Clone failure with three different software programs

[Deaf Dave]

I have Win 7 64 bit Home Premium SP1. I have tried to clone my 2TB internal hard drive to the same size external hard drive. I have been doing this for a number of years and never had a problem until the other day.
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Macrium Reflect Free v.5.2.6504 clone failed 3x.
Macrium said; "Clone failed - Read failed - 22 - Broken pipe"
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EaseUS clone failed as well and no error messages appeared.

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I also tried a clone with Acronis. It failed as well.Acronis said;


"Failed to read data from the disk". "Failed to read sector 686,886,784 of hard disk '2'. "Try to repeat the operation. If the error persists, check the disk using chkdsk utility and create a backup of the disk. Direct R/W operation has failed (0x69001). Input/output error (oxFF1).

I tried to repeat the operation 3x and each time it failed. In addition, when Acronis closed, it deleted all the partitions on the external drive except for System. The deleted partitions (3) are now one partition and is listed as unallocated.
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After the first failure, I read somewhere that the VSS service needs to be started. It was already marked as automatic. The VSS function is started on the internal drive (I had to physically change it from stopped to started but left it as automatic) but I do not know how to check it on the external drive I'm cloning to. I did run chkdsk (auto fix file system errors and scan for and recover bad sectors) on the external drive and it appears there were no errors. At least no message appeared saying there were any problems and/or corrections. Why would the destination drive even need VSS start checked, if all the info is being overwritten anyway?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Deaf Dave]

Update to "Clone failure with three different software programs"

I'm replying to my own thread and not sure if this is the correct way to give an update on my situation. However, since I posted the "Clone failure with three different software programs" I've spent a lot of time on this problem . I previously failed to note that I ran sfc\scannow and it showed two corrupt files that could not be repaired:
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(Info CSI 000001c1 [SR] cannot repair member file [l:24{12}]"utc.app.json" of Microsoft-Windows-Unified-Telemetry-Client, Version = 6.1.7601.18869, PA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_AMD64 (9), Culture neutral, VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral in the store, hash mismatch).

(Info CSI 00000319 [SR] Cannot repair member file [l:66{33}]"telemetry.ASM-WindowsDefault.json" of Microsoft-Windows-Unified-Telemetry-Client, Version = 6.1.7601.18839, PA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_AMD64 (9), Culture neutral, VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral in the store, hash mismatch)
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I also failed to note that the last successful clone I did was two days (5-10-15) before the Microsoft updates on 5-12-15. Those updates included KB3022345 which i have learned through Seven Forums thread about KB3022345, is what I think has corrupted my files so the VSS could not read them. This is what I believe caused my last cloning attempts to fail. Using the instructions supplied by Ehasanov in that thread, hopefully it will fix those related problems as well as my clone problem. I will provide another update when I have done so. This is not the first time the Microsoft updates have caused problems for me and others as well. Regards, Dave

 

[DennisCPA]

What I did as to the SFC errors

To fix the SCF error remove KB3022345 Update

The good news is that the service is optional even though it is listed
as recommended on the system.
DiagTrack can be uninstalled easily. Proceed exactly as follows:

Control Panel > Program and Features > View Installed Updates

• Type KB3022345 in the search bar
• Wait until found (if not found than proceed to KB3068708 below)
• Select Uninstall.

(That did not solve the problem ... because KB3022345 was replace by KB3068708

Therefore I uninstalled KB3068708)

• Type KB3068708 in the search bar
• Wait until found
• Select Uninstall.

There are remnant files: diagtrackrunner.exe in two locations.

• C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-a..xperience-inventory_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.18868_none_e83d75d9e59ba1ea
• C:\Windows\System32\CompatTel

Do not delete diagtrackrunner.exe in either location as SFC will ID the missing files

Also, there are two of three services that I stopped:
Start Services by Typing into the Search window: "services.msc" (not the quotation marks!)

Locate the following services as they are related

• Diagnostic Policy Service Automatic - Started (leave this alone)
• Diagnostic Service Host Stop it then Disable it
• Diagnostic System Host Stop it then Disable it

These issues may be the reason that you had the failures.

HTH
Dennis

 

[Deaf Dave]

Hi Dennis, Thank you for your response. I'm replying on my backup PC as the main one will not boot. I prevented both KB 30223545 and KB3068708 from being installed on this backup PC. When (if) I can get into the main PC hard drive (ED5S) I will use your suggested fixes (diagtrackrunner.exe and stop services). I have given a more detailed synopsis of what my problems are below. I have Win7 Home Premium SP1 64bit.

I tried to do a clone on 6-7-15 and it failed. After it failed, I found that three partitions on the disk I was cloning to "GQ0T" had been completely erased. The drive had been cloned before successfully last month on 5-11-15 from the same internal drive "ED5S". The hard drive I was cloning from "ED5S" , had (C drive letter changed to (E. Other partition letters on "GQ0T" were changed as well! This is NOT supposed to happen! As a result, the hard drive "ED5S" is no longer bootable! I suspect the reason for the clone failure on 6-7-15 was recent MS updates that were corrupted and prevented reading to the VSS service. The MS updates were: KB3022345 and KB3068708. However, a clone failure should not cause the problems it did! Erasing partitions on the drive being cloned to "GQ0T" and changing drive letters on the drive "ED5S" being cloned. Fortunately none of the drive's information on "ED5S" was deleted but the drive is not usable!

I used another hard drive "MR3T" that had been cloned at an earlier date and swapped out the corrupt drive "ED5S" that will not boot. I then attached "ED5S" and was then able to see that all the partitions were intact and it appears that no folders/files were deleted and the total GB used was still the same but the drive letters had been changed. The O/S (C drive letter was changed to (E. The (E) is for my CD/ROM. Naturally Windows can't boot from an empty (E drive. Anyway, I did a SFC /SCANNOW on the corrupt drive "ED5S" and the scan picked up two corrupt files: KB3022345 ”telemetry.ASM-WindowsDefault.json” and "utc.app.json" . KB3068708 has these same issues. SFC /SCANNOW could not fix these. I deleted the updates using elevated command prompt and this program (SFCFix.zip). Inaddition, I had previously run chkdsk C: /F /R for disk "ED5S" and chkdsk replaced two bad clusters.


I also ran F-8 from a rescue CD to repair startup on "ED5S" which found the (C) drive misnamed as (E). Startup repair reported fixing this but when I installed the drive back in the PC it still would not boot. The (C) drive still shows as (E) when I used a rescue CD to access F-10 to check the boot order. I'm at a loss as to how to proceed from here to fix the boot menu and drive letter reversal problem. Any help or advise provided would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Dave

 

[DennisCPA]

Clone Failure suggestions

Dave,

There is quite a number of issues.

My concern is rooted in the thought that your receiving hard drive is by now corrupted.
Plan A:
Locate a rescue DVD/USB or Win 7 Install Disk and attempt a non-destructive system restore see:
Win7’s no-reformat, nondestructive reinstall

I have used the above twice with excellent results. Make sure that you accurately follow the steps in sequence.
Unfortunately, this may well fail because of a corrupt HD which may mean a format-drive. At least this approach may save your data files.

If you can get your system to boot then re-consider restoring a known-good image.
Plan B:
The dreaded: Reformat HD and reinstall System; Apps; Data.

HTH

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

A corrupted drive will often prevent a clone from succeeding, even if data can still be accessed on it. I had it happen to one of my data drives. When I tried to clone it to a backup drive, the clone failed, taking out the data on the backup drive (yikes!). Fortunately, I had a second backup drive. After reformatting both the data drive and the damaged backup drive, I cloned the second backup drive back to the reformatted data drive, then cloned the data drive to the reformatted first backup drive.

 

[Deaf Dave]

Oh Boy! Lots to digest for this here Neophyte! Having said that, as to Dennis' suggestion of restoring to a known good image, the drive (ED5S) will not boot. There is a lot for me to digest in the second suggestion to "attempt a non-destructive system restore". Please bear with me as I'm very confused at this stage.

As to Lady Fitzgerald's suggestions, I do not know for certain if the clone failure destroyed anything that was on drive being cloned from disk (ED5S) to disk (GQ0T) as I currently can't access the ED5S drive. After the Clone failure, I did try to Image the ED5S drive to GQ0T using Acronis. That too came up as failed. However, after taking a good drive (MR3T)that had previously been cloned and switching drives, I was able to see in Disk Management that all of the previous partitions in GQ0T were erased except the System partition. And 376GB of 397Gb showed on GQ0T in new partition (I. So hopefully only 21 GB was lost in the Imaging process on drive GQ0T.The drive being cloned to (GQ0T), I have not touched yet for fear of any potential further damage! I have reason to believe that in addition to the failure, the drive letters were changed in ED5S which I think would cause a boot failure as well. I tried changing them back using a system repair disk but the disk still failed to boot. I was able to run chkdsk C: / F / R on ED5S which said two bad clusters were replaced. sfc/scannow could not repair either of them. The drive still will not boot...

So, Lady Fitzgerald, my question is - I do have a good drive MR3T that was Cloned a number of months ago. It does boot. How exactly do I go about trying to restore everything in the corrupt ED5S drive that won't boot? I'd really hate to have to resort to trying Dennis' fixing remedy being unsure if that Image is a good one, unless I have to, if this would be easier and/or less time consuming and/or less likely for me to make any mistakes?
Thank you both,
Dave

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Ok, if you have a good drive that you can clone (not image) to the corrupted drive, you can first format the corrupted drive, then use Macrium Reflect to clone the good drive to the reformatted drive. If the reformatted drive isn't damaged, the clone should succeed. If it fails, it will because either the reformatted drive is bad or the drive you are cloning from is corrupted, even though not enough to keep it from booting. One good thing about Macrium Reflect, it leaves the source drive untouched.

 

[Deaf Dave]

Lady Fitzgerald, Thank you for your quick reply. Sorry mine is not as quick. OK, I have a good drive (MR3T) that I can Clone from. It's an older Clone from 10-10-14 and I hooked it up to make sure it would boot and that everything was there. Everything was ok. Except for all the necessary program and MS updates and any files and folders etc I created in the interim .

I have a question(s). When I format the corrupt drive (ED5S) will all the info on the drive be erased by re-formatting it? I have, or maybe had, 397GB of information on it that I do not want to lose if it's still there.

Secondly, if I clone the good drive (MR3T) to the corrupt one, won't that process replace all the info on it with the info from the drive I'm cloning from?? If so, I need to avoid doing that and in the process erasing anything that may be on the corrupt drive. I need to find a way to retrieve the info from the corrupted drive.

As mentioned before, I have the drive that after the Clone failed, I again used Acronis to this time make an Image instead of a Clone. I named the partition (I to replace the three partitions that Acronis had erased. Anyway, I think there may be 376GB that was actually Imaged before the Image failed to completion. Would there be some way to retrieve that info from the Image and then transfer it to a brand new bare drive?
If so, could you please tell me how to do so.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Yes, formatting a drive will erase everything on it. Are you able to read the data on the corrupted drive even though it doesn't boot?

 

[Deaf Dave]

Good morning Jeannie, I put the corrupted drive into a bare drive enclosure and then plugged it into my backup PC using the USB port. There was no autoplay/autorun. It is not recognized by Disk Management either. As a result, I cannot get into it to see if anything is on it. Any suggestions as to how to get into it?

 

[Deaf Dave]

Dennis, Therefore I uninstalled KB3068708)
* Type KB3068708 in the search bar
* Wait until found
* Select Uninstall.

There are remnant files: _diagtrackrunner.exe in two locations_.
* C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-a..xperience-inventory_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.18868_none_e83d75d9e59ba1ea
* C:\Windows\System32\CompatTel

_Do not delete diagtrackrunner.exe in either location as SFC will ID the missing files_

Also, there are two of three services that I stopped:
Start Services by Typing into the Search window: "services.msc" (not the quotation marks!)

Locate the following services as they are related
* Diagnostic Policy Service _Automatic - Started_ (leave this alone)
* Diagnostic Service Host _Stop it_ then _Disable_ it
* Diagnostic System Host _Stop it_ then _Disable_ it
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A bit late replying back on this. I uninstalled kb3068708 on my backup PC but MS updates keeps trying to install it even though I had not checked to update it. I uninstalled it again and this time hid it from the update list. It's gone! So far so good. I can't stop and then disable the Diagnostic Service or System Host. Right now, since backup PC is my only contact with the outside world, I do not really want to do anything further about KB 3068708. Still trying to resurrect the corrupt drive.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Good morning Jeannie, I put the corrupted drive into a bare drive enclosure and then plugged it into my backup PC using the USB port. There was no autoplay/autorun. It is not recognized by Disk Management either. As a result, I cannot get into it to see if anything is on it. Any suggestions as to how to get into it?

Yes, but you aren't going to like it. At this point, most likely, you will have to shell out serious shekels to have a recovery specialist attempt to recover your data. This typically can cost anywhere from $500 to well north of $1k (with the higher figures being more common). And there is no guarantee that the attempt at data recovery will be successful at anything other than costing you beaucoup bucks. Many people will suggest various homebrew cures, such as putting the drive in the freezer, etc., or using various recovery programs on it but the sad fact is those "cures" are far more likely to cause more data loss. The only other practical (and far more affordable) solution is to accept you have lost that data and move on.

Thee only way to reasonably guarantee your data will be safe is to maintain at least two, identical backups—one local and one offsite—and frequently update them. I know this doesn't help you now but you need to keep this in mind for the future to avoid repeating the grief you are experiencing now.

 

[Deaf Dave]

That's what I was afraid of! I usually do a Clone at least once a month before the MS Updates. I alternate between two different drives. That way I always have one for just in case. I guess I got a bit too complacent recently and just made a Clone on one drive and didn't bother to alternate them. Bad move because the older Cloned drive is from October! I'll have lots of program updates etc.

I will put the drive that the Image (GQ0T) was created on, back into the PC and then attempt to transfer to the bare drive and keep my fingers crossed that not only the transfer works but that most of the data is there. Any thoughts on doing this?

 

[DennisCPA]

Deaf Dave,

Consider (if all else fails) to do a bare-metal install (Google/Bing it). There are many definitions of this technique. One of those definitions contains the concept of using a disk image from another relatively-similar computer and permits Windows to attempt to reconfigure itself for the hardware on the receiving machine. I have never done this - yet.

Years ago practically no one in their right mind would knowingly attempt this. But good-accidents may/did happen. If it ultimately works, you have saved yourself from installing/transferring/configuring registered/licensed applications and all of your user files.

Windows install has gotten brighter over the years. BTW, I did mention, if all else fails first!

Dennis

 

[Deaf Dave]

If All Else Fails

Dennis,
If all else fails - think, of which I've been doing a lot of lately! Seems you have as well. Thank you! I ran across something I thought I'd try "if all else fails". It may not be applicable to my problem though.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 is designed to scan, disinfect and restore infected operating systems. It should be used when it is impossible to boot the operating system. This can be run from a CD or flash drive.

A bare-metal install sounds as if it could work in my case because both the Image (that might be ok) and the PC drive it was made from, are both from the same PC. I'll have to (Google/Bing it) and take a look at it.

Strange that shortly after the failure, I was able to get into the corrupted drive and change the drive letters that Acronis changed and thought I was home free. Then I ran chkdsk C: /R /. It replaced bad clusters and made corrections to Bit Map. Ran sfc /scannow. Found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them (most likely those MS updates). A couple days later I noticed drive letter changes (how - I have no idea) and couldn't get it to boot! And that's where I'm at.

I'm still thinking. About two weeks now. I don't want to make mistakes like MS or Acronis did!

Seems that the "perfect storm" occurred. Microsoft screws up updates that prevent Clones from being done because the Clone software can't read the corrupted MS updates! Then, Acronis Cloning software not only fails to Clone, it erases three partitions on the drive being Cloned to, and also changes the drive letters and who knows what else in the drive being Cloned from! Cloning software should never screw up the info on the drive it's copying the info from. Never - never!! Macrium, even when it failed to Clone at least didn't screw things up. All that happened was that the Clone process terminated!

Thank you for your time and help. I'll keep you posted.
Dave

 

[DennisCPA]

Give it a try as it is next to last in the sequence "if all else fails."

Good luck!

 

[GokAy]

If your old image is a clone and was made on same PC, then you should be able to just plug it in and boot from it. I make monthly clones with Acronis and verify the clone by booting with it.

Also there are ways to get an installation working on a dissimilar hardware. Like Microsoft built-in Sysprep. If somehow your PC is unbootable, you can still use http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html.

Also want to add, I have daily imaging done with Acronis and didn't have any issues back when the Windows Updates (falsely) corrupted those 2 files.

 

[DennisCPA]

Important to a "bare metal" install that I did not mention is that all of the drivers for the different hardware on the receiving machine may not be available on the source drive image. Therefore, the user may have to provide those drivers that windows cannot "find." That is why it is a good idea to run something like Belarc Advisor that documents the drivers necessary for your computer's hardware. Keep a current-printed and/or a .pdf file handy for each of your computers.

Of course a very similar challenge may occur when SysPrep is used. Essentially, SysPrep is analogous to copy/pasting everything above the belt (Software; Settings; User-files) on top of new hips/legs (hardware and drivers.) SysPrep though, is intensively tech-heavy and easy for the average user to mess-up. Many users will have a much better chance of success with a "bare metal" install than with SysPrep.

Update: Cloned drives are a solution but they take, at least, an entire partition. Also the chance of the clone-to drive having the same issues (infections) as the clone-from drive is typically high. Disk images tend to be smaller (bytes-stored) therefore more historical versions can be made - very useful for finding files the user deleted with good intentions but now regrets.

Update2: Stopping the services mentioned above needs to be done in sequence. In my case, I did nothing to the 1st-listed as it is necessary for other processes. Stop the 2nd listed then Disable it.
Stop the 3rd listed then Disable it.

Update3: Disabling the services has nothing to do with the success of cloning or creating/restoring disk images. My opinion is that I do not wish to enable big-brother's desire to capture my keystrokes or track my personal (computer-related) information thus I disabled those services. I do check to ascertain if Updates turn them back on.
Dennis

 

[GokAy]

We have a tutorial for using Sysprep in this regard - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/135077-windows-7-installation-transfer-new-computer.html

If one can clean install an OS, s/he can sure do Sysprep. It is not like extra drivers are needed. Just the ones for your hardware.