HELP! This is the second HD TI killed

I posted previously about TI copying bad sectors to a new HD. It turns out that it is the source of the bad sectors. After a copy from a 60GB HD to a 100GB HD, I end up with a nice copy that has been expanded to fit the 100GB drive. After I run a chkdsk /r, it locks out 40GB in bad sectors - and these are somehow persisted in the smart table because nothing I seem to do can recover the drive back to it's full size - not even a low level format.

The steps I took with TI 9.0 (2273)
1)installed new drive in a USB enclosure
2)Booted the TI standalone program
3)Copied from the 60GB drive to a fresh 100GB drive
4) Rebooted to find 64GB of free space, which is good since the 60GB drive had only 27GB of free space.
5) ran a chkdsk /r, rebooted to have it run
6) when finished, the drive had exactly 40GB of locked out bad sectors
7) the seagate utility sees these as bad sectors and claims the drive to be bad
8 ) a low level format of the drive returns a 60GB drive


This is the second time this has happened, the first time, I actually thought it was a disc failure and RMA'd the drive. I feel stupid, this is the second dead drive TI has created!!!
Surely I am not doing something wrong. WOW HELP HELP

 

Hello casper9,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Backup Solution

When Acronis True Image (any edition) creates an image archive of a partition or a disk that has bad sectors (marked in the file system, e.g. using ScanDisk or chkdsk), it records the information regarding the bad sectors as well. So, if one restores the image archive, he/she will get these bad sectors on the new location. The sectors will not be actually bad, but they will be marked as bad in the file system (because it has been restored without any changes).

In order to avoid transferring bad sectors to the new location, you should restore the image archive resizing the partition(s). Considering that it is impossible to resize partitions when restoring an image of a whole hard disk, there is no way to avoid restoring bad sectors in such a case. It is only possible to eliminate the bad sectors by restoring the partitions separately with resizing.

If you will not manage with it yourself, please create Acronis Report (please see https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317 for the instructions) and send it to support@acronis.com with the detailed information of your actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Fedor Kurbatov

 

This revelation is a bit disconcerting to me. I admit that I'm not versed in the limitations of disk imaging. Is this an industry standard principle "that it is impossible...to avoid restoring bad sectors in such a case" or is it something peculiar to Acronis TI? Do you forsee a workaround to this limitation in the future? I should think that your engineers could develop a technique in which TI optionally does not image bad sectors. Anyhow, thanks for the warning!

 

Fedor,
Are you saying you can't use a full disk image, or are you saying you have to just restore the separate partitions (no MBR,etc) one at a time with resizing? If you just have a single partition could you do the create and then delete a SZ for the resize?

 

I would like to be CLEAR, I am not copying bad sectors. They are being created by the copy process. I am copying a 60GB HD to a 100GB with a proportional copy, and the result is a 100GB partition with 40GB of bad sectors. I would not be as worried about this if it was a simple matter to format and try again, BUT THE DRIVE IS NOW DEAD. By 'dead', I mean forever a 60GB drive now. A low level format does not bring it back to its original size, nor can Seagate's utilities. I would pretty much call this a massive show stopper for anyone considering True Image, and a huge liability for them.

 

I bet there is some other explaination. That doesn't make any sense.

 

I agree, it makes no sense, but that is what appears to be happening. These are SATA drives on a laptop, which should have absolutely nothing to do with it.

When it first happened (first 60GB -> 100GB copy), the new drive started giving me write failures when I began to load up the new drive past the 60GB mark. I ran chkdsk, which proceeded to lock out 40GB in bad sectors. I thought it was genuinely a dead drive because it behaved like a bad drive. Hitachi walked me through some diagnostics and declared the drive dead. I returned it to the vendor and bought a 100GB seagate. Copied from the original 60GB again, and then same thing happened. Seagate declared dead, so I RMA'd that drive, here I sit ith its replacement, scared to try again. Guess I will try Ghost. I've used TI in the past with great results, but this is crazy.

Stupid thought, could this be a bios issue? This is on a Dell E1705 (i.e. new model). Is it possible for them to lock the size of the drive in the bios? I know they have done such things with their power adapters, forcing you to buy a dell adapter.

 

A thought Casper...

I Know gHOST 2003 has a problem with SATA drives, so I am wondering if 2273 might also be having problems with SATA (don't know how old 2273 is)? The current build is 3677 and it seems to work well with the SATA drive in my new Dell E-510.

 

If so, you should be able to see/change that by goiing into the BIOS.

 

It surely reads like a Dell problem. I suggest you contact them for an answer.

 

It makes sense. You can restore the full disk, the MBR/track 0 or
just the partition. If you restore the full disk, the disk is restored
exactly as it was with the same partition layout and, now I'm finding
out, the same bad sector table. You should probably select a "Full"
restore only if you are restoring to the same hard drive the image was
made from.

If I'm understanding it correctly, when you restore to a drive other than
the drive the image was made from, you should restore MBR/track 0,
then restore the partition(s). That way you can resize partitions
and avoid copying the bad sectore information from the old drive.

 

This just isn't sinking in. How precisely do I first restore the MBR/track 0 data and then subsequently restore partition(s) using TI. Could I impose upon somebody to outline in very simple format the steps to restore the image of a full HDD(old drive with bad sectors) to a brand new hard drive so as NOT to transfer the bad sectors in the process. Sorry to be so thick-headed.

 

I'm assuming you have one drive with one partition.

You select the archive you want to restore.
A screen comes up that has 3 check boxes:
DISK 1
PARTITION
MBR TRACK 0

Check the MBR TRACK 0 box and *ONLY* that box.
Do *NOT* check the DISK 1 box.
Do *NOT check the partition box.

Later on it will ask if you want to restore more partitions.
Answer yes
Select the partition to restore.
You will have the option of doing a resize.
The rest is pretty obvious.

- Mooron

 

I think I sort of figured out what is happening, and Mooron, it might be as you say. A full disk clone makes the target disc appear exactly the same as the original disc. I don't think the MBR has the ability to specify the sectors/cylinder specs for a drive, so somehow TI is setting the target disc to appear as a smaller drive, like the original. The partition header has the correct sector start and end, but part of it becomes unusable because the operating system must be freaking out when part of the partition is outside of the range that it thinks is possible. The system bios thinks the drive is only 60GB, and some diagnostic untils I found say the same thing. The number of cylinders is close to half of what you would expect to see for a 100GB drive. There is a util that comes with the seagate disc wizard that lets you write the size of the drive (I wish I knew where this information is stored). When you set the size to have the correct cylinder/head configuration, suddenly the lost space shows up in the bios and in windows. I was able to fix my problem by writing the correct size of the drive and then using a partition resize utility. My opinion is that this is a bug and I am surprised more people do not have the same problem. Maybe this is unique to these newer sata drives, windows media edition, or even the dell bios.

 

Hello casper9,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis True Image

It seems to be that you have some sort of hardware issue with your SATA controller or something similar. We advice you to contact your system's manufacturer service center and ask for some testing, because most likely it is something wrong with it.

Thank you.
--
Fedor Kurbatov

 

Re SpinRite

 

Casper,
Did I read correctly that you used the 'clone' mode and not the 'disk/partition image' mode to back-up your 60 GB drive onto a 100 GB drive?

 

Thank you Mooron! Yes, one(1) drive, one(1) partition for our example. I assume that these steps will also apply to TI 9 b2,337 which is the build I'm currently using? Thanks again.

 

Hello bcool2,

I'm afraid you will need to update to True Image 9.0 Home (currently Build 3677) in order to restore the MBR & Track 0 data separately from the individual partitions.

Regards

 

Talked to dell, they have no idea what the problem is. My computer passes all diagnostics, and after performing the correction I mentioned in my earlier email, all is working fine.

I don't think the onus is on me or dell to solve this issue, I believe Acronis should probably pick up a new dell laptop and do some testing. The chipset is a standard chipset that I would guess 90% of new laptops use. If I were the TI product manager or deployment support manager I would be mining these formums for test cases for future compatibility testing. This seems like an obvious use-case to me: Consumer buys laptop with typically small drive, then consumer upgrades to larger hard drive and uses TI or Ghost to copy their old drive across. Success = the process works with minimal pain and suffering, failure = consumer returns several harddrives that were soft-damaged during the process. Sorry for the rant, I just can't stand having this thrown back in my face by Acronis support.

 

A 'clone' process works differently than an 'image' process

 

Hmmm... it certainly is strange. I've copied the Image of a smaller HD (Dell Inspiron 9300) to a larger HD (Dell Inspiron 9400) using TI 9 several times, without any problem at all.

You are definitely saving *.tib image files, wh you then restore?

From what u say, I guess it must be something to do with Acronis -- but difficult to see what.

dom

 

Some DELL PCs come with a small hidden diagnostic FAT partition. This could cause a problem with TI.

If TI tech support tells you to contact DELL for resolution, then why not try another software? ~snipped non Acronis Support comment....Bubba~
I've used COPYWIPE to clone several older DELL notebooks without issue. Create a COPYWIPE boot floppy/CD and use it to clone your drive. Please post back with your result.

 

It does not for imaging and I have trouble imagining it does for cloning.