I did not try this before - I used Image for Windows instead and did not run into any errors. I then used Macrium to do an image on another pc using the same destination external drive and that worked fine too. Will try your idea with the Macrium Boot media tomorrow. Edit: ran the image from the rescue media and while it went through successfully, it came with a warning that 4 clusters are in a bad sector and data might be lost. I guess I will need to change the drives urgently.
So, now I wonder what is the best way to fix this issue? The OS drive does not really contain any important information except for the MS License, all relevant data is saved on a different drive (E). The OS C-drive is large 1TB but less than 100 GB are used. Can I reduce the current C-drive to a smaller size to fit a 250gb SSD and if so , what is the easiest way to do. Then if I were to use my existing image to recreate this machine, will that mean I import the bad clusters too?
See if you can repair the bad sectors with... chkdsk /r This will take a long time as the full 1 TB needs to be scanned. Then create a backup image to be used for your next SSD.
You can try using the 'ignore bad' option. Try chkdsk c: /r first Try to use 'intelligent sector copy' option to only image used sectors, hopefully nothing will be in the bad sectors. if they are at the 'bottom' 3/4 you may be able to bypass them by using windows disk manager to shrink the system partition away from the bad bits & just image that part.
What version of Windows? If it's 10 or 11 you shouldn't even need the license assuming you are only replacing the drive. A clean install should pick up your license from Microsoft's server. It if is 7 or 8... good luck.
Brian, doing a chkdsk \r did not provide any clues for me - at least I cannot see anything obvious. Wayne, I am not sure if there is a bad sector XXJackxx, running Windows 10 Pro - yes, I could rebuild the pc but if I could use the image, that would be much easier/faster.
beethoven, Create another Macrium backup and see if you get errors. If there are errors I'd restore the error free IFW backup you have already created. Restore to the 250 GB SSD. If there is a message about not enough space, select "Compact Data" in Restore Options.
Hi Brian, would IfW throw up an alert if it encounters errors re bad sectors? I will need to get two drives first before I can make the change-over but will then give that a go.
interesting, then I wonder why Macrium has now got the errors. I wonder if there are indeed issues with the drive or if this is a false flag by Macrium
Can you run... chkdsk C: /scan You will see the result, unlike chkdsk /r How many bad sectors (if any) are reported. Is there a /spotfix suggestion?
can I do this scan from a live session (running cmd as administrator) or do I need to go into safe mode or do something else. Trying it the cmd/admin way comes up with "not enough memory - please see below the beginning of the scan, followed by many more not recognised entries: C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk C: /scan The type of the file system is NTFS. Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ... Found 0x1 clusters allocated to file "\Windows\MEMORY.DMP <0x6,0x25544>" at offset "0x3302f" marked as free was not able to send command for self-healing due to lack of memory. C:\WINDOWS\system32>Log Name: Application 'Log' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. C:\WINDOWS\system32>Source: Chkdsk 'Source:' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. C:\WINDOWS\system32>Date: 01-May-22 9:18:30 AM The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) Event ID: 26226 The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) Task Category: None The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) Level: Information The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) Keywords: Classic The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) User: N/A The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) Computer: Data3-PC The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) Description: The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) Chkdsk was executed in scan mode on a volume snapshot. The system cannot accept the date entered. Enter the new date: (dd-mm-yy) C:\WINDOWS\system32>Checking file system on C: 'Checking' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Wow, that's new to me. Try this instead... chkdsk C: /f Yes, run as admin and it will run in Windows.
ok, did that - not sure how to read that but will try once more if I am getting the same macrium error
Brian, not sure how to read this but it looked non-dramatic to me. trying to upload this as a file but having problem with that, so I just paste it: Checking file system on C: The type of the file system is NTFS. One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended that you continue. Windows will now check the disk. Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ... 736768 file records processed. File verification completed. Phase duration (File record verification): 16.65 seconds. 14194 large file records processed. Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 0.00 milliseconds. 0 bad file records processed. Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.82 milliseconds. Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ... 3657 reparse records processed. 1187884 index entries processed. Index verification completed. Phase duration (Index verification): 1.16 minutes. 0 unindexed files scanned. Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 2.52 seconds. 0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found. Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 5.44 milliseconds. 3657 reparse records processed. Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 14.56 milliseconds. Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ... Cleaning up 22 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9. Cleaning up 22 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9. Cleaning up 22 unused security descriptors. Security descriptor verification completed. Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 67.36 milliseconds. 225559 data files processed. Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.91 milliseconds. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... 37565160 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed. Phase duration (USN journal verification): 471.58 milliseconds. CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table (MFT) bitmap. CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap. Windows has made corrections to the file system. No further action is required. 976003287 KB total disk space. 67679540 KB in 483149 files. 311480 KB in 225560 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 874399 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 907137868 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 244000821 total allocation units on disk. 226784467 allocation units available on disk. Total duration: 1.49 minutes (89443 ms).
just did another image with Macrium and this time it went through fine, no hiccups at all. Will try the chkdsk c: / scan next
not sure if it was the c: /r or c: /f that fixed it. C: /scan also worked now without any issues. I will monitor this closely and still plan to swap out the drive shortly. Thank you for your help.
When I was having these issues with a failing SSD running chkdsk did absolutely nothing. Macrium was the only thing finding any disk errors. I was starting to think it was just an issue with Macrium. Eventually there started to be errors in the Windows system event logs. The disk ultimately failed. I had this experience on 2 different PCs. Chkdsk seems to be pretty worthless these days. It will not likely solve this issue. When this happens replace the disk sooner than later and give Macrium credit for being a better tool than Windows because when it comes to your system disks it is.
My situation is in a certain way the reverse of beethoven's one: Since 5-6 months I have definitely bad sectors, as CrystalDiskInfo shows me reallocated sectors (constantly during the last time with a Raw Value of 47): During this time period I created already a number of images with Macrium without any problems: there were no warnings or error messages or whatever. (Although I have not activated the option "Ignore bad sectors" - described above in post #9879 by kronckew.) Does this mean that the reallocation of sectors does not influence the (successful) creation of an image? And apart from this, I would like to repeat beethoven's question from above: Let's assume I create an image from a disk with bad sectors: That's something that I also wonder about since a long time.
Hard disks (HDDs) will re-allocate sectors as they detect errors, not permanent errors. They do this based on internal criteria and will do this as soon as they get an error free READ to insure the DATA being re-allocated to a new physical location is good. The problem is, as that re-allocation goes up, the HDD will slowly run out of spare space to do the re-allocations. If that number keeps going up, you need to replace that disk. For HDDs, Windows, and eventually Reflect, will not be affected by this HDD process until the error rate goes above a certain level. At that point the error is reported to the Operating System. Windows, and eventually Reflect, may never see those errors until re-allocation space is all used up. When they do, Windows at first will re-read that DATA until it gets a successful read, when that happens the DATA is passed on to the application asnd Windows logs the events. Once Windows get a permanent DATA error, it passes it on to the application. At that point Reflect will complain. I would change that disk at your earliest convenience...
Froggie, just for me to better understand where I am - my HDD is about 1 TB and used about 10%, so I am unlikely to run out of space quickly. Does the fact that the last image went through fine and the scans did not cause issues indicate that my situation may not be as critical as I thought? I am still unclear as to the process of reallocation of sectors and if an earlier image hit on these sectors and they were subsequently moved to the end of the drive and are ignored in subsequent images, would the resulting image then be "perfect"?
A hard drive reallocates bad sectors using a pool of spare sector spaces, not the entire disk drive. So, when those spares are used up, it's Kaput. Also, when a sector is moved to a new location, that is internal to the drive itself. The operating system doesn't know or care where anything is physically stored. The disk drive control circuitry takes care of that.
