[SOLVED] My backup of my Windows 10 PC failed. How can I make it work?

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christopher.burnell.95

Feb 13, 2020
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I have a custom built PC with my OS installed on a 128gb ssd and most of my files stored on a 1 TB WD HDD. I tried to backup my PC to an external drive with adequate memory available and it failed (error message: 'Windows Backup did not complete successfully' & additional message: 'Check your backup - The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable). I'm not sure if it failed because I have 2 drives and tried to back them both up or some other reason. Does anyone know why this may be happening?



Additional information: I already had a Windows backup image on the drive I am trying to backup to. Does the drive have to be completely wiped before I begin backup? Also, the end goal is to restore a 2 TB SSD in my new PC from my 128gb SSD and 1 TB HDD in my old PC.



Troubleshooting attempts: I used HDTune Pro to scan for bad sectors on my HDD and found some bad sectors. After finding the bad sectors I tried to remap them using Victoria ver. 5.23, but it failed. The error message states, "12:12:46 : LBA 1474951228 try REMAP... Error: Access is denied (FAQ #6, http://hdd.by/victoria_faq )". This message is repeated 31 times with slightly different numbers and then it finally ends with, "12:55:42 : *** Scan results: Warnings - 1, errors - 31. Last block at 1953525167 (1.0 TB), time 2 hours 27 minutes 31 seconds.

12:55:42 : 0 of 31 defects successfully remapped."



I have little experience with bad sectors, remapping, etc. and I'm not sure where to go from here.



Any ideas?
 
Solution
USAFRet
Buying Windows.....
The thing you pay for is the license, not the install.

Where did your current OS license come from, and is it liked to your MS account?

If it is linked, you can almost certainly transfer that license to the new hardware.
The actual install is free, direct from Microsoft.

Data movement from an old and almost certainly busted drive to a whole new PC is NOT streamlined or user friendly.
You will absolutely have to start with a clean slate in the new system.

For the OS license:
For the OS activation, read and do this before you change any parts:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change...
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christopher.burnell.95

Feb 13, 2020
11
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USAFRet said:
It could be the external drive is failing.

If your desired end state is a 2TB drive containing the contents of the 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD, there are better ways to do this.
Assuming, of course, all drives involved are 100% healthy.
Click to expand...

What is the better way to do this? And the error message said, "the file or directory is unreadable". So wouldn't this imply that the backup failed from one of the drives on my PC and not my external?
 
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fzabkar

Judicious
Sep 22, 2010
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AFAICT, the backup failed because the 1TB source drive has 31 unreadable sectors. If these sectors are owned by one or more files, then these files will be corrupt.

If you know which of your files have not already been previously backed up, then I would back these up individually. Alternatively, you could use ddrescue or HDDSuperClone to clone your 1TB drive to an image file on your external drive. Both these tools understand how to deal with bad media. Be very careful to specify the target correctly, otherwise you could overwrite the existing data. Note that the new image file will contain 31 unrecovered sectors. You can choose to fill them with a pattern such as "BAD!".
 
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christopher.burnell.95

Feb 13, 2020
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fzabkar said:
AFAICT, the backup failed because the 1TB source drive has 31 unreadable sectors. If these sectors are owned by one or more files, then these files will be corrupt.

If you know which of your files have not already been previously backed up, then I would back these up individually. Alternatively, you could use ddrescue or HDDSuperClone to clone your 1TB drive to an image file on your external drive. Both these tools understand how to deal with bad media. Be very careful to specify the target correctly, otherwise you could overwrite the existing data. Note that the new image file will contain 31 unrecovered sectors. You can choose to fill them with a pattern such as "BAD!".
Click to expand...

I have no idea what that backup is. Pretty sure it's from an old macbook. And im trying to create an exact system duplicate (SSD + HDD) to restore my 2TB M.2. in my new PC from. Would it still be useful to make a clone in that circumstance?
 
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fzabkar

Judicious
Sep 22, 2010
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36,390
It would still be useful to clone the 1TB drive, if you use either ddrescue or HDDSuperClone (both free). That's because each tool maintains a log. There is an additional free companion tool (ddrutility) which can analyse the log file and determine which files correspond to the bad sectors (for NTFS file systems only, I think?). You can then delete these corrupt files from your new drive (after restoring the image), or you can replace them with other backups, if you have them.

Of course this assumes that bad sectors do not impact on the NTFS metafiles, otherwise a file system repair/rebuild might be necessary.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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christopher.burnell.95 said:
Then what do you recommend?
Click to expand...
For the OS, a clean install in the new hardware. No question.

For your secondary drive, possibly a simple copy/paste of its contents into a second partition on that new drive.


Cloning is great, when conditions are perfect. Here, there are far too many obstacles.

And going into all new hardware, a clone is not recommended even if things were working perfectly in the source system.
Since they are not, that is yet another strike.
 
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christopher.burnell.95

Feb 13, 2020
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USAFRet said:
For the OS, a clean install in the new hardware. No question.

For your secondary drive, possibly a simple copy/paste of its contents into a second partition on that new drive.


Cloning is great, when conditions are perfect. Here, there are far too many obstacles.

And going into all new hardware, a clone is not recommended even if things were working perfectly in the source system.
Since they are not, that is yet another strike.
Click to expand...

When you say a clean install, do you mean an install not from the SSD (just windows 10)? I also have important files on the SSD and it would be easier if I could install from my SSD.

If I can't install from my SSD, is the best thing to do to manually move the files I need from my SSD and HDD to my M.2?

Also, are there any important files that may not show up in file explorer that I could miss or should every possible file be accessible through File Explorer? I think somewhere in the back of my mind I remember not being able to access registry files in File Explorer.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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christopher.burnell.95 said:
When you say a clean install, do you mean an install not from the SSD (just windows 10)? I also have important files on the SSD and it would be easier if I could install from my SSD.

If I can't install from my SSD, is the best thing to do to manually move the files I need from my SSD and HDD to my M.2?

Also, are there any important files that may not show up in file explorer that I could miss or should every possible file be accessible through File Explorer? I think somewhere in the back of my mind I remember not being able to access registry files in File Explorer.
Click to expand...
You can't install "from the SSD".
I mean an install, booting from a Win 10 USB or DVD. Starting with a blank slate.

What "files" are you needing to move from the old drive to the new?

You're doing this install on a whole new blank drive, correct?
 
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christopher.burnell.95

Feb 13, 2020
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USAFRet said:
You can't install "from the SSD".
I mean an install, booting from a Win 10 USB or DVD. Starting with a blank slate.

What "files" are you needing to move from the old drive to the new?

You're doing this install on a whole new blank drive, correct?
Click to expand...

Ahh okay, I thought there was some way to copy the SSD as is over to my M.2. I was trying to do it that way so I wouldn't have to buy Windows 10 again (I generally don't like torrenting OS's).

I guess I'll just do a "clean install" from a Windows 10 USB then.

It's just some school files and stuff.

And yes the 2TB M.2 SSD will be blank (new).

I'm not knowledgeable on this stuff (obviously), but I guess I just expected there to be a more streamlined and user friendly process to do what I wanted to do with the data movement.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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Buying Windows.....
The thing you pay for is the license, not the install.

Where did your current OS license come from, and is it liked to your MS account?

If it is linked, you can almost certainly transfer that license to the new hardware.
The actual install is free, direct from Microsoft.

Data movement from an old and almost certainly busted drive to a whole new PC is NOT streamlined or user friendly.
You will absolutely have to start with a clean slate in the new system.

For the OS license:
For the OS activation, read and do this before you change any parts:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change

Windows build 1607 and Activation

So, the Anniversary release is out, and many people have updated their machines. Interesting changes with activation and hardware changes. Specifically, the Activation troubleshooter: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20527/windows-... You must link your OS license with your MS account...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com


For the actual install in the new hardware:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
 
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Solution
C

christopher.burnell.95

Feb 13, 2020
11
0
10
USAFRet said:
Buying Windows.....
The thing you pay for is the license, not the install.

Where did your current OS license come from, and is it liked to your MS account?

If it is linked, you can almost certainly transfer that license to the new hardware.
The actual install is free, direct from Microsoft.

Data movement from an old and almost certainly busted drive to a whole new PC is NOT streamlined or user friendly.
You will absolutely have to start with a clean slate in the new system.

For the OS license:
For the OS activation, read and do this before you change any parts:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change

Windows build 1607 and Activation

So, the Anniversary release is out, and many people have updated their machines. Interesting changes with activation and hardware changes. Specifically, the Activation troubleshooter: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20527/windows-... You must link your OS license with your MS account...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com


For the actual install in the new hardware:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
Click to expand...

My current OS license was purchased legally and installed via CD. I no longer have the old Windows 10 product key, but I'll see if I can link my OS license to my Microsoft account.

Yea, well I guess id there's no way around it, ill just suck it up and go with the clean install.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
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Mar 16, 2013
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christopher.burnell.95 said:
My current OS license was purchased legally and installed via CD. I no longer have the old Windows 10 product key, but I'll see if I can link my OS license to my Microsoft account.

Yea, well I guess id there's no way around it, ill just suck it up and go with the clean install.
Click to expand...
Assuming the old system is still running, Belarc Advisor can almost certainly discover that Windows license key.
 
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