Disk clone

[Jawloms]

In one of my local primaries, they have a server which was setup by the LA. It has 2x 500GB hard disks in it. Disk 0 is the C drive, Disk 1 is partitioned with two partitions; one for SIMS data and one for documents. Disk 1 has bad sectors on it now so I figured the simplest thing to do is simply clone the drive across to a new disk. Anyone recommend a (free) bit of cloning software that will cope with there being bad sectors and not just go "There's bad sectors so I'm stopping"?

 

Thank you

 

Stuart

 

P.S. I have also considered shrinking the C drive down to 150GB, then creating two partitions in the remaining space and putting the data on there, then RAIDing it with the new disk, but time won't allow.

[Chaniel]

Clonezilla is probably what you want, I've used it to clone failing HDDs in the past. Can run it from a live USB.

 

https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live.php

 

If you use the "Expert" mode then you should be able to use the -rescue option which will continue reading past any disk errors, in a normal mode it would halt.

https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone/advanced/05-advanced-param.php

 

After getting it running on a good disk, I'd compact it and migrate it to an SSD when you have more time

Edited April 22, 2021 by Chaniel

[ThatBoringBloke]

not free, but we have one of these. https://www.lindy.co.uk/usb-c4/usb-converters-c213/usb-3-1-gen-2-docking-clone-station-p10027

 

have used it for years. great bit of kit.

[MYK-IT]

Have one of these, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Docking-Station-FIDECO-Offline-Function/dp/B07D8S7RN7 similar to the Lindy model mentioned above but cheaper!

[FN-GM]

Clonezilla is probably what you want, I've used it to clone failing HDDs in the past. Can run it from a live USB.

 

https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live.php

 

If you use the "Expert" mode then you should be able to use the -rescue option which will continue reading past any disk errors, in a normal mode it would halt.

https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone/advanced/05-advanced-param.php

 

After getting it running on a good disk, I'd compact it and migrate it to an SSD when you have more time

 

I second this. I used it for this very purpose a few days back.

[Jawloms]

I'm at one of those "How long do I leave it" moments........

 

Put the new disk in, booted to CloneZilla and cloned the drive. It did most of it and then said it wasn't going to do one of the partitions as it was pending a scandisk from Windows. Booted up to Windows and let it scan the disk while booting. Booted back to CloneZilla and told it to clone the disk again (using -rescue) and it has now stopped at "Saving OS info from the device..." before it actually gets to the screen where it does the cloning. Been about 20 minutes now!

 

So;

 

How long do I leave it?

[Jawloms]

Got bored so killed it. Tried to do it a partition at a time and it did the same thing. I think I'll revert to good ol' "copy as much data off as possible to a temporary place, and then copy it to the new disk and try and recreate the shares".

[bald_pig]

+1 for clonezilla