Imaging Skip Bad Sectors | Paragon BR Free 2012

Sorry if I misplaced this post.

Imaging Program: Paragon Backup & Recovery Free 2012

I am replacing an internal 1.5TB drive that indicates it is dieing and most likely has problematic defects and bad sectors. The replacement has the same OS and in the same capacity (1.5TB). I was wondering if I take an image of what I have right now (of the problem drive), would the problematic defects and bad sectors carry over and infect the new drive when I restore the image?

Thanks.

Computer Configuration:

Dell XPS8300; Win7 Pro [64Bit]; Intel i7-2600 [3.4Ghz]; 12Gb RAM; AMD/ATI Radeon HD6770; 1.5Tb HDD [7200Rpm]; Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme; Dell IN1920 18.5' HD Widescreen Monitor

 

All in-use sectors would be placed in the image and if they are corrupted they will remain corrupted in the image - this assumes Paragon doesn't have enough trouble reading them that it considers them bad and wants to ignore them.

I would run chkdsk X: /r on the bad drive and fix it up as best as possible and then make the image. This will fix up the file structure if necessary and map out any bad blocks and give you a bit or a report on how many bad clusters it found.

If you haven't a backup of your important data files I would copy them off as a first step before the drive gets worse.

 

Yes, I retried (backed up the critical downloads, email and documents). So now it's just a matter of finding a good way to save myself the time consuming task of reinstalling, re-configuring and re-updating. Sounds as if I am taking a risk of contaminating the new drive.

Thank you for the quick response and information anyway.

 

Akmark5000. I think that seekforever has given you good advice. Run the chkdsk with the /r option to recover the data in bad sectors. Chkdsk will let you know how it makes out and all of the information will be stored in the Event Manager. Assuming you have a successful chkdsk run, then I would do a partition backup of the dying drive, install the new drive, load Windows, and Paragon, then do a partition backup of the new drive in a "virgin" state. Then do a restore from the dying drive's partition backup.

If you find that programs aren't working or there are issues that you attribute to corrupt files, you can just reinstall those programs that are affected; or, you can restore your "virgin" backup and reinstall, reconfigure, and update all of your programs. As I see it, you have nothing to lose and this option could save you a lot of time, assuming chkdsk does a good job of cleaning up your drive.

Just my two cents. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil

 

I don't know if it will save your data, but I'd definitely fix those bad sectors before attempting to do much else and before backing up your system.

For one thing you system will hang and stick on a slow sector like nothing else.

Just boot into the recovery console and run chkdsk or whatever it is. /r, and I think it might need another parameter to force it to run, but if so it will tell you.

If the data is missing after you do that, I'd uninstall the program and then recover the program.

If it's actual data, the cure is unfortunately to have backed up the data, which I do regularly, as files.

Dora