean then you are fine.

IMHO

GeneO · 19 Jan 2012

sfc /verifyonly

Is about the only thing available for your stated purpose

Kaktussoft · 19 Jan 2012

Code:

 
XCOPY O:\*.* N:\tempfolder /D/E/H/V/C/K/Y

Where O is olddrive and N is newdriveletter
First do DIR C: DIR D: etc to determine driveletters
any errors, if so what files? Delete tempfolder afterwards

Do these action from within "recovery environment" -> command prompt. So you've got all privileges

Kaktussoft · 19 Jan 2012

nevesswodniw said:

BTW, I checked the old HDD and found out that all sectors between 55000000 and 76000000 are occupied by hiberfil and pagefile.
All the LBA errors are between 55000000 and 76000000. Assuming defrag cant move hiberfil and pagefile around, I'm guessing that the bad sectors were only used by them, which is maybe why my image is running fine

lucky you! Can you delete hiberfile and pagefile on old drive as they aren't needed anymore! Better wipeout the space the files did occupy. Eraser for example
This forces a write to the blocks. any bad blocks afterwards?

Fred Garvin · 19 Jan 2012

As TVeblen said, there's no way to tell from here. You are asking about file integrity but doing physical structure scans. SFC is the only thing that will come close to verifying individual system files are in tact and not damaged.

I wasn't suggesting you install anything on the old hard drive. You'd install HDTune on the new system & Diskview requires no installation. Then slave your old drive to read it. Diskview is the only method I know of (I'm sure there are others) to find the exact physical location of a file on your hard drive.

Kaktussoft · 19 Jan 2012

Fred Garvin said:

As TVeblen said, there's no way to tell from here. You are asking about file integrity but doing physical structure scans. SFC is the only thing that will come close to verifying individual system files are in tact and not damaged.

I wasn't suggesting you install anything on the old hard drive. You'd install HDTune on the new system & Diskview requires no installation. Then slave your old drive to read it. Diskview is the only method I know of (I'm sure there are others) to find the exact physical location of a file on your hard drive.

He already knows the bad blocks are ONLY in pagefile and hiberfile. Simply erase the files by wiping them with 0 values or random values, so force the disk to do a write to the bad blocks. SMART cannot write to the blocks and does an automatic replacement. Those bad blocks will NEVER be reused! Check afterwards if it has done the task. So you know SMART is working

Or simply leave it the way it is. Blocks in pagefile and hiberfile are never accessed (because he has booted many times afterwards). The blocks are only read after written by new contents (write doesn't work so SMART replaces the blocks)

Only problem for now:

maybe disk is realy dying(?)
maybe SMART isn't working(?)