True Image 2016 - Failed to Read Data From the disk

Shawn, I would recommend running a disk check utility to check for and repair any bad sectors if you are getting this type of error message.

One that I use for these type of issues is HDAT2 which is included in Hiren's Boot CD - it is a DOS utility that you select from the DOS tools menu for the Boot CD.  See http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ to download the ISO image and burn to a blank CD.

If you are not happy with trying the above, then you could install and run Glary Utilities which is free for non-commercial use and has an easy way to access disk / sector check tools from within Windows.  See image attached below. 
You should tick both Options to fix file system errors and scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

OK, thanks Steve. I will give Hiren's a spin and see what it says. I will report back and let you know what it found-and hopefully fixed. :)

-Shawn

Steve,

I ran the HDAT2 and the Most Difficult Disk Test (I'm not sure if that was the name. I'm doing this from memory). Both tests passed with no errors and nothing fixed.

Any other ideas?

Thank you,

-Shawn

Hi Shawn, please see the attached guide for HDAT2 and confirm that you followed the steps outlined there to do a 'Check and Repair bad sectors' using the utility for the drive that was reporting bad sectors?

I did that. However, I forgot to add that I got an error:
"HDAT2 Load error: no DPMI - Get csdpmi*b.zip"

I assumed hdat2 ran OK, because it gave me a prompt. Whatever that prompt was, it allowed the program to run. I think hdat put me at an R:\ prompt. I was able to enter something that allowed it to continue. The program "saw my Toshiba 1.5TB drive and I started the test on it.

I am trying to duplicate what I did yesterday, and I cannot figure out what I did. :(

I guess I should get csdpmi*.zip. Do you know what is that program is? Should I include it on to a new DVD?

Thank you,

-Shawn

Hi Shawn, the DPMI error relates to DOS Protected Mode Interface but you should be able to ignore it, just relaunch the DOS Tools Menu again if you are at a command prompt, then try HDAT2 again - if you are doing the Check and Repair bad sectors it should take quite a long time to scan a 1.5TB drive and you should see HDAT2 reading through sequential sector numbers and giving you a count of how much data has been read so far - I would normally set this going and go do something else for an hour or more.

I would do that, but after the "Load error:..." it dumps me to a R:\> prompt. Oh wait. I typed 'M' and got the menu. I forgot I did that yesterday. I'll update you shortly.

It is scanning-just like it did yesterday. I assume it will complete with no errors-just like yesterday.  One odd thing is I expected the hard drive light on my PC to be constantly 'on' as the scan is taking place. I have not seen it turn on. The scan counter is counting down, but I hardly ever see the light turn on.

It is talking about 1 1/2 hours to scan a 1.5TB HD. The processor is a quad core i3 at ~3 GHz. My guess is only 1 core is being used as this is a DOS program.

I did run DRevitalize. It ran for over 7 hours and probably would have run for another 7+ hours. I stopped it to give HDAT2 another try. DRevitalize found over 200 sector errors. I do not know if it can repair those errors. Perhaps someone else has more information.

I will continue with HDAT2 again and report the results.

UPDATE: After 2 hours, HDAT2 says Warnings = 0, Bad Sectors =0, and Repaired = 0.

Any ideas?

Hi Shawn, did HDAT2 get past the problem sector 625,580,982 that you mentioned in the first post?

Do you have more than one disk drive in this system?

Steve,

I assume that it did/does since it completed the scan. I can rerun it to make sure.

And yes, it is the only disk drive in the system. I took the cover off just to be 100% sure. At one time, when I first got the computer, I had a SSD cache drive. It was causing problems, so I removed it and reconfigured the BIOS. I was certain there was only 1 drive in the system, but I have been wrong many times before on other issues. So, I took the cover off just to be 100% sure.

There are 3 SATA connections to the motherboard (that doesn't support IDE). One goes to the CD/DVD drive, one goes to a multi-card reader, and the 3rd goes to the hard drive. There are no cards in any of the card reader slots.

Hi Shawn, there is another disk scan / repair tool that you could try as an alternative to HDAT2 - Macrorit Disk Scanner this has a Windows 10 installable version and also a portable version though I have never used this tool.

HD Tune is a commercial alternative but which allows you to trial it for 15 days which may be more than enough time to identify the status of bad sectors on your drive and take a decision about what actions may be needed.

OK. I think I'm making progress.

HD Tune Pro says I have an error at 6,256,065.

I am living dangerously now. ;-) I told Windows to do a scan and attempt recovery.  I've seen this go badly in previous versions of Windows. I'll cross my fingers and hope it works! :)

Thanks,

-Shawn

Hi Shawn, I have normally gotten away with letting HDAT2 recover bad sectors or mark them are unavailable - I would typically remove the hard drive and scan it when connected to a test system that I keep for that purpose, along with using it to de-louse systems with viruses etc.

If you have a consistent bad sector error, then one approach is to re-partition the drive and try to put the bad sector into unallocated space between partitions.  The other approach of course is to replace it with a new one and then use the suspect drive for less critical purposes, i.e. as a storage drive for 'stuff' that you can more easily replace if lost etc.

If you opt to repartition, then tools such as the free Easeus Partition Manager are useful to have.
Fortunately new hard drives are relatively inexpensive these days and hybrid drives are a good way of having the best of SSD and SATA for speed and capacity.

Hello Steve.

Can you recommend a tool to recover bad sectors? 

HDAT2 says there is no problem with the drive. So I cannot use it to recover the bad sector. HD Tune and Acronics do say something is wrong.  But, I haven't found a way to make the sector good using those packages. I set the Microsoft utility up and let it run overnight. This morning, I found the computer rebooted. I re-ran HD Tune and it reports the sector is still bad. I assume it either didn't find the bad sector or it attempted to fix it and could not.

I do have a couple 1 TB's that I can use as a replacement for the 1.5TB.

Thanks,

-Shawn

Hi Shawn, if you have run CHKDSK with the /R parameter then the system will take care of any bad sectors identified automatically, assuming that such sectors are within the Windows partition you are scanning.

See the help text for the CHKDSK command below:

Checks a disk and displays a status report.

CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]] [/B] [/scan] [/spotfix]

  volume         Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), mount point, or volume name.
  filename       FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation.
  /F                 Fixes errors on the disk.
  /V                 On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file on the disk.
                      On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
  /R                 Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
                      (implies /F, when /scan not specified).
  /L:size          NTFS only:  Changes the log file size to the specified number of kilobytes.  If size is not specified, displays
                      current size.
  /X                 Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
                      All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid (implies /F).
  /I                  NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
  /C                 NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder structure.
  /B                 NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume (implies /R)
  /scan            NTFS only: Runs a online scan on the volume
  /forceofflinefix    NTFS only: (Must be used with "/scan")
                      Bypass all online repair; all defects found are queued for offline repair (i.e. "chkdsk /spotfix").
  /perf             NTFS only: (Must be used with "/scan") 
                      Uses more system resources to complete a scan as fast as possible. This may have a negative performance                             impact on other tasks running on the system.
  /spotfix         NTFS only: Runs spot fixing on the volume
  /sdcleanup    NTFS only: Garbage collect unneeded security descriptor data (implies /F).
  /offlinescanandfix     Runs an offline scan and fix on the volume.
  /freeorphanedchains FAT/FAT32/exFAT only: Frees any orphaned cluster chains instead of recovering their contents.
  /markclean          FAT/FAT32/exFAT only: Marks the volume clean if no corruption was detected, even if /F was not specified.

The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by skipping certain checks of the volume.

If you run this on a drive that is in use, you will be asked if you would like to schedule it to run when the system restarts.

Tools like HDAT2 work at a very low level and ignore partitions and formatting so could identify sectors that are outside of the Windows partition or in unused space.

See the links below for what others say on this issue.

http://www.howtogeek.com/173463/bad-sectors-explained-why-hard-drives-get-bad-sectors-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1795054/repair-hard-drive-errors-bad-sectors.html

http://www.eassos.com/how-to/bad-sector-repair-software.php

Steve,

Thanks for the tip. I kicked off a scan using the /R switch.  I think I effectivly did the same thing yesterday when I went to Disk Management and ticked the boxes to Scan and Fix errors.  However, I kicked off a chkdsk /R and rebooted.

I'll let you know of the results.

-Shawn

Steve,

I ran another chkdsk /R. I didn't see it report any errors. But it did complete. Once Windows booted, I re-ran HD Tune Pro and it still sees the same error, in the same place. 6,256,065.

Thanks,

-Shawn

Hi Shawn, I am not sure what else to advise in this matter - if CHKDSK runs clean then there should be no problem with having any bad sectors within the Windows operating system and all should be working fine, assuming there is no corruption etc.
You could run SFC /SCANNOW as Administrator if you have any concerns about data integrity within Windows.

Have you tried to perform a full backup with Acronis True Image 2016 since doing all these checks on the disk?

Steve,

sfc /SCANNOW was one of the first things I did. I mentioned that in my first post. The many times I've run chkdsk/R, I've opened a command prompt, as Administrator, and run it. Of course, it tells me it can't run it now, would I like to schedule it. I say yes, reboot the machine, and let it run. Each time I've run it, it completes with no errors.

I have tried running an Acronis full backup since the scans, but it the process errors out within 2 minutes with the same error message that was in my first post. 

From what I can tell, the bad sector information is being "remembered" by the SMART utility in the drive.

I have a spare 1TB drive.

The system is currently booted in to Parted Magic. The Disk Health utility shows me some things that have got me worried about the drive. There are no other errors than the one that's preventing the backup. But there are something things that are indicating "old age." This drive is about 4 1/2 years old.

My current plan of attack is to copy the data off of the "bad" 1.5TB drive an onto my NAS.  I'm doing this to preserve the data in case the rest of my plan go badly.

Once the copy is complete, I plan to use Parted and resize the partition to 1 TB. Then, I plan to use Clonezilla to clone the 1TB partition to my spare 1TB drive. Wish me luck..If I am VERY lucky, the bad sector will be in unused space AND will be outside of the 1 TB partition.  Figure those odds. ;-)

I did have a power outage that stopped my copy process. :(

Copying has resumed.  Thanks for any suggestions or other inputs,

-Shawn

Today I tried something different tonight. I ran chkdsk /f /R again. After the computer booted in to Windows I ran Acronis again. I got the normal error about the bad sector. I hit 'Ignore' about 10 times. Then, I hit 'Ignore All' and the backup appears to be progressing.

I wonder if this is 'valid.' If this completes tonight, and I have a catastrophic hard drive failure tomorrow, will I be able to retrieve my data?

Thank you in advance,

-Shawn

Oh, and another question. The backup appears to be working. But it's taking over 32 hours to back up 330 GB of data (on a 1.5 TB drive)? That seems unusually long. My backup location is a D-Link DNS-323 NAS with 2, 3TB drives. I know the D-Link isn't known for the fastest transfer speeds, but the NAS doesn't seem to be the slow down.

The computer that Acronis is running on is a 3GHz i3 with 8 GB of RAM. Shouldn't things be happening faster?

-Shawn

...and yet another question. Sorry.

The backup completed. Yay! I looked at the .tib file that was created. It is 2.1 GB.

Did Acronins back up my hard drive with over 250 GB of data to 2.1 GB? I know there's tight compression, but wow! That's tight!

Or, were so many read errors that Acronis only got a small fraction of the data?

Thanks and sorry for all of the questions. I just want to be sure things are working correctly.

-Shawn

Hi Shawn, sorry for not replying to your earlier posts have been busy with lots of family staying etc.

Your 2.1 GB image file sounds too good to be true!  Have you tried mounting it and exploring the contents, assuming it can be mounted?  I doubt personally that ATI can compress 250GB of data down to so little, a vanilla Windows installation would normally be more that that small image file size.

I personally would be looking at trying other backup utilities in this instance and see how they fare with your problem drive, two that I have been using alongside ATI are AOMEI Backupper and Macrium Reflect - both available to download and use for free for non-commercial usage.

Both of these utilities can create WinPE rescue media as needed and work well with Windows 10.

I totally understand time with the family. No need to apologize, Steve.

Recently started a new job. At that job, we routinely use Acronis 10.5 and 11.3 for image restorals. I figured A.T.I. 2016 would be a snap. Ha! As you can see by my questions, there have been issues. But, I've ridden the Acronins horse this far, I don't think I want to change.

I'm still trying a few different things. My next attemp is to clone the 1.5 TB to a 1 TB drive.

Wish me luck, and thanks for your responses.

-Shawn

Hi Shawn, the suggestion to try a different backup program was to see if that has the same bad sectors issue as ATI - if so then it is definitely an issue with the drive. 

It is possible that:

- the bad sectors are in a hidden partition, not the C:\ partition or a user created partition. A way to evaluate this is to assign, where possible, a temporary drive letter to the hidden partition using Windows disk management. Then run chkdsk against that partition,

- a file is corrupted. I had this caze where the file was in a hidden partition (OEM recovery). I found which file by assigning a temporary letter to the partition and then running a file backup using ATI. The file backup failed and ATI displayed which file was involved. I deleted the file (other options to try are copying the file to another volume for safekeeping). Then the backup completed normally.

Thank you, Pat for the suggestion.  A corrupted sector in the OEM recovery may be the issue. The computer is home built, so perhaps the file was in a Windows recovery area.

Anyway, I was able to use ATI to clone the drive to a spare 1 TB drive. Once I verified that was sucessful, I am now successfully backing that drive to my NAS. Yay me!

During reboots, I removed the original 1.5TB drive. It is on my hard drive eraser. That should get rid of the bad sector. ;-) Actually, it might not if the disk is mechanically defective. But we'll see what happens when it finishes.

I am still dismayed at something. The clone process took about 15 minutes. I increased the setting to give the backup the highest priority. But, the backup is still scheduled to take 1 day and 1 hour.  That seems unusally slow.

-Shawn