Backup Dell Laptop before HDD fails
I have a Dell Inspiron 15R laptop, Win 7 64 Bit. 500GB sata drive. The drive has been reporting errors for the past few weeks. I have run the chkdsk /r utility several times in an attempt to fix errors. I plan to replace the hard drive but need to get a backup first.
The guys at microcenter told me I could attach a new unformatted drive to the usb port and use Acronis 2014 Premium to clone the drive.
I bought the software, installed it, registered it and upgraded it to 2015. (no idea what the build is but it must be the latest since I've done this all today) I tried to clone the drive only to find the clone process would not allow me to select the usb connected drive as the destination source. Google provided a link that indicates I need to install the new drive into the laptop and clone from the usb to the unformatted drive. This is unfortunate as I didn't want to take the computer apart before having a full backup.
Next step. Perform a full image backup to a NTSF 64 GB USB stick. That process ended when it found a bad sector (314,816). I ignored the sector and continued. The backup failed with event id 0x000101FE, 0X10C45C and 0X1D0155. 'Failed to read snapshot' and CRC error
I'm not sure what these are but there was also an indication the backup failed to 'access to the specified file is denied' on the USB.
I decided to run the chkdsk C: /R /F /V command again.
What is the right way for me to save windows, all installed programs and user data prior to replacing the failing drive?
Thanks
Bill,
The first thing to do is to run chkdsk X: /R on all the partitions of the disk to which you can assign a drive letter. Also consider running the disk manufacturer disk diagnostics tool (typically you have to create a bootable disk with those).
Try again.
If a whole disk backup fails after this, try to backup each partition independently. If the C:\ partition is failing, run a complete file backup using the recovery CD. This process should highlight which file is corrupt. If there are not too many and not critical, delete these files, and try again. If the C:\ partition backup still fails, you will have to be content with the file backup. If you get the C:\ to complete a partition backup, repeat this process with the other partitions. It happens that the corruption is in a non essential partition like the OEM or recovery partition. You can typically get back your computer to a working state without these partitions.
Enchantech,
How unfortunate that disk errors are copied to the new disk with the image backup. Thanks for the comments. Bill
Pat, I've run the chkdsk /R command on the C drive but not on the other partitions that have drive letters assigned to them. The chkdsk C: /R /F /V command I run comes back clean. No errors reported. Could the one corrupted sector might be on a blank space?
There is a volume on the hard drive with no name and no drive letter assigned (100 Mb) that came with the system. There is another volume without a drive letter assigned named Recovery. I recently created a new volume and assigned it the E drive letter (88Gb) for backups. No data on this drive/volume yet. Is there a way to run the chkdsk command against a volume that has no drive letter? (long shot)
The backup completed to the NTFS USB stick today. I had to ignore a single sector error. Same as before (314,816). I was also able to create a bootable DVD media too.
The backup is supposed to backup partitions. Are partitions the volumes?
Thanks for your comments.
Bill
You can use Windows disk manager to temporarily assign drive letters to the unlettered partitions. Do that, run the chkdsk command against them, when finished remove the temporary letters. Pats suggestion about using the manufacturer utilities is sound as well as narrowing down any file corruption. With some luck you can repair the disk to the point of getting an as clean as possible backup. You can use that image to restore with and if you can narrow down any file corruption you should be able to correct that on the restored disk as well.
Enchantech, I was able to assign one of the volumes to drive G and ran the Chkdsk G: /R /F /V command. This process reported1 bad cluster added to the bad cluster file and corrected errors in the volume bitmap. It replaced bad clusters in file 39 of \boot\bootstat.dat. 15 unused entries were removed from $SII and $SDM.
After this process completed I rebooted and ran the Dell diagnostics from their support website. I couldn't find a diagnostic tool to download and run via a CD. There were two failures. The read test and Smart Short Test Failed.
I still have a 100MB volume with no name. No action can be taken on this volume because it has no name.
At this point, it looks like the clone process will probably not work. I need to make a save that will allow me to recover windows and all installed programs and my data. Once that is done, hope that the copied corruption can be fixed on the new drive. Thank you for your help. Bill
Don't worry about the 100MB volume. Can you now run a disk and partition backup of each partition?
I had to step out for awhile so I ran one more chkdsk /R /F /V command. The system was booting when I got back and blue screened. Startup recovery failed twice. I'm preparing to start it with the bootable media disk I created. I hope to be able to get another backup or two from it before it's gone for good.
I was able to create a partition image save after ignoring one sector error.
I doubt I the disk to disk clone is going to work. What backups should I run that would be most useful in recovering the system? ( I understand they might not be complete too)
Thanks again for your help.
Edit: The PC won't boot using the bootable media I created in Acronis. I'm going to try again with a recovery disk I created in January 2015 prior to loading Acronis. I guess this what happens when the boot program is on a bad sector.
Edit 2" The PC won't boot using a recovery DVD I created in Windows in January. I select the option to run the startup recovery process. It brings me back to the start screen. I select the option to start windows normally. Blue screen.
I'm surprised the system won't start using the bootable media created in Acronis. I though that was the purpose of this media. I won't be able to restore anything if it won't boot using the DVD media.
What should I do next?
I connected the 64 gb USB stick to my XP pc and ran a chkdsk command in read only mode. This is the device I performed the image partition backups to. On the C: (OS) backup there were 14,820 bad sectors. This looks as bad as it could get. Is it possible to run the chkdsk /F command to attempt to fix the problems or should I consider this backup as garbage?
chkdsk /r is the command for locating and possible data recovery of bad sectors. You can run /r and /f together. You are right though it looks pretty bad.
Here is a link covering the chkdsk command:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddoc…