can a troubled hdd be cloned and still boot

[timOleary]

My C drive is dying,
Although I am able to use this PC for the time being.

I first noticed some functional problems. I ran Crystaldisk, and the
drive is running hot and has excessive (300) reallocation errors and
uncorrectable sector count.
I ran Windows and DOS Seatools and both said the drive was not
repairable.
QUESTION:
I want to clone the drive onto a new one, but was told the new drive
would inherit the problems on the old one.
Once the cloning has been done, won't Windows reallocate properly onto
the new media upon the first cold boot?
The diagnostics I'm running said I could attempt to repair but be
prepared to lose data.
After testing deeper the diagnostics said don't bother trying to
repair, just save the data quick and replace the drive.

 

[philo]

My C drive is dying,
Although I am able to use this PC for the time being.

I first noticed some functional problems. I ran Crystaldisk, and the
drive is running hot and has excessive (300) reallocation errors and
uncorrectable sector count.
I ran Windows and DOS Seatools and both said the drive was not
repairable.
QUESTION:
I want to clone the drive onto a new one, but was told the new drive
would inherit the problems on the old one.
Once the cloning has been done, won't Windows reallocate properly onto
the new media upon the first cold boot?
The diagnostics I'm running said I could attempt to repair but be
prepared to lose data.
After testing deeper the diagnostics said don't bother trying to
repair, just save the data quick and replace the drive.

Might work

give it a try

 

[Don Phillipson]

My C drive is dying . . .
I want to clone the drive onto a new one, but was told the new drive
would inherit the problems on the old one.
Once the cloning has been done, won't Windows reallocate properly onto
the new media upon the first cold boot?
The diagnostics I'm running said I could attempt to repair but be
prepared to lose data.
After testing deeper the diagnostics said don't bother trying to
repair, just save the data quick and replace the drive.

Best policy:
1. Copy all the dud drive to another drive.
2. Verify completeness and fidelity of the copy. If it is incomplete
(because some sectors were unreadable) you could compile a list
of missing files in case they can be restored from another source.
3. Then see whether you can repair the dud drive (low level format)
but do not waste time if it reports fresh problems.

Any "cloning" process might reproduce drive errors on the new drive.