Imaging a drive with bad sectors/file system with Terabyte Unlimited software

I was wondering the same thing then googling found this, kinda stressful indeed:

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ucf/viewtopic.php?p=17265#p17265

I imagined a scenario where I need to make a drive/partition image with full OS and user's data documents etc. with any Terabyte's software 'coz is fast reliable compressible and is able to use TBIView to browse the image file to extract user's data only. OS files don't matter anymore 'coz a new drive is going to replace the old one.

To encounter bad sectors or bad file system and the drive imaging software to take extremely too long to resolve and finally yield an image file is more than annoying and stressful.

 

In the past I've managed to copy data from a defective drive (HDD with bad sectors) using FastCopy, allegedly a fast file copier but no it does not copy that fast as claimed.

Making a full drive image with OS and user's files is faster. I'm aware that getting an image containing bad sectors won't serve to restore it as a full functional drive again, I just want all user's data to be backed up.

Then that data might be fully extracted, or partially due to bad sectors, using TBIView.

 

Assuming there's a way IFW or any Terabyte's soft to set it to really skip bad sectors in less than one second, a HDD with, let's say 500 broken sectors, the total time invested in reading/skipping them would be less than 9 minutes. That's something acceptable.
A "Ignore IO Errors/No retries" would be very very helpful.

 

I've cloned drives with a few bad sectors that wouldn't boot, using EaseUS Disk Copy. Afterwards, I've actually been able to boot from the new drive. Due to the bad sectors, there may have been some files that got damaged, but the drive booted and Windows was working fine.

EaseUS Disk Copy gives you the option to continue with the clone when it encounters bad sectors.

To just create an image, you can create images of drives with bad sectors using R-Drive Image. It's not free, but it is fully functional during its trial period.

 

Sort of a "Ignore IO errors" like TB software but how long it takes to resolve and or skip damaged sectors?
I'm looking for speed, I don't need the OS itself, OS is going to be reinstalled from scratch. I only need to backup user's data documents.

 

One of the problems you suffer from is the OS has NO TIMEOUTs for certain low level I/O operations... I've seen this before with certain disk failure modes. The OS wants some DATA and the disk itself gets hung up trying to get that DATA for the OS. It may be trying to reconstruct DATA errors or some other low level operation and gets hung up while trying to do it. The OS can't do anything about that... it will just wait.

 

Do you mean OSes such as Linux running Image for Linux or a WinPE/WinRE running Image for Windows too?

 

I've only seen that issue using installed Windows (I don't expect PE to be any different). My use of IFL is limited and has never been run on a questionable disk.

 

I understand.

I could do the job as usual. Running FastCopy from a WnPE or installed Windows, it certainly skips bad sectors or filesystem errors quickly enough to keep the copying operation but ii's still sloooowww in general terms.

 

Some of those low-level hardware device correction operations can be excessive in terms of time... and in the past I've actually seen them hang inside the disk firmware (most likely due to a device firmware bug).

 

I would opt for repairing the sectors with Spinrite or HDD Regenerator, then imaging.
You can use them to only refresh the blocks that are bad so the overall scan time is reduced.

 

It takes a long long time to "repair" bad sectors with HDD Regenerator. I've used it in the past. Moreover, add the time needed for Imaging and it could take hours if not a full day. So far copying file by file with FastCopy seems the faster alternative.

Any other suggestion?

 

I've found it to be no too slow, but have only used it on drives which did not have a lot of bad sectors.

 

@roger_m @TheRollbackFrog @A_mouse

Thank you all.

 

I've started using DSynchronize again instead of Fast Copy. It's a little quirky, but I've found it MUCH faster for backing up large amounts of files to a slow external drive. (I use and recommend the Portable Apps version at https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/dsynchronize_portable)

 

You're welcome.

 

How about it handling file system or bad sectors errors?

I'm going to test vs FastCopy later today I'm the same way you did.

 

I'm not entirely sure how it handles those types of errors, although I use it with the "Verify Copy" option (which is probably a simple checksum). A drawback is the lack of documentation as well as the busy interface. It has an option I have not tested, called "byte to byte sync" which the author says should be used "only in particular situations" because it is slow.

In my experience imaging a full disk with bad sectors, the only software that could do it properly was the paid version of AOMEI Backupper. Macrium and another free product I don't recall would always stop at the bad file and fail to complete the operation.

 

Didn't like it. While FastCopy did a job in TotalTime = 04:47 min, Dsynchronize did it in 7:19 min.
Thanks a lot anyway for the suggestion.

 

Mr.X, can you try Robocopy on the same task and assess its speed.

 

Folder copy with basic commands

Code:

D:\Desktop\ChoEazyCopy>prompt $G

>RoboCopy.exe  "xxxxx" "XXXXX" *.* /E /COPY:DAT /MT:8

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY     ::     Robust File Copy for Windows                    
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Started : Sun Nov 14 20:45:03 2021

   Source : xxxxx
     Dest = XXXXX

    Files : *.*
 
  Options : *.* /S /E /DCOPY:DA /COPY:DAT /MT:8 /R:1000000 /W:30

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
    Dirs :       802       801         1         0         0         0
   Files :      2025      2025         0         0         0         0
   Bytes :   5.627 g   5.627 g         0         0         0         0
   Times :   0:40:33   0:05:04                       0:00:00   0:00:52

   Ended : Sun Nov 14 20:50:59 2021

>exit

Folder mirroring with error ignoring by leveraging the R and W switch

Code:

D:\Desktop\ChoEazyCopy>prompt $G

>RoboCopy.exe  "xxxxx" "XXXXX" *.* /COPY:DAT /MIR /MT:8 /R:0 /W:0

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY     ::     Robust File Copy for Windows                       
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Started : Sun Nov 14 21:23:06 2021

   Source : xxxxx
     Dest = XXXXX

    Files : *.*
 
  Options : *.* /S /E /DCOPY:DA /COPY:DAT /PURGE /MIR /MT:8 /R:0 /W:0

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

               Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
    Dirs :       802       801         1         0         0         0
   Files :      2025      2025         0         0         0         0
   Bytes :   5.627 g   5.627 g         0         0         0         0
   Times :   0:45:52   0:05:10                       0:00:00   0:00:46

   Ended : Sun Nov 14 21:29:02 2021

>exit

I think Robocopy performs fine with good times.

 

It's fast on my computer...
NVMe SSD to NVMe SSD

366 GB copied in 202 seconds.

 

How about FastCopy?

 

I don't use it.

 

FastCopy. Same parameters. 14 minutes. Slow.