Does a 'bad cluster' on a hard drive automatically prevent a system image from being made?

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I have Acronis TI Home 2009 version. I use a bootable CD and make entire system images of my hard drive every month. I store the system images on my external hard drive.

When I tried to make one this month, the process barely got started and was aborted with no specific details given. I then noticed a few other issues on my PC such as IE8 occasionally freezing, as well as programs periodically failing to open at startup.

Anyhow, I don't know much about the chkdsk command but know enough to run it! So I went to the command prompt and typed chkdsk/f/r in the hopes of repairing whatever was going on with my hard drive. Fortunately, I received a message during this process indicating 'Windows has replaced bad clusters in file 57372 of name pagefile.sys'.

Once the process finished, I was successfully able to run my boot disc and made my monthly system image of my entire hard drive. So a few questions here. Do 'bad clusters' automatically prevent a system image from being made? Are there any generalizations that can be made as far as what typically causes 'bad clusters' on a hard drive and how they can be prevented?

I am just trying to learn from this experience. Thanks for any feedback.
P.S. I should also state that my hard drive (Western Digital) was installed at my local pc shop only a few months ago and was fully tested for any errors before I brought my computer back home.

Sat, 01/23/2010 - 05:05
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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Hello Scott,

Thank you very much for your post. I apologize for the delay but I will definitely help you with your questions.

I am afraid at the moment it is not clear why the backup process aborted with no specific details. Do you think you could run an AcronisInfo reporting utility and send me a PM with it attached to your message? I will be able to determine why the backup failed.

Bad clusters which are comprised of several bad sectors or bad blocks, could potentially mean that your hard drive can very soon fail completely.

Bad clusters do not necessarily prevent a backup from being made, when our software detects such errors it prompts the user that the backup will run in sector-by-sector mode when running from the bootable CD as well as from Windows. At other times there could specific errors like - failed to read from sector - and the backup would fail.

Bad clusters could be caused by a number of things. Bad exists from Windows, hard drive defects, other flaky hardware like RAM, motherboard etc or  malware. The best way to prevent bad clusters in my opinion, would be to locate them in time and replace the hard drive. You can try using Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology or S.M.A.R.T. which is a monitoring system for computer  hard disks to detect and report on various indicators of reliability, in the hope of anticipating failures. You can check the following list for different types of S.M.A.R.T. tools.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you.

Wed, 03/03/2010 - 20:18
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