Backup Failure

[seekermeister]

I was divided on whether to post in hardware or software, but since I'm more concerned about hardware, I chose to post here.

I decided to use a backup image to create a windows 7 partition on another drive, to see if the original hard drive might be a factor in some issues that I have been trying to resolve. However, after the backup had been running for a while, it popped an error saying that a read error had occurred and that the backup had aborted.

The phraseology of the error was not clear to me as to the root cause, so I booted back into W7 and ran HD Tune on the suspect drive (screenshot below). As can be seen, it does have a bad block, but it is at nearly the end of the drive, well outside of the 100GB partition that it was working on.

Is it possible that bad block could have effected the backup? Any opinions about whether the error was the result of the software or hardware?

 

[Mike Connor]

It depends on what that bad block contains, and where it is located.

If you format ( Full format, not quick), the drive, then any bad blocks should be marked and ignored. You should then be able to restore an image to the drive.

If software encounters a bad block when copying larger files or restoring images etc, it often can not continue.

It is tempting to assume a linear relationship of the blocks shown in that diagram/display, to the position of blocks on the drive, but that is not really how it is. A bad block showing somewhere in a display like that merely shows the bad block in relation to how the drive is being read. The bad block could be anywhere on the drive.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[seekermeister]

That is news to me, I always figured that there must be a correlation between the physical and any other manner of locating it. By what you have said, that bad block may well have been the cause of the error. I did not preformat the drive, because I have had problems with software not being able to install/run on such a partition, so I let TI format it as necessary.

I have read that it is possible to create a partition around bad sectors, so that they are fenced off, and can't be used, but if there is not a way to know precisely where that is, it would be impossible to deal with it in that manner. I guess that I will try the backup again, after having Windows format the partition, and see if TI will work with it.

There is other utilities designed to patch over bad sectors, but from what you have said, it sounds as though the partition would have to be formatted for them to work.

 

[Wallonn7]

it sounds as though the partition would have to be formatted for them to work.

This does not apply if you use HDD Regenerator. If it's just "one" bad block, the trial version will solve your problem.

 

[seekermeister]

I'm probably splitting hairs, but there would be no such thing as a block on a partition that isn't formatted, would there? Since a bad block on this drive may include up to 381MBs of data, would that trial version work on that much area?

 

[Mike Connor]

That is news to me, I always figured that there must be a correlation between the physical and any other manner of locating it. By what you have said, that bad block may well have been the cause of the error. I did not preformat the drive, because I have had problems with software not being able to install/run on such a partition, so I let TI format it as necessary.

I have read that it is possible to create a partition around bad sectors, so that they are fenced off, and can't be used, but if there is not a way to know precisely where that is, it would be impossible to deal with it in that manner. I guess that I will try the backup again, after having Windows format the partition, and see if TI will work with it.

There is other utilities designed to patch over bad sectors, but from what you have said, it sounds as though the partition would have to be formatted for them to work.

Yes, if you have a bad block you will have to format the disk. This marks the bad block and ignores it in future. A marked/ignored block will not interfere with any operations.

The various test programs access the disks in various ways. The absolute physical location of a block on a drive does not necessarily bear any relationship to various diagrams displayed.

A drive has several actual disks, ( platters), in it. The physical location of blocks varies according to drive construction.

Some displays try to relate the physical location of the blocks as if the drive was one large disc ( Like an old style LP record), but this does not reflect reality;

http://alasir.com/books/hards/005-007.html

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[seekermeister]

I can understand how multiple platters would effect the interpretation of physical location, but wouldn't the displayed location, like in my screenshot, have a bearing on read location. If that is true, it would be difficult to understand how a block displayed at the utmost rear of the drive could be involved in a partition at the beginning of the drive, with many GBs between them.

 

[Wallonn7]

Yes, if you have a bad block you will have to format the disk.

At this point we disagree. My HDD Regenerator experience says otherwise.

This marks the bad block and ignores it in future. A marked/ignored block will not interfere with any operations.

But when I consider your sentence as a whole - I say this because I split it into two - we agree.

 

[whs]

I would run chkdsk /f /r to repair the block. It could have an impact if e.g. it was inside the MFT which sits up there somewhere.

 

[Mike Connor]

I can understand how multiple platters would effect the interpretation of physical location, but wouldn't the displayed location, like in my screenshot, have a bearing on read location. If that is true, it would be difficult to understand how a block displayed at the utmost rear of the drive could be involved in a partition at the beginning of the drive, with many GBs between them.

That might be true, but that is also why it depends on what the block contains. It also depends on how the soft/hardware reads the drive. If a bad block contains something pertaining to the location of something else, then it will cause an error when what it refers to is accessed. It could refer to anything. If it is near the perceived "end" of a disk, then such blocks often contain drive information. If you format the disk, then such a block will be marked and ignored. If it contains information then that information will normally be reconstructed. It is extremely difficult, in fact usually impossible, to determine actual physical locations of sectors on a drive, using software. What you see is an interpretation, and it does not necessarily have any bearing at all on reality.

I have often had failures due to bad blocks when trying to restore images or moving or copying some large files. Even if the blocks were apparently outside the range I was attempting to use.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Mike Connor]

I would run chkdsk /f /r to repair the block. It could have an impact if e.g. it was inside the MFT which sits up there somewhere.

Agreed. And succinctly put!

EDIT: ( But you still have to format the drive. chkdsk wont work on an unformatted drive).

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[seekermeister]

Wallonn7,

Another aspect of consideration is whether using HDD Regenerator would have any impact on whether a warranty would be voided by it's use? The hard drive in question is probably going to go for RMA, but I wanted to use it temporarily for experimental purposes.

 

[Wallonn7]

I would run chkdsk /f /r to repair the block. It could have an impact if e.g. it was inside the MFT which sits up there somewhere.

Behold the simplicity of rationality is interposed between the passion and the theory.
Shrewd intervention, whs!

 

[Shootist]

I can understand how multiple platters would effect the interpretation of physical location, but wouldn't the displayed location, like in my screenshot, have a bearing on read location. If that is true, it would be difficult to understand how a block displayed at the utmost rear of the drive could be involved in a partition at the beginning of the drive, with many GBs between them.

As Mike has said that bad block could be anywhere on the platters that make up the total drive. Just because HD Tune displays it near the end does not mean it is really at the end of the drive.
And that partition you created yourself or had TI create does not mean that partition isn't in the same area as the bad block.

 

[Wallonn7]

Wallonn7,

Another aspect of consideration is whether using HDD Regenerator would have any impact on whether a warranty would be voided by it's use? The hard drive in question is probably going to go for RMA, but I wanted to use it temporarily for experimental purposes.

How it works
Almost 60% of all hard drives damaged with bad sectors have an incorrectly magnetized disk surface. We have developed an algorithm which is used to repair damaged disk surfaces. This technology is hardware independent, it supports many types of hard drives and repairs damage that even low-level disk formatting cannot repair. As a result, previously unreadable information will be restored. Because of the way the repair is made, the existing information on the disk drive will not be affected!
Can the HDD Regenerator repair your drive?
Almost 60 % of damaged hard disks can be repaired by regeneration. You can always download free demo version and try to regenerate the first found bad sector. The main purpose of the unregistered demo version is to display a report which contains information about the possibility to regenerate the entire disk by means of the registered full version. If the first found bad sector has been successfully regenerated, you can buy the product to regenerate all bad sectors on your hard drive. If the first bad sector has NOT been successfully regenerated, then replace your hard disk drive as soon as possible.
Important notes
Since the program does not change the logical structure of a hard drive, the file system may still show some sectors marked earlier as "bad", and other disk utilities such as Scandisk will detect logical bad sectors even though the disk has been successfully regenerated and is no longer damaged by physical bad sectors. If you want to remove these marks, repartition the hard disk drive.

Developer words.

 

[seekermeister]

OKay, I will accept the concensus regarding location ambiguity, but I tend to doubt that methods to fix the block with something like chkdsk would work under the present circumstances, because that fix has to do with file system structure. Since TI will create a file system structure as part of it's recovery process, I would assume that it would replace any file system that was already in place, thus any fix in that file system, and TI would have the same problem with or without the fix...unless it was a permanent one, like with HDD Regenerator.

 

[seekermeister]

Wallonn7,

Another aspect of consideration is whether using HDD Regenerator would have any impact on whether a warranty would be voided by it's use? The hard drive in question is probably going to go for RMA, but I wanted to use it temporarily for experimental purposes.

How it works
Almost 60% of all hard drives damaged with bad sectors have an incorrectly magnetized disk surface. We have developed an algorithm which is used to repair damaged disk surfaces. This technology is hardware independent, it supports many types of hard drives and repairs damage that even low-level disk formatting cannot repair. As a result, previously unreadable information will be restored. Because of the way the repair is made, the existing information on the disk drive will not be affected!
Can the HDD Regenerator repair your drive?
Almost 60 % of damaged hard disks can be repaired by regeneration. You can always download free demo version and try to regenerate the first found bad sector. The main purpose of the unregistered demo version is to display a report which contains information about the possibility to regenerate the entire disk by means of the registered full version. If the first found bad sector has been successfully regenerated, you can buy the product to regenerate all bad sectors on your hard drive. If the first bad sector has NOT been successfully regenerated, then replace your hard disk drive as soon as possible.
Important notes
Since the program does not change the logical structure of a hard drive, the file system may still show some sectors marked earlier as "bad", and other disk utilities such as Scandisk will detect logical bad sectors even though the disk has been successfully regenerated and is no longer damaged by physical bad sectors. If you want to remove these marks, repartition the hard disk drive.

Developer words.

Hmm, it talks about the first bad sector, not the first bad block. a sector is a very small area in comparison. Therefore, unless one paid for this program, all that it would accomplish is basically a diagnosis.

 

[Shootist]

As has been stated a full format of the drive, not quick format, will mark all bad areas of the drive as not in use and will ignore, skip over, them when installing software or loading a image on the drive.

No real need for a add on program as there is no program that can make a bad block/sector/whatever good again. It is a flaw in the media.

Now the real question is will this spread? It has been my experience that once a drive starts to get bad areas it mean the drive is starting to fail.

Might be best to run the drive maker diagnostic program and see what it comes up with.

 

[Mike Connor]

OKay, I will accept the concensus regarding location ambiguity, but I tend to doubt that methods to fix the block with something like chkdsk would work under the present circumstances, because that fix has to do with file system structure. Since TI will create a file system structure as part of it's recovery process, I would assume that it would replace any file system that was already in place, thus any fix in that file system, and TI would have the same problem with or without the fix...unless it was a permanent one, like with HDD Regenerator.

True image, or indeed any other image program, do not create file structures as such, they simply restore an image.

If you have a damaged block somewhere then the write can fail because the program can not write to a damaged block. If you format the disk, that damaged block no longer exists for the system and operations will then succeed.

Chkdsk would work, but only if the disk is formatted. It wont work on raw disks.

Nobody can complain about you formatting a disk. But I don't know about various regeneration methods. Although, if you return the disk as defective, then I don't suppose they will even bother looking at it, it will land straight in the recycle bin

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Shootist]

OKay, I will accept the concensus regarding location ambiguity, but I tend to doubt that methods to fix the block with something like chkdsk would work under the present circumstances, because that fix has to do with file system structure. Since TI will create a file system structure as part of it's recovery process, I would assume that it would replace any file system that was already in place, thus any fix in that file system, and TI would have the same problem with or without the fix...unless it was a permanent one, like with HDD Regenerator.

I believe that the bad sector marks, where it stores the info on what blocks are bad, are stored in a part of the disk that does not get written over by any partitioning, formatting and or file system structure.
Otherwise it would make no sense to mark these areas as bad.