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Josh Christie

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Cloning an important drive that has some bad sectors

One of our old workstations has some software that is not replaceable.  I have a new drive and I am using HDClone to clone it.  We're talking about 30GB of data.  The OS is Win XP Pro SP3.  This morning I connected both old and new drives to another machine using USB ports and booted up with HDClone's bootable CD.  HDClone found all drives OK.  It went ahead and did the clone which took 3 hours.  It found 13 bad sectors, presumably in the original drive.  The OS and the software of concern have been working OK, so I suppose the bad sectors are either at data that's not being used or where there never has been data.  After the clone run finished, I found that Windows Explorer recognized the clone with a drive letter, but it would not allow access and says that there is corruption.  The original IS accessible by Windows Explorer.  I went ahead and Formatted the new drive, and as expected, now it is accessible, but of course with no data.  At this point I ran CHKDSK as Read-Only on the original and it found 8K in bad sectors.  What should be my next move?...

1. Run CHKDSK /f on the original, check it, especially the valuable software, for validity, then run the clone process again and hope for the best?

2. Run the clone process again, assuming that the clone will again be inaccessible but maybe CHKDSK /f can fix the clone.  (I should have at least tried that before the format.)

3. HDClone has an option to copy data sectors only rather than a simple sector for sector.  Maybe I should try that.  Would that copy the Registry data OK, so that the software app would work?

4. Other?

I understand that there is significant risk in running CHKDSK /f as this is more concerned about only healthy sectors being addressible than it is about preserving existing data.  Is that true?  

What should be my next move?
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akb
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If the disk is on its way out then the more you try to fix it the more likely you are to cause irreparable damage.
If the software on it is vitally important then I recommend you send the disk to a professional recovery laboratory and have them clone it for you. This will cost a few hundred dollars but they have the greatest chance of recovering it intact.
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Josh Christie

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I tried creating an image using HDClone, but it required that I buy at least the Basic edition in order to restore the image on the new drive.  I did that.  Then I tried to run CHKDSK on the restored image.  CHKDSK knows that it's an NTFS system, but it cannot do anything with it and it aborts.  

At the moment I am trying the route of creating a virtual machine.  That seems to be working.  We might go that route, though I'd still prefer to end up with a bootable hard drive.  

I think I might try another run with my new HDClone Basic which includes a Safe Rescue feature for the clone mode.
did you try hddregenerator yet?  it fixed several drives for me
Well, the HDClone Basic > Safe Rescue did not work.  So at this point we're pursuing the route of the virtual machine.

After we get weaned off of the old HDD, I'm thinking of maybe trying hddregenerator.
as a matter of fact, it cured a drive just yesterday (a 500 Gb laptop one)
The virtual machine seems to be working.  So I will just close this question
HDD Regenerator is a great tool. But, you have to figure if a hard drive is bad then maybe HDD Regenerator is but a Band-Aid.  If it can get you through a bump in the road then great!  It's never failed to do that on hard drives that at least still work - but there's always a first time of course.
Right now I'm repairing a hard drive for the 2nd time.  So I suspect (as one should) that this hard drive is somehow flaky.  Why would one not if HDD Regenerator is needed in the first place?  
So, it's not a long-term panacea.  But, it may keep things going for the remaining life of the computer (?).
This is the only system that I've seen that came back (after a long number of months) after repairing with HDD Regenerator.  
I'll probably replace the HD this time.
I'd like to give my VM solution a good heat run and prove it out, then have a go with HDD Regenerator on the original HDD.
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So, nobus, do you cure it with HDD Regenerator and then clone it with Paragon?
sure; they are very handy tools - and disk manager 14 is even better (more possibilities)
but in general - i don't even need to clone it, after the repair (i do it only as precaution)
Thanks for the help.  I'm choosing to grade this with a B.  It might be an A answer; I suspect it is, but for the present, I'm going down a different road, so I am tucking these tips into my toolbox for the future.