Imaging a corrupted hard drive

First some backgroud. About 6 months ago I upgraded my 80GB HDD to a 160GB one. I used acronis true image to accomplish this and it went fine. About 1 month ago the pc started freezing and I would get the blue screen of death. Being the moron I am I ignored it and just restarted it. This worked for a bit but eventually upon restarting it just automatically went to the blue screen of death. It says I have an “unmountable boot volume.”

After making a post about this I was given the advice to create an image from the corrupted 160gb HD and then attempt to run my HD’s utility tool which will try and fix it. I guess the theory goes that if for some reason the utility tool can’t fix it I should be able to still salvage most of my files from the image, would that be correct? The main thing I am concerned about salvaging are my music files.

So I hooked up the external HD, and powered on the pc with the acronis bootable rescue media. I chose to validate as I went.

Not long after the process started I got the following error message

“Failed to read data from disk. Failed to read from sector X,XXX,XXX of hard disk 1.” I chose to ignore this. Soon enough another one popped up. At that point I just chose the ignore all choice. I imagine the reason this is happening is due to the corrupted HD. Perhaps of note, this happened when C: drive was being copied. So I guess I am wondering if this error is to be expected in my situation or if this is something out of the ordinary?

Getting back to salvaging my music files. If for whatever reason I can’t get the utility feature to save the corrupted drive I assume I will have to reformat and start from scratch. I still have the original 80gb drive unchanged so I figure I would create and image of it and restore it to the 160gb drive just as I did 6 months ago. Of course this doesn’t solve the problem of salvaging the music. So my question is theoretically would I be able to cherry pick those music files of the of image of the 160gb drive I am creating to the new external HD?


So any feedback either to the specific questions I asked or to how I am going about this in general is much appreciated. I’m a little insecure about the whole process and I am far from an expert in using acronis so I need all the help I can get.

As of posting this it looks as though I am about less then 25% of the way through copying drive C. It currently shows I have 10 hours left although it showed 19 hours like a half hour ago so not sure how accurate that estimate is.

 

Once the backup image is complete, if you can mount it you should be able to copy out your music files (and whatever else you want), except for any that were located on any of the bad sectors.

If the MFT got corrupted, TI may not be able to create a valid image. You'll just have to wait until it's finished to find out.

It sounds like the 160GB hard drive may have quite a few bad sectors. You probably need to run chkdsk /r on it (but wait until have you have the image). Depending on the state of the drive, you may want to consider having it replaced. If it keeps developing new bad sectors then it's not going to be reliable.

Before attempting any HD utility "fix" I would copy off my important files if possible. You may want to use a Knoppix cd or a BartPE cd if you have one. If the partition can be mounted and accessed you could copy the files to your USB hard drive.

 

As you've been told you can try to extract your desired files by mounting the image and copying the files out or use the BartPE/Knoppix method if possible.

TI is not a data recovery program and one of it's basic assumptions is that your hardware is good. If you are desperate you might try a data recovery program on your original drive. Remember the more you use the drive the worse it is likely to get.

 

"Once the backup image is complete, if you can mount it you should be able to copy out your music files (and whatever else you want), except for any that were located on any of the bad sectors."

Where would I attempt to mount it? Back on to the 160gb drive?

"You probably need to run chkdsk /r on it"

What is that? Is that part of windows recovery cd? If so I don't have a windows recovery disk.

"Before attempting any HD utility "fix" I would copy off my important files if possible."

Not sure I understand how I would go about that? Take the drive out of the laptop and put it in an external housing? Then try to copy the files to another external?

 

As a side note:

I found this concerning the blue screen of death message I am receiving (unmountable boot volume).

http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00014.htm

Here's what I can't seem to figure out. When creating the boot disks it wants to do so in floppy format. My desktop pc that I am on now has a floppy drive so I could create the disks but then, how would I used them since my laptop (with the corrupted drive) doesn't have a floppy drive? Am I missing something there?

That web page leads me to believe this is a correctable problem. False hope?

 

After you have Windows running again, you start TI and then you can try to mount or explore the backup image.

No. chkdsk is included with Windows. You need to open a command prompt window (Start->Run then type in cmd and press Ok). At the prompt type in chkdsk C: /r and press ENTER. (If your drive letter is different, then use it instead of C:. Windows will need to reboot to run this. Your problems is you can't run this until you can boot into windows. If you have an XP install cd you can probably start the Recovery Console and run it from there.

If you boot from a Knoppix or BartPE cd, you can "mount" the hard drive and access the files. If your external is connected you should be able to copy the files to it. If you don't have a Knoppix or BartPE cd then you'd have to create one before you could try this.

 

I take it you don't have an XP install cd.

Did the image you were trying to make get done or is it still in process?

The problem may be able to be corrected. It depends on how bad off the drive is. If the bad sectors on on the file that needs to be repaired, then you'll have a harder time fixing it.

 

About 66% of the way through C drive right now.

"I take it you don't have an XP install cd."

Nope. The page I linked does have a link to a download from microsoft that allows you to create a Windows XP boot disk (in the form of 6 floppy disks) but as I said I'm not sure how that's going to work considering the dell laptop with the corrupted drive does not have a floppy drive.

edit: 66% of the way through drive c and apparently about 33% of the way through the whole process

 

Do you have TI installed on your desktop computer? If you do, then after the backup is finished, attach the USB hard drive to the desktop computer and see if you can mount/explore the image. Hopefully, you can and you can copy out the music files and any other important files you need.

 

Yes it's installed on the desktop. I will try that and let you know in about...3 hours or so. Thanks so much for all the help.

 

OK the image is made. I connected the external to my desktop. I am attempting to mount the image but I'm stuck at the image selection screen.

Under the external I see the following

a folder named autorun
a folder named wd windows tools (I believe this is software that came on the external like google desktop)
Then there are 33 seperate files labeled full-july28- (that is the name I gave for the image)
a folder called shared documents
my network places
itunes
resume
security tools
unused desktop shortcuts

Wasn't sure what to mount so I just chose the first full-july28-
Seems to be loading. Will post when its done (takes a while cause my desktop only has usb1.1)

 

OK so at the end of mounting acronis gave the following error

Error, cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from backup drive

Not sure what to make of that. Either way, I can view the old files (woohoo!!).

So I am in the process of copying the music files to the external. Once I salvage all my data (really all I'm worried about is my music and some word files), whats the next step?

My thought is to go back to the laptop and run the HD tool, see if it can debug it. If it can't, what then? Is my only recourse to wipe that drive, go back to the original 80gb drive, re-image it then restore it once again to the 160gb and start anew? Is there an easier or perhaps cleaner way? Just want to make this work as best as possible.

It's probably gonna take a long time to copy all my music over this usb1.1 as I've got at least 60gb of just music to copy. Might even be closer to 80gb or more.

 

It might be faster to run to the store and buy a PCI USB 2.0 card, install it and then copy the files...

As for the 160GB hard drive, I would run the diagnostic tools on it and test it thoroughly (chkdsk /r, etc.) and make sure it's okay. If it has a lot of bad sectors or doesn't pass the tests, you'll probably want to replace it. It's probably still under warranty if it's only about six months old.

 

I'm gonna pop the old 80gb drive into the laptop and use its usb2.0 for now.

 

So I ran the HDD utility. Found one or more corrupted sectors. Ran the fix, operation completed successfully and then rebooted.

Upon restarting chkdsk automatically ran indicating system C volume dirty. Verified all 3 steps completed successfully and then windows booted up. Hooray!

I guess I am wondering if that chk dsk thingy that ran was the same thing you were talking about above (chkdsk C: /r) or they are actually different utilities?

So anyhow, not sure what I should do next to proceed in ensuring all is well and I can go back to using the laptop without fear of doing more damage.

 

Well I think I was able to run chkdsk C: /r like this,

Went to C:>Right click>properties>tools>error check>scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors

Went through 4 phases and said it was ok

 

That is the same as running it from the cmd prompt.