Unexplained error while cloning hard drive

Petros_K

Distinguished
Jan 14, 2014
119
8
18,695
I've been using Macrium Reflect for months now to clone my hard drive for backup purposes and I've never had an issue like this. Clone copy process gets to 3% and then I get these errors depending on which program is used:

Using Macrium Reflect:

Clone failed - Read failed - 13 - Broken pipe



I tried using DriveImageXML. Got an error again:

Read Error: Data error (cyclic redundancy check)

Info: Partition Copy Error
Address: 004E66A9



It looks like there's an error on the original hard drive, but Microsoft checkdisk scanning for bad sectors says the volume is clean. Here are results:


"CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
115200 file records processed.
File verification completed.
179 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
0 EA records processed.
44 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
157322 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
115200 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
21062 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
34830160 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

242601983 KB total disk space.
83600400 KB in 93018 files.
60672 KB in 21063 indexes.
4 KB in bad sectors.
223563 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
158717344 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
60650495 total allocation units on disk.
39679336 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk c: /F
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N) Y

This volume will be checked the next time the system restarts. "


--and when it ran again at restart still found nothing wrong to be fixed.


The hard drive has also been defragmented. Seatools diagnostic says SMART has not been tripped, and the short tests all pass. HD Tune health status of both drives says "ok." I even tried a reinstall of Macrium Reflect.

I also checked the computer to see if some protection was turned on without having done it myself. Still got the error when anti-virus (Avast) is disabled.
 
Solution
I got it sorted now...

I made the mistake of running HD Tune's Error Scan as a "Quick Scan" the first time and it missed that there was actually one damaged block. This is a Seagate Barracuda hard drive. So, I used Seatools bootable CD at startup, the long test, and it found 6 errors. They were repaired successfully at the end of the test. Booted back up and used HD Tune to double check, no damaged block showed up this time. I went back to Macrium Reflect to clone as I usually do and all went well finally.

Paperdoc

Polypheme
Ambassador
First thought: you've tested your internal HDD several ways and concluded it is OK. What about testing the external unit? The error messages you got do not specify what unit generated the error. Just because it is a READ error does not exclude the external HDD.
 

Petros_K

Distinguished
Jan 14, 2014
119
8
18,695
I got it sorted now...

I made the mistake of running HD Tune's Error Scan as a "Quick Scan" the first time and it missed that there was actually one damaged block. This is a Seagate Barracuda hard drive. So, I used Seatools bootable CD at startup, the long test, and it found 6 errors. They were repaired successfully at the end of the test. Booted back up and used HD Tune to double check, no damaged block showed up this time. I went back to Macrium Reflect to clone as I usually do and all went well finally.
 
Solution