bad sectors

[Irwin]

Hello. I haven't been to this group in a while, work has been so crazy.
But now I need some help.

My son's computer just started the following weird behavior. It boot
and goes right into the boot menu with safe boot, last good config,
etc. Whatever you pick, it just reboots and comes back to the same
menu. OK, so I figure the c drive is corrupted or windows is corrupted.
Despite my monthly advice to make backups, of course he hasn't. So the
only backup is from when we first put the computer together, which
would be better than nothing. I fire up the Norton Ghost 2003 CD, and
it stops with a 29004 bad sectors error. The drive is only 6 months
old, shouldn't be having physical problems already, should it?

In any case, I will today download the diagnostic diskette from the
vendor and run it. Assuming that we confirm the bad sector errors, what
is the best order to do things in? I want to back up the data, but
Ghost won't run.

Should I do any of the following, and in which order?

1) Try a different program to pull the data off with a different
program?
2) Try to repair the bad sectors?
3) Take the drive out of the machine and put it into a different
machine and pull off what I can?
4) Other suggestions?

I forgot to mention that Ghost 2003 won't recognize my external USB
hard drive, which works fine on other machines. I choose the USB 2
driver, and it just freezes when the driver is initializing. What is
that all about? I tried it in both front and back ports.

Thanks for the advice. I have lots of reading on this to do also, but
would appreciate a nudge in the right direction.

Happy Holiday,
Irwin

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hello. I haven't been to this group in a while, work has been so crazy.
But now I need some help.

My son's computer just started the following weird behavior. It boot
and goes right into the boot menu with safe boot, last good config,
etc. Whatever you pick, it just reboots and comes back to the same
menu. OK, so I figure the c drive is corrupted or windows is corrupted.
Despite my monthly advice to make backups, of course he hasn't. So the
only backup is from when we first put the computer together, which
would be better than nothing. I fire up the Norton Ghost 2003 CD, and
it stops with a 29004 bad sectors error. The drive is only 6 months
old, shouldn't be having physical problems already, should it?

It can. Some faults have a probability per operating hour and
can happen at any time.

In any case, I will today download the diagnostic diskette from the
vendor and run it. Assuming that we confirm the bad sector errors, what
is the best order to do things in? I want to back up the data, but
Ghost won't run.

You need to use a bad-sector tolerant imaging tool. One option
is dd_rescue under Linux. It is contained in Knoppix. You
can also try to access the partitions with Knoppix and copy
critical files.

Should I do any of the following, and in which order?

1) Try a different program to pull the data off with a different
program?

Yes. One that is known to work even if the source drive has
errors.

2) Try to repair the bad sectors?

No! That could make mattters worse!

3) Take the drive out of the machine and put it into a different
machine and pull off what I can?

If that makes things easier, you can.

4) Other suggestions?

Concentrate on getting the data off. You might also want to try to
copy especially critical stuff on a file-by-file basis.

I forgot to mention that Ghost 2003 won't recognize my external USB
hard drive, which works fine on other machines. I choose the USB 2
driver, and it just freezes when the driver is initializing. What is
that all about? I tried it in both front and back ports.

Bad driver? Maybe Ghost 2003 is not all that current?

Thanks for the advice. I have lots of reading on this to do also, but
would appreciate a nudge in the right direction.

I hope I have provided some.

Arno

 

[Nicholas D Richards]

Hello. I haven't been to this group in a while, work has been so crazy.
But now I need some help.

My son's computer just started the following weird behavior. It boot
and goes right into the boot menu with safe boot, last good config,
etc. Whatever you pick, it just reboots and comes back to the same
menu. OK, so I figure the c drive is corrupted or windows is corrupted.
Despite my monthly advice to make backups, of course he hasn't. So the
only backup is from when we first put the computer together, which
would be better than nothing. I fire up the Norton Ghost 2003 CD, and
it stops with a 29004 bad sectors error. The drive is only 6 months
old, shouldn't be having physical problems already, should it?

Have you been to the Symantec site and looked up this error? There are
a number of suggestions as to the cause and work round for this problem.
One of causes is that the disk is faulty, but there are other
alternative causes.

Search technical support using 'norton ghost 2003 29004 bad sectors
error' and ye shall find.

As an aside to running Norton Ghost from a bootable floppy, do not
write protect the disk. If Ghost has a problem it attempts to write to
a text file describing the problem to the bootable floppy, and halts
reporting the write problem, rather than the initial cause of the
problem.

In any case, I will today download the diagnostic diskette from the
vendor and run it. Assuming that we confirm the bad sector errors, what
is the best order to do things in? I want to back up the data, but
Ghost won't run.

Should I do any of the following, and in which order?

1) Try a different program to pull the data off with a different
program?
2) Try to repair the bad sectors?

Absolute last resort. If there is problem with a disk, writing to it
can (only) make things worse.

3) Take the drive out of the machine and put it into a different
machine and pull off what I can?

Similarly the other computer may attempt to write to the disk. If your
problem is actually a virus..........

4) Other suggestions?

Stick with option 1 and see if you can get Ghost to work, it is none
destructive and may get you your data. As another poster has said there
are other programs. I have found Ghost to be a life saver.

I forgot to mention that Ghost 2003 won't recognize my external USB
hard drive, which works fine on other machines. I choose the USB 2
driver, and it just freezes when the driver is initializing. What is
that all about? I tried it in both front and back ports

The advice for Ghost 2003 is only to use the USB 2.0 drivers if all
links in the chain are 2.0. Is the motherboard 2.0 compliant?

I would suggest using the USB 1.1 driver option when you create your
Ghost floppy. Note, that it can take some time for the USB
initialisation.

I have also had this problem when using a PCI USB 2.0 Card on a USB 1.1
motherboard

 

[Rod Speed]

Hello. I haven't been to this group in a while, work
has been so crazy. But now I need some help.

My son's computer just started the following weird behavior.
It boot and goes right into the boot menu with safe boot,
last good config, etc. Whatever you pick, it just reboots
and comes back to the same menu.

Thats the default behaviour with XP, reboot on serious error.

OK, so I figure the c drive is corrupted or windows is corrupted.
Despite my monthly advice to make backups, of course he hasn't.
So the only backup is from when we first put the computer together,
which would be better than nothing. I fire up the Norton Ghost 2003
CD, and it stops with a 29004 bad sectors error. The drive is only 6
months old, shouldn't be having physical problems already, should it?

Correct, it should keep going till its too small and slow to bother with.

In any case, I will today download the diagnostic diskette
from the vendor and run it. Assuming that we confirm the
bad sector errors, what is the best order to do things in?

I'd check the SMART status using Everest too.

I want to back up the data, but Ghost won't run.

I doubt anything else will either given that many errors.

You could let it cool down and see if the errors go
away. If the drive is stinking hot, the errors may
be temporary. Same with a bad power supply too.

Should I do any of the following, and in which order?

1) Try a different program to pull the data off with a different program?

You can try a forensic clone which attempts
to read the bads to see what it can get, but
with that many, it likely wont achieve much.

And you'll need another drive at least as big to write the clone to.

2) Try to repair the bad sectors?

No, dont try that. The drive itself should have tried sparing
the bads and has run out of spares with that many bad.

3) Take the drive out of the machine and put it
into a different machine and pull off what I can?

Yes, I'd try this first, basically to eliminate the possibility that the
bads are due to something outside the drive, the power supply,
bad cable, bad controller etc. Dont use the same cable either.

4) Other suggestions?

If you still see the very high number of bads in the SMART
data with the drive out of that system, you'd best give up
and try to save the most important data on the drive
manually. You wont be able to clone it with that many bads.

I forgot to mention that Ghost 2003 won't recognize my
external USB hard drive, which works fine on other machines.
I choose the USB 2 driver, and it just freezes when the driver is
initializing. What is that all about? I tried it in both front and back ports.

Its way past its useby date now, it never was that great with USB drives.

Thanks for the advice. I have lots of reading on this to do
also, but would appreciate a nudge in the right direction.

I'd try the drive in a different system, internally.

Check the SMART status of the drive using Everest.

See what the manufacturer's diagnostic says
about the drive while its in a different system.

If it still has lots of bads in a different system, try to get what
you can of the most important data off that drive manually.

If the drive is fine in a different system, fix the problem in the original box.

 

[Rod Speed]

Amended, I misread the error message.

Hello. I haven't been to this group in a while, work
has been so crazy. But now I need some help.

My son's computer just started the following weird behavior.
It boot and goes right into the boot menu with safe boot,
last good config, etc. Whatever you pick, it just reboots
and comes back to the same menu.

Thats the default behaviour with XP, reboot on serious error.

OK, so I figure the c drive is corrupted or windows is corrupted.
Despite my monthly advice to make backups, of course he hasn't.
So the only backup is from when we first put the computer together,
which would be better than nothing. I fire up the Norton Ghost 2003
CD, and it stops with a 29004 bad sectors error. The drive is only 6
months old, shouldn't be having physical problems already, should it?

Correct, it should keep going till its too small and slow to bother with.

In any case, I will today download the diagnostic diskette
from the vendor and run it. Assuming that we confirm the
bad sector errors, what is the best order to do things in?

I'd check the SMART status using Everest too.

I want to back up the data, but Ghost won't run.

You could let it cool down and see if the errors go
away. If the drive is stinking hot, the errors may
be temporary. Same with a bad power supply too.

Should I do any of the following, and in which order?

1) Try a different program to pull the data off with a different program?

You can try a forensic clone which attempts
to read the bads to see what it can get.

And you'll need another drive at least as big to write the clone to.

And they wont usually use an external drive either.

2) Try to repair the bad sectors?

No, dont try that. The drive itself should have tried sparing
the bads and has run out of spares with that many bad.

3) Take the drive out of the machine and put it
into a different machine and pull off what I can?

Yes, I'd try this first, basically to eliminate the possibility that the
bads are due to something outside the drive, the power supply,
bad cable, bad controller etc. Dont use the same cable either.

4) Other suggestions?

If you see a high number of bads in the SMART data
with the drive out of that system, you'd best try to
save the most important data on the drive manually.

I forgot to mention that Ghost 2003 won't recognize my
external USB hard drive, which works fine on other machines.
I choose the USB 2 driver, and it just freezes when the driver is
initializing. What is that all about? I tried it in both front and back ports.

Its way past its useby date now, it never was that great with USB drives.

Thanks for the advice. I have lots of reading on this to do
also, but would appreciate a nudge in the right direction.

I'd try the drive in a different system, internally.

Check the SMART status of the drive using Everest.

See what the manufacturer's diagnostic says
about the drive while its in a different system.

If it still has quite a few bads in a different system, try to get
what you can of the most important data off that drive manually.

Hitachi's DFT will say which files are affected by bads from memory.

If the drive is fine in a different system, fix the problem in the original box.

 

[Irwin]

It occurs to me that this is a 160 gb drive. Are any of these DOS bases
solutions like Ghost 2003, Drive Image 2002 or any of the other
solutions going to be able to read that drive? I thought they maxed at
127, only XP SP1 or 2000 SP4 could read a 160 gb.

Irwin

 

[Rod Speed]

It occurs to me that this is a 160 gb drive. Are any of these DOS
bases solutions like Ghost 2003, Drive Image 2002 or any of the
other solutions going to be able to read that drive?

True Image certainly can, and the bootable
CD isnt dos based, its linux instead.

You can download the free trial, make the bootable rescue CD
on another system and see if that can image over the lan. I have
done that fine with a hard drive that had a few bad sectors.

The booted knoppix CD is linux too.

I thought they maxed at 127, only XP SP1
or 2000 SP4 could read a 160 gb.

Its more complicated than that with an imager.

And you shouldnt be getting a bad sector error message even if it was that.

Check the symantec knowledgebase on what Ghost 2003 can do on that.

 

[Rod Speed]

It occurs to me that this is a 160 gb drive. Are any of these DOS
bases solutions like Ghost 2003, Drive Image 2002 or any of the
other solutions going to be able to read that drive?

True Image certainly can, and the bootable
CD isnt dos based, its linux instead.

You can download the free trial, make the bootable rescue CD
on another system and see if that can image over the lan. I have
done that fine with a hard drive that had a few bad sectors.

The booted knoppix CD is linux too.

I thought they maxed at 127, only XP SP1
or 2000 SP4 could read a 160 gb.

Its more complicated than that with an imager.

And you shouldnt be getting a bad sector error message even if it was that.

Symantec appears to be saying that Ghost 2003 can handle large hard drives fine.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...sf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=

 

[Nicholas D Richards]

True Image certainly can, and the bootable
CD isnt dos based, its linux instead.

You can download the free trial, make the bootable rescue CD
on another system and see if that can image over the lan. I have
done that fine with a hard drive that had a few bad sectors.

The booted knoppix CD is linux too.


Its more complicated than that with an imager.

And you shouldnt be getting a bad sector error message even if it was that.

Symantec appears to be saying that Ghost 2003 can handle large hard drives fine.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2000080114212325?Open&src=&
docid=2000033111503625&nsf=ghost.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=

I can confirm this. I have used Norton Ghost 2003 on partitions up to
160 GB on 200 GB drives. It seems to clone smaller to larger and
larger to smaller partitions happily.

 

[Irwin]

OK. I ran powermax on the drive, and it works but failed miserably and
quickly. Gave some error code which I need to run down, my son couldn't
find the code on the Maxtor website and their phone support is on
holiday.

I have a second hard drive in the box, so I tried to use Ghost 2003 to
transfer the files to the second drive. Ghost crashes with bad sectors
error. I had heard that Drive Image was more fault tolerant, but it
shuts down with CRC read errors.

I wanted to move forward, so I pulled the drive and right now it is
sitting in an anti-static bag in a drawer. I will put it into another
system and try to choose the right tool to interrogate the drive and
recover the data. So that is my question. Which tool(s) would you use?
I am willing to put in the time, am trying to research it myself, but
would like some direction.

I would prefer that the tool be free, and I would prefer to not have to
learn linux if don't have to. Actually, I would love to learn linux,
know a tiny bit now, but with 2 jobs really don't have the time. There
are numerous 'ultimate recovery disks', many of which are free and are
both unix and windows based. I have a ERD commander disk laying around
here somewhere, though don't know how to use it yet. I have found
recovery freeware called pc inspector. I own systemworks and system
mechanic and other things that are still sitting in their boxes
unopened. Which tool is your favorite and/or has the shortest learning
curve?

Thank you.

 

[Irwin]

The claim that ghost 2003 works with 160 gb drives, does that presume a
machine with a bios that supports over 137 gb? Or will it bypass the
bios like windows xp did? The machine it was on did not support large
drives, but it was running winxp so it bypassed the bios and supported
the full capacity of the drive.

IMF

 

[Gerhard Fiedler]

I will put it into another system and try to choose the right tool to
interrogate the drive and recover the data. So that is my question.
Which tool(s) would you use? I am willing to put in the time, am trying
to research it myself, but would like some direction.

I would prefer that the tool be free, and I would prefer to not have to
learn linux if don't have to.

Maybe too obvious, but maybe worth a shot... xcopy (or something similar)?


Gerhard

 

[Nicholas D Richards]

The claim that ghost 2003 works with 160 gb drives, does that presume a
machine with a bios that supports over 137 gb? Or will it bypass the
bios like windows xp did? The machine it was on did not support large
drives, but it was running winxp so it bypassed the bios and supported
the full capacity of the drive.

I cannot confirm that, from my experience. My boards are all support 48
bit LBA.

The Symantec FAQ is not entirely clear on this:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2000080114212325?Op
en&src=hot&docid=2000033111503625&nsf=ghost.nsf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=N
orton%20Ghost&ver=2003&osv=&osv_lvl=&seg=hho

IMF

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Amended,

You think? Nothing to show it.

I misread the error message.




Thats the default behaviour with XP, reboot on serious error.


Correct, it should keep going till its too small and slow to bother with.


I'd check the SMART status using Everest too.


You could let it cool down and see if the errors go
away. If the drive is stinking hot, the errors may
be temporary. Same with a bad power supply too.



You can try a forensic clone which attempts
to read the bads to see what it can get.

And you'll need another drive at least as big to write the clone to.

And they wont usually use an external drive either.


No, dont try that.

The drive itself should have tried sparing the
bads and has run out of spares with that many bad.

Utter nonsense.

[snip]

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Thats the default behaviour with XP, reboot on serious error.


Correct, it should keep going till its too small and slow to bother with.


I'd check the SMART status using Everest too.


I doubt anything else will either given that many errors.

You could let it cool down and see if the errors go
away. If the drive is stinking hot, the errors may
be temporary. Same with a bad power supply too.



You can try a forensic clone which attempts
to read the bads to see what it can get, but
with that many, it likely wont achieve much.

And you'll need another drive at least as big to write the clone to.


No, dont try that.
The drive itself should have tried sparing the bads

and has run out of spares with that many bad.

Nonsense.

[snip]

 

[wemaole]

you'd better send it to professional data recovery company