A good hard disk repair software?

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Pigitus, Jul 30, 2014.

  1. Pigitus

    Pigitus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Posts:
    97
    Location:
    USA
    MerleOne, I'll check the tips. Thanks.

    Brian K, I stand corrected. And thanks for the specific references. Apologies to TB as well. As I clutched at the convenience of IFL's and IFD's GUIs, I ignored the manuals and remained unaware of command line alternatives. To say it differently, using TB software at their fullest requires either significant knowledge or significant effort -- and I still don't meet either criterion. But most users can still achieve reliable backups and restores by just leaving options at their defaults.

    Yet, even after reading the pages you cited, I still see a hitch. According to the IFL manual, for example, excluding pathes does not change image size. What's the point of excluding, then? In many situations, it would be wasteful to image single-volume PCs (e.g., laptops) that contain system + personal data -- especially if the data are large. If personal data are large and the same across a user's PCs, they would be backed up separately in a single place. Hence the need to image just the laptop's system.

    So, the manual raises eyebrows when it states :

    "This option is used at your own RISK. Please make sure to create standard backups of important data. [...] The data of the excluded files is essentially compressed to zero. When restored, the files will either be deleted or truncated (depending on the options selected). Note that even though excluded, the data will still affect the minimum restore size (JUST AS IF IT WASN’T excluded). Additionally, the excluded files and folders will still show up in TBIView and TBIMount." [Capitalization mine.]


    1. Why exclude files/folders if it does not reduce image size?

    2. "This option is used at your own risk." What's that "RISK" about since it's already announced that the data will be reduced to zeros or truncated?
     
  2. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,115
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    Pigitus,

    I can't answer about the risk but the images are certainly smaller when folders are excluded. As a test, I excluded the entire Windows folder from a backup. The image was only one third the size of a backup that didn't exclude the folder. Can I ask where you read about image size being unchanged.

    I agree this isn't an easy method for newcomers to use.
     
  3. Pigitus

    Pigitus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Posts:
    97
    Location:
    USA
    "Can I ask where you read about image size being unchanged."

    The quote starts at the bottom of page 116 and ends at the top of page 117. Manual is here
    www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/ifl_en_manual.pdf
     
  4. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,115
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    TeraByte apps do sector based copies/restores so if your original partition was....( * is sectors in use, - is free space)

    [---**----**--]

    then the target partition to copy/restore into can not be smaller than...

    [---**----**]

    You can't do this...

    [****]

    That's what is meant by "Note that even though excluded, the data will still affect the minimum restore size (just as if it wasn’t excluded)". Even though the sectors in the excluded files/folders have been compressed to zero you still need a target partition of this size for the restore [---**----**]. But the excluded files/folders don't take any space in the image. In my example from the previous post, a full image was 5.72 GB and an image without the Windows folder was 1.83 GB.
     
  5. Pigitus

    Pigitus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Posts:
    97
    Location:
    USA
    Your example is encouraging when contrasted to Acronis. As I said earlier, Acronis created two exactly identical images (sizewise) of a volume, even though a large chunk of data was supposedly excluded from one of the images.

    Funny. Rare seems to be the imager that can exclude paths.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2014
  6. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,115
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    This might help. My excludes.txt was...

    Code:
    [t]\Windows\ >
    My batch file was..

    Code:
    start "" "C:\Program Files\TeraByte Unlimited\Image for Windows\V2\imagew.exe" /b /uy /d:#0x41AB2316@0x1C /f:#0x4EE73226@0x1:"\windows_excluded" /comp:14 /exlist="D:\excluded\myexcludes.txt"
     
  7. Pigitus

    Pigitus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Posts:
    97
    Location:
    USA
    It should be so easy for TB to implement this command through a GUI. I thought we had entered the GUI era two decades ago. It's as if you bought a car today that requires you to step out to crank-start the engine. The marketplace demands of all of us specialists to sell our specialized products to each other. The less polished the product the more the market will penalize it. If I sell to that programmer a polished BMW with an electric starter rather than a crank starter for his convenience, let the programmer sell me a polished software as well.

    Rant aside, I GREATLY appreciate your help here. You saved me the time of figuring out that syntax out of the manual. So I saved your command line, but I hope I won't have to use it, unless I can't find a polished GUI implementation of the exclusion feature elsewhere.
     
  8. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

    Joined:
    May 9, 2005
    Posts:
    10,215
    One more thing to consider is that the disk firmware/raid driver might also be misreporting.
    Filesystem level tools can only report whatever the filesystem offers.
    Sector analysis will tell you about the disk structure - maybe, if the disk controller cooperates.
    You could be having several problems at the same time, compounding the problem.

    What's your current "cross section" status?

    What does smart report (if it can see below the raid)?
    In addition to that, all the imaging and disk repair tools?

    What's the one thing they all or most report as being faulty.

    Mrk
     
  9. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,115
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    The TeraByte apps have a Simple Mode for beginners. Three clicks for a backup and three clicks for a restore. Pretty much foolproof. Many of us prefer a command line for the more complex tasks and the GUI usually generates the entire command line. The following was generated from the GUI...

    Code:
    start "" "C:\Program Files\TeraByte Unlimited\Image for Windows\V2\imagew.exe" /b /uy /d:#0x41AB2316@0x1C /f:#0x4EE73226@0x1:"\windows_excluded" /comp:14
    I just had to type in the exclude part.
     
  10. Pigitus

    Pigitus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Posts:
    97
    Location:
    USA
    MrKvonic, thanks for trying to help. I don't know what a "cross section" status is. Aside from that, I've already provided lots of details since opening the thread. Unfortunately, it may be a job to read everything I wrote.

    Brian K, thanks again. My problem is that this syntax is obscure to me and I don't like to write syntax I don't understand.

    Let's break the full line down. Please correct/fill in the blanks.

    1. start "" "C:\Program Files\TeraByte Unlimited\Image for Windows\V2\imagew.exe" /b

    This means you are using the DOS START command to launch imagew.exe .
    /B means the process shall not show up in a window
    "" means there won't be a window tile.

    2. /uy
    I see neither u nor y nor uy as parameters for the START command. Where did you get those and what do they mean?

    3. /d:#0x41AB2316@0x1C /f:#0x4EE73226@0x1:"\windows_excluded" /comp:14
    ? ? ?

    4. /exlist="D:\excluded\myexcludes.txt"
    Parameter exlist pertains to imagew.exe, and you're telling it to find the excluded paths in myexcludes.txt.

    In what folder do you put myexcludes.txt ? In any default path where the OS will look at? Or in the folder where imagew.exe is?
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2014
  11. Pigitus

    Pigitus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Posts:
    97
    Location:
    USA
    MerleOne, I tried Drive Snapshot. From what I see in the GUI, it cannot exclude paths. I looked at the various parameters it can take at the command line [snapshot /?], I don't think I saw anything there to exclude files or folders.

    I looked at the features comparison table at the Paragon site, and none of the products seem capable of excluding paths.

    The ShadowProtect site shows no clue of path exclusion either.
     
  12. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,115
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    Pigitus,

    The first thing to do is to create an “excludes” text file. It can be named anything you like. Let’s say you want to exclude the C:\MSOCache folder, all .bin files and the C:\Users\Brian\Music folder. Paste this into the text file. I named my text file myexcludes.txt. It can be stored anywhere.

    [t]\MSOCache\ >
    [t]\*.bin >
    [t]\Users\Brian\Music\ >

    That’s it. Simple.

    Now to create the command line. Run through the IFW screens and on the Backup Options screen click Show Command, put a tick in Save to file, click OK. You now see the Command line. Click OK. Name it backup.cmd (or your favourite name). Save it to a folder of your choice. Anywhere. Click Save. Cancel out of IFW.

    Right click backup.cmd and click Edit. Type /uy after /b (see my line)
    /uy stops IFW from asking you questions. (It answers any questions with Yes. eg Do you want to start?) At the end of the command line type the path to myexcludes.txt.

    In my case… /exlist="D:\excluded\myexcludes.txt"

    You don’t have to understand all the switches but they are explained in the IFW user-guide. I use disk signatures instead of drive numbers. eg #0x41AB2316 instead of w0 but you will use drive numbers.

    It is easy. You only have to read the user-guide if you want more details.

    Edit... if you post your command line we could comment. You don't have to use /uy if you don't want to. I'm in the habit of always using /uy as almost all my backups are scheduled and I run them hidden. Nothing pops up.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2014
  13. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

    Joined:
    May 9, 2005
    Posts:
    10,215
    What I meant what is the maximum "fault" state that all or most programs agree upon.
    If you create a matrix, programs/tools versus fault types, where do you get the most hits?
    Mrk
     
  14. MerleOne

    MerleOne Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 6, 2006
    Posts:
    1,336
    Location:
    France
    To exclude path with snapshot you have to use the command line. Type snapshot --? ou snapshot --help, the syntax is something like --exclude:"\mp3;\videos\" for instance. The double dash is mandatory. Hope this helps. BTW, to get something readable, type
    snapshot --help | more (like in the old time..).
     
  15. MerleOne

    MerleOne Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 6, 2006
    Posts:
    1,336
    Location:
    France
    Regarding exclusions in snapshot, it also creates a .bat file at the root of the imaged drive (in the image) that you have to run after restore to purge the remnants of files that were not imaged. They seem to be there but they are empty inside.
     
  16. Pigitus

    Pigitus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Posts:
    97
    Location:
    USA
    I'll wrap this thread up (unless someone else wants to continue it).

    I opened the thread asking how to repair a failing RAID 0 array that warned of its imminent death. Of all the surface repair software discussed here, none found something wrong with the disk array. It is the RAID itself that was getting faulty. One of the two drives was failing the latency test. Runtime.org, specialized in RAID problems, said its software did not fix problems such as mine.

    However, there was one surprise. After being unable to boot for months, the RAID miraculously booted a couple of times. I took a live image with Drive Snapshot while the RAID was running. Then the RAID really DIED.

    Even while the array was not able to boot (but it was STILL SPINNING), I took lots of good images with imaging software loaded on CD. Acronis True Image 2014 was the only one that refused to image, because it saw bad sectors (even though the repair software saw no error). A poster in the thread mentioned that Disk Explorer (one of the utilities at runtime.org) could figure out which file occupies any particular sector if the sector number is punched in. That utility revealed that one bad sector number Acronis pointed to was a partition sector. That looked serious -- except that Acronis was the only software complaining. The repair software did not complain. Neither did the other imaging software (Terabyte's IFL and IFD, Macrium Reflect, Drive Snapshot, and Farstone's Total Recovery Tools, and one or two more). Each produced an image, although a few did not succeed at restoring.

    So, even though the RAID died, many good shots were taken from different software. Therefore, the system that died on the RAID is now recoverable many times over (especially from IFL. IFD, and DS).

    One last point. A single disk running a restore from a RAID 0 image requires a BIOS setting change. RAID must be de-selected in favor of IDE (or whatever protocol the single disk conforms to). Leaving the RAID setting on while the system is now running from a single disk will cause a BSOD, at one point or another.

    Now that I am a little familiar with some imagers, I still have questions about their "advanced" options, but I will open a separate thread or two to ask these questions.

    Thanks for your participation. I learned a lot. In fact, I even chose the imagers tried here from other Wilders threads on imaging, except for Acronis, which I knew of from a store.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2015
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.