Clone failure with three different software programs

[DennisCPA]

I agree that a SysPrep can be done - certainly with the knowledge available on the SevenForums site. I forgot till this moment, that I learned to do a Sysprep (about 4 years ago) because of this site.

My concern is for the average non-technical user who may not adapt well to the focused sequential regimentation of Sysprep vs. pressing "OK" to a wizard.

Dennis

 

[Deaf Dave]

Hi GokAy,
My old clone was itself a clone. During the cloning process by Acronis, the drive letters were changed. What had been (C was changed to E. My PC won't boot from (E. Also for another reason. As near as I can tell, the boot menu got messed up.

Falsely or not, the cloning process could not read those files. Macrium error said: "read failed - 22- broken pipe". Acronis said: "Failed to read sector,Direct R/W operation has failed (0x69001), I/O error (0xFFF1)".

I have used Macrium for years with never a problem - until these corrupt (falsely or not) failure to read problems.

Be that as it may, I'll take a look at the forum tutorial you mention.
Thank you for your time and input.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Dennis,
The Kspersky Rescue Disk has been running for 21 hours now. It has been scanning for virus', trojans, worms etc. It appears to be extremely thorough. It also is reading all of my folders and files etc so it does not look like anything was erased. It's about 80% complete and when it completes, I'll move on to the next stage - trying to restore the boot sequence to get my PC back to what it was. I have my fingers crossed! In the mean time I'll check out you're suggestion(s) as well as GokAy's.

PS, the reason I do a clone is that all I have to do is swap drives and I'm back in business - when they work!

Thank you both for your help.
As Ahhnold says "I'll be back"!
Dave

 

[GokAy]

The trick with clones is that don't run the clones at the same time, remove one or the other.

You can remove all other drives and run startup repair 3 times with a restart in between each repair. However, it seems you have a drive that is going bad? Did you check drive health yet? (Sorry if this was mentioned, didn't read previous posts)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

 

[Deaf Dave]

Hi GokAy,
I'm not sure what you mean by "don't run clones at the same time". The drive that I was cloning, that was in the PC, was a drive that was cloned previously. The drive i was cloning to - was also one that was previously cloned. Reason is that the original OEM internal drive had too many hours on it and i felt it prudent to replace it before it failed. Once that was done, at least once a month i'd clone the drive to an external bare drive switching back and forth between two external bare drives. that way, worst case scenario was that I'd only be one month lost.

Drive health is constantly monitored. it's health was at 84%. i must have run startup repair at least six times and each time the only drive was the internal drive. the external drive's health was ok as well. Hope this helps..

 

[GokAy]

Clones as in: When you clone a drive, don't have them attached to the PC same time. After cloning is finished, remove cables of original drive and attach to the backup clone. Boot with backup clone and see if it works, then shutdown, remove backup and re-attach the original. Sorry if this is what you are doing and I simply failed to understand

Using HD Sentinel? Hard Disk Sentinel Frequently Asked Questions. Haven't used it myself but 84% looks alarming?

 

[Deaf Dave]

GokAy, ok, now you really got me. Unless i'm missing something here, how can i clone one drive to another if they are not connected to the PC at the same time?

i hook up a bare drive using the connections for the second drive bay. i then run Macrium clone. when i'm done, i either unhook the clone and put it away for safe keeping or i'll set up to boot from that drive to check and see if all works ok. Never had a problem..

"84% looks alarming?". it had one sector re-allocated. other than that it appears ok and no warnings in SMART. One of the programs i use is HDD Health Another is Lsoft Active Hard Disk Monitor. .

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

You have to have both drives connected to the PC in some way to be able to clone them. However, since you can't have two drives with the same drive letter, clones has to be assigned new drive letters. What Gokhan is trying to say is, once you have made a clone of the C: drive or a drive with the C: partition on it, you will have to remove or disconnect the original drive before trying to boot from the clone. The C: drive or partition that received the new drive letter during the cloning process will revert to C: when you try to boot from it. Any other drives or partitions that were relettered (ok, I invented a new word) during the cloning process may need to have the correct letter reassigned if software needs to find that particular drive letter.

 

[Deaf Dave]

Hi Jeannie, Yes i'm aware they both have to be connected in some fashion. the PC has the capability of having two drives in it's drive cage. i don't have the drive that i'm cloning to, in an an enclosure and attached with a USB cable.

What i do is use the 2nd power cable and the sata cable for the second drive and connect it to the drive being cloned to. I realize that the internal drive has to be removed first before i can test the cloned drive. then i can swap out the drive with the cloned one to make sure it boots etc. when all is ok, then i'll change the drive letters so programs etc will be directed to where they need to go correctly.

have i used the proper procedure? thank you for your response. Dave

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Hi Jeannie, Yes i'm aware they both have to be connected in some fashion. the PC has the capability of having two drives in it's drive cage. i don't have the drive that i'm cloning to, in an an enclosure and attached with a USB cable.

What i do is use the 2nd power cable and the sata cable for the second drive and connect it to the drive being cloned to. I realize that the internal drive has to be removed first before i can test the cloned drive. then i can swap out the drive with the cloned one to make sure it boots etc. when all is ok, then i'll change the drive letters so programs etc will be directed to where they need to go correctly.

have i used the proper procedure? thank you for your response. Dave

Yes, that is the proper procedure. It doesn't matter if the drive that is receiving the clone is connected internally or externally by USB or e-SATA; it's all the same to the cloning process. However, to test the clone, you do have to do the swap with the source drive. It also has to be connected to the same SATA port the source drive was connected to unless you go into the BIOS first to change the boot order (normally not recommended since SATA port 0 is normally the best port to boot from).

 

[GokAy]

Yeah, Jeannie got me right. Well, maybe what I am doing is unnecessary but I always use the bootable media to make a clone, so OS never sees a 2nd drive with the same content and active bit etc and never a need to re-organize drive letters. Then I put the clone in its anti-static bag and store in a drawer until next time after making sure it boots.

Of course, I also take daily images of C (full backup once a week, differential other days, first to an internal drive and later copied to an external) + FreeFileSync data drives whenever I feel like it.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

There is nothing wrong with making daily images of the C: drive (full weekly, differential daily) even though I feel it's overkill for me (everyone has different needs). I make a full image of my C: drive once a week after I do my full anti-malware scans and just before running updates, installing programs, and/or making major changes to my settings, etc. I've found imaging, using Macrium Reflect, to be so much more reliable than System Restore, I turned off System Restore and rely on images only. With the exception of the first image I made after setting up my machine, l have Macrium Reflect set to delete images older than 8 weeks.

I do not feel I need to keep a cloned backup of my C: drive on hand since I can restore an earlier image if needs be. If the drive (an SSD) itself dies, I could grab one of my retired 2.5" spinners and swap it out with the SSD and restore the latest image to it until I can get the replacement SSD.

Being the cheap, old bi...broad I am, I don't like to buy extras drives since I would be burning warranty while the drive sat idle. Also, the prices of drives keep dropping so I would pay more if I bought it sooner instead of later. That is also a reason I don't keep a cloned backup.

On my notebooks, however, I do keep a cloned backup on a spinner in an external enclosure since I mostly use them when I'm on the road. If the SSD I put in one should go belly up, I can try cloning back from the clone. If the SSD is too far gone to allow that, I can remove the HDD from the enclosure and swap it out with the SSD. I will fuss and fume over the slow boot times of the spinner but, at least, I won't be dead in the water. I also carry a second spinner I put images of the C: and system reserved partitions. I don't bother to backup the data since I also have it on my desktop machine and can access the data from my Carbonite.com account if necessary while on the road. Any data I add while on the road, I backup to a 32GB camera card, the second backup spinner, and a USB thumb drive. I keep the card in my purse, the spinner in my notebook case, and the thumb drive in my pocket. I used to upload to my free Amazon Cloud account as well but Amazon discontinued the free service.

 

[Deaf Dave]

After poking around on my backup computer, I found some messages to myself detailing all the clone problems and the image problem. I thought that with this additional information, it may provide an answer on how to restore the info that appears to still be on the two disk drives. I just don't have the technical knowledge or expertise to go about doing so. Hopefully, you will see something and have an Ah-Ha moment. I can't give up yet! One thing I haven't done is attach the drive that has the image on it to my PC. I wouldn't know how to retrieve any info and I also don't want to take any chances screwing anything up.

I have attached a .zip file of all the screenshots of the partitions and my comments etc. Hope this helps to solve my problem(s).
Thank you,
Dave