True Image 16 continually reports a bad sector on an SSD and fails backup
Hi,
I have a Samsung SSD Pro 850, 512GB, about 3 months old. PC with Win 7 seems to be operating ok but a few days ago, I tried to open a .pdf from a trusted source and the screen went wacky with grey lines and symbols and locked up. I had to to a hard reset which may have started this issue.
Had not been backing up for awhile as we moved and had stuff in storage, etc., so I finally decided to setup the network drive I had been using and created two new backup schemes for C: (the SSD) and K: HDD where I store my data. The K: drive backed up fine.
The C: drive gets about 72GB into the backup and fails with a message indicating "failed to read from sector 169.817.984 Have tried multiple times and always the same sector #.
Via paid support, Acronis looked at it last night and did the following:
- Updated the SnapAPI
- Ran the backup
- Changed the backup setting to validated and error handling options
- If this does not resolve the issue, please reinstall the product and perform the backup.
The only way the tech was able to complete the backup was by checking "Ignore" or "Ignore All" to the error and eventually set this in the options to ignore bad sectors. It appears the backup did verify.
I did uninstall and re-installed and ran a complete test backup on C: with validation and without skipping sector errors and it failed again with the same error in the exact same sector.
Generally I would not ignore any bad sectors as this is an accident waiting to happen and more than likely I would assume the backup is not good and not complete if needed to restore. And if there is a bad sector, the SSD health is in question, I believe.
Apparently the typical window tools for chkdsk are not meant for an SSD. (seems like a lot of different opinions in various forums). The Samsung SMART app, called "Magician" indicates good heath but does not have any offerings to view a sector map, do any error testing, etc. I think it monitors and maybe fixes stuff in the background, but I am unsure.
I have a ticket into Samsung to get their point of view but it is Easter Sunday and probably will not hear from them until next week.
Sorry for the long message but wanted to be complete. Wondering what others have to say about this?
Thx DD


- Log in to post comments

I also found the following webpage with some other tools that may give you some more options.
http://www.nextofwindows.com/tools-that-keep-your-ssd-in-good-shape-in-windows
- Log in to post comments

Even SSD's can have bad sectors - not as often, but it is possible. We puchase Samsung EVO's almost exclusively at work for cost to performance ratio and reliability. However, we've had a handful fail and/or have bad blocks/sectors too.
elevated command promt (run as administrator)...
chkdsk /f /r /x
You may also want to install Samsung Magician v4.9.5 as it should be able to detect is something is wrong with the drive. Other third party tools may help determine if the drive is having problems too (WD Data Lifeguard is usually reliable. I've never used it either, but a lot of people like Hard Disk Sentintel)
Just curious, but is this backup taking place in Windows or with offline bootable recovery media? I would try the offline one without clicking the boxes to ignore errors so see if it fairs any better. If it errors out, try ignoring there as well. IF the backup can complete, you should be OK. You could then try formatting the disk and restoring the image. However, it is risky... if the drive is actually corrupt, data on it could be corrupt too and that could impact the restore.
For me, I have foudn that another good way to verify a bad disk is to use a hard drive docking duplicator. IF it can't duplicate there, you know the drive is going bad. Unfortnately that's hard to do with the NVME PCIE drives currently as I have not found any adapters for this purpose yet.
- Log in to post comments

Bobbo,
Thx for all of the info. See my reply about CHKDSK. On the fence on that tool based on what it did 2x, just froze when it went to the test 4-5 to repair or whatever. Acronis seems to think it is ok to use the 1st three tests to see but not to try and repair.
I have Samsung Magician installed and reviewed the other day. It is v4.5 and i upgraded to v4.95 today. The app shows a lot of data and all of that but doesn't let you do anything to repair, etc. Wont even show a sector map, unless the latest version added some thing I havent seen yet. Magician main page summary says drive health is GOOD!!, yet we know we have one bad sector/block. Did it get locked out and data moved and re-mapped?
And the SMART summary in Magician shows two FAIL items. Samsung seems to think it is on its way out so I have to do something quickly since I didnt back up for 2-3 months while we moved and stuff was in storage, etc.
the SMART FAIL items: ID 187 Uncorrectable Error Count and ID 195 ECC Error Rate, other 12 SMART items test ok.
I have a new SSD coming today since Samsung wont do advance ship so I could try the Samsung clone app they provide, which worked very well the one time I used it to upgrade, etc. They want the drive for repair and of course all data will be gone.
I did all the backup attempts in TI16, within Win 7. Have not tried the offline approach. Just talked with Acronis tech and he seems to think that since the PC seems to be running ok, the SSD or Magician or Windows must have mapped out that bad sector and moved the data. Therefore, making a full image and have it skip the bad sectors and then validate should be ok and recoverable. He mentioned to explore it and see if that is ok. He also mentioned something about "mounting" the backup as a virtual drive. I'll have to look into that. Maybe it runs the PC as the C drive or just creates a virtual drive so I can explore more deeply?
Thx DD
- Log in to post comments

DD, good luck with the actions recommended by the Acronis technician, hope they work good for you.
There is a world of difference between the technologies used in standard HDDs and SSDs which explain why the latter actually do not have bad sectors, but rather they have bad blocks where the block is actually a failing logic component as SSD's are what the acronym stands for - Solid State Devices - they have no moving parts like the HDD platter(s) and flying heads etc. As such SSD's have an amount of built-in redundancy for reallocating bad blocks to use that redundant storage, but ultimately if they start to fail there is no way back.
I would recommend making separate backups of your user data from the failing drive as this may bypass the bad 'sector' assuming that this lays in a different part of the drive. If you still encounter this same sector error, then you would be able to try to narrow down exactly what data is affected by this issue.
The good news from what you said above is that you do have some backups from before this problem started, even if these are 2 or 3 months old now - that at least would allow you to recover back in time to that point, and if you have your data backed up separately, can bring that to the new drive too.
- Log in to post comments

Steve,
Thanks for the advice that I am on the right track with my plan. I made another C: (SSD) backup today seperately from the K: drive (data drive). C: BU says it is valid in which I skipped copying the bad sector. I can always go back to the original drive and make another if necessary.
I am thinking of doing the original 1st clone to the new SSD using the Samsung clone software (which seems pretty good, have used it before). I am leaning toward the Samsung software in hopes that it has some advanced capabilities but it may cough once it hits the bad sector on the original. If it coughs or brings the bad sector over I can start over and do a secure erase of the new SSD and then maybe go with the Acronis copy. Of course, I suspect the secure erase and re-clone takes some life off the new SSD.
We shall see how it goes, planning on doing this tonight or tomorrow. I'll leave some notes as to the outcome for the community.
For all out there Samsung sucks re: replacing their bad SSD's. No advance shipping options and they want the drive back to repair 1st or replace, their choice but either way, data is gone. So, backup is king as usual. Worst case is I am a few months behind in my backups and upgraded the Samsung SSD to a larger one in December and have that drive complete if needed.
Thx DD
- Log in to post comments

I think you'll be fine using Samsung migration. I agree about Samsung support. WD and other drives usually offer advanced replacement - at least with a price tag if you need it.
Where did you read that chkdsk is only for SSD's? It's been around since before SSD's were available. It's a Microsoft tool, but the easiest to get use from. You can also run WD Data Lifeguard (free), spintrite (intended for spinning disks, but works on SSD's but also costs $), disk sentinel (free for a trial), and there are others out there too.
- Log in to post comments

Bobbo,
thx for the thoughts. I ran CHKDSK without asking for repair and these are the 1st three tests and worked fine. If you add options for repair, you get two more tests, #4&5. Test 4 crashed the computer, black screen, no sign of life and after 10 mins I had to reset. This happened twice. There are pro and con comments floating around forums that it is not designed to repair SSD. Acronis tech confirmed this yesterday.
i ran HD Tune which identified the the bad block which checked every block, only one red one was displayed.
i guess what I will never know is did Samsung "Magician" remap the bad sector and maybe that is why the computer seems to be operating ok, or maybe Windows did that?? But the Magician SMART app is reporting 2 fail categories, so gotta clone asap or rebuild from scratch.
might be a good time to go to Win 10 without doing an upgrade but that means full manual rebuild which is good for a pc every so often. Not sure I feel like finding a million apps to reload and all of that. Data is good on another HDD.
thx Dave
- Log in to post comments

@ dd1509,
I would not trust that ssd if I were you, If I was you I would just replace that drive as samsung ssd pro comes with a 10 year warranty.
- Log in to post comments