Well...I am talking to Amar Kumar from Symantec Live Chat...he asks lots of questions...but gives me no help. So I turn to you all.
I am trying to backup my 80gb C: drive to my 250gb D:
C: is xp pro and programs
D: is data only
I just reformatted my comp (only c: wiped) and decided to give this NG 10.0 a try that I got for Christmas. I installed it and ran Live Update- so far, so good. Then I tried to backup my c: to d: but I keep getting errors. It seems to be fine going through the "Copying Image Files" but then at 76% it goes to Verifying Image Data or something and then CRASH! At first it gave me the bad sectors error. Now its giving me this error:
-Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Recovery point of C:\.
--The internal structure of the image file is invalid or unsupported.
I am a patient man and I am willing to try just about anything. I searched through these forums for prolly 2 hours to no avail. This is an SOS - Save Our Sanity!

I just realized I should prolly give some more info. They are both fairly new so I was surprised at the bad sectors error. The 80gb (c: drive) is about 18 months old and the 250gb (d: drive) is only 4 months old. They are both Seagate Barracudas. So then I booted from the NG cd into the Symantec Recovery Thingy (thats what its called right?  :) ) and scanned both drives for errors, but it didnt find anything.
So whats up?
Let me know if you need more info.

I am assuming that both 80gb and 250gb are internal drives, correct?

Have you run:
chkdsk c: /r
chkdsk d: /r

That will verify each sector on each hard drive.

Also, does your pc and motherboard support large hard drive sizes?  Check the website for your pc and verify you have the latest BIOS for your pc; if not, update it.

right click/properties for the D: 250gb drive.  Does it show NTFS and how many used and available?

Yes, both are internal.
I ran chkdsk d:  0k bad sectors.
Yes, both drives are NTFS (I may be a noob in NG, but not in everything :))
I ran chkdsk c: /r and then went to the store. When I came back it was on stage 5 (of 5) at about 5%. Perfect. Then I went to go finish feeding myself and the kid and as I was walking into the comp room Windows was just restarting...so I didnt see the results of chkdsk c:...DOH! So I guess I gotta run it again eh? Is there any way to see the result after the fact?
Just tried NG again on the off chance that chkdsk c: fixed it...no go. Same error.
Retrying chkdsk c:...this time I will sit here and watch it like a hawk!

When XP runs chkdsk as part of a restart, the results are kept in the XP Event Log:
My Computer/right-click/manage/Event Viewer
Look in Application Log for Winlogon entry.

OK here it is:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                        
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 5 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 5 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 5 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

 78140128 KB total disk space.
  6345244 KB in 21554 files.
     6248 KB in 2456 indexes.
        4 KB in bad sectors.
    93052 KB in use by the system.
    65536 KB occupied by the log file.
 71695580 KB available on disk.

     4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 19535032 total allocation units on disk.
 17923895 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
30 5e 00 00 d4 5d 00 00 7c 77 00 00 00 00 00 00  0^...]..|w......
61 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 aa 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  a...............
80 c3 c9 01 00 00 00 00 aa a0 68 0b 00 00 00 00  ..........h.....
96 99 00 02 00 00 00 00 a2 1d e5 78 00 00 00 00  ...........x....
be a4 9b bc 03 00 00 00 d2 5b 87 4b 04 00 00 00  .........[.K....
10 a1 78 b2 00 00 00 00 10 3a 07 00 32 54 00 00  ..x......:..2T..
00 00 00 00 00 70 48 83 01 00 00 00 98 09 00 00  .....pH.........

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


4k in bad sectors??? Thats enough to take down Ghost???

Does the properties of the D: disk show 250gb?

Also, do you have all the xp system updates applied, especially all the .NET updates?  Ghost requires the .NET environment.

Here's a few links, which you may have already seen.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=EC8F17B7

Yea, the d: drive/250gb seems to be working fine. And yes, I DLed both 1.1 and 2.0 of the MS net framework

Just trying to confirm:
Start
Run
chkdsk d: /r
(you have to reply to run at next boot if in use)

the /r switch is to read each sector.  (not to be confused with the /f)

I just saw your bad sectors in c: drive.

Just confirming again, you
start
run
chkdsk c: /r

(replied yes to run at startup)
(note use /r, not /f)

There is an option in Ghost 10 to "ignore bad sectors during copy".  As a test you could try that, but I recommend getting to the bottom of the problem if that fixes it.

I clicked on different Options but didnt see anything about ignoring back sectors...am I just slow?
BTW Thanks a lot for your help and quick replies
And yes, I have been using chkdsk C: /r (not /f)

It's in the advanced settings when you define the backup.  Or select the backup-definition, then "Edit Settings" and it leads you through the settings.  Again, it's in the advanced icon on about the 3rd screen.

OK, the results are in.
I had to go pick up my wife, so I decided to run chkdsk c: /r again in the mean time. Same result. 4k in bad sectors.
So I did the ignore bad sectors setting on Ghost and it worked without a hitch. No errors. So I guess now I should try to recover using the image I just created and see if it goes ok...thats a nightmare waiting to happen...:P
SO. Is there a way to tell the hdd to just ignore those bad sectors? I mean, 4k? Geez, I wouldn't even mind losing 4mb or even 4gb if it means it makes the hdd 100% stable. The hdd is only used for my OS and programs and I seriously doubt I will fill up 80gb any time soon.  

My understanding of the subject is that once a sector is marked as "bad", that it is removed from the allocation table, and is not eligible to be used.  In other words it's not a problem at all, because hard drives were designed to have alternate sectors assigned for a few bad ones.

What is puzzling to me is how Ghost handles this condition.  Because Ghost is supposed to backup ONLY those sectors that are in use.  So if the 4k in bad sectors are NOT in use, why is Ghost complaining?

The other case can be that a sector contains data and then at some point you try to read the sector and it fails with a sector error.  In this case, the sector (and file) is needed and so anytime you try to read that file, you will get an error because the assigned sector is bad.  Ghost should complain in this case.

If you are really paranoid about the bad sectors, then the SpinRite program from Gibson Research is the defacto gold standard in the ability to analyze and often recover bad sectors as well as the data in them.

http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

Hopefully someone else can shed their opinions, but that's what I understand.

I forgot to mention:  I believe all of the major hard drive manufacturers have disk (non-destructive) diagnostic software on their websites.  I would run their diagnostics and look at the report.

You can read up on Google for "bad sectors" but I believe if you aren't having a specific problem with the drive and the manufacturer diagnostic runs ok, you may be ok.

Also there is software which monitors and displays drive SMART status, which tries to forecast/warn of impending failures.

Wow. You really go out of your way to not only solve the problem, but give additional info as well. I have only experienced such great advice and info on one other forum (silentpcreview.com).
Yea, I have SpeedFan installed, but as you know, it doesnt give very specific info. The fitness on both of my hdds is one bar short of the best and the performance is max on both; so at first I was a little skeptical that one of my hdds was the culprit. Live and learn :)
I'll have to give that other program a try. My wife just told me I could do "whatever it takes" to get the comp 100% stable...Acronis True Image...? hehe

Thanks for the comments.  There are a lot of sharp contributors here.  We're all learning.

I was reading up on bad sectors for my own edification.  I have a Seagate drive so I was looking on their website for diagnostic tools.  I found this article which covers how to handle (and repair) bad sectors with Seagate.  I haven't run it yet myself, but here is the SeaTools document.


Quote:

Bad sectors (LBAs) may be detected during the test. The test will halt with a Fail status. If you are testing an internal PATA (IDE) or SATA disc drive, in this case, we recommend that you run the Long Test in the bootable version, SeaTools for DOS, which has the ability to repair sectors in most cases.

Ghost4me, I have wondered:  when a drive marks a sector as bad and ‘substitutes’ another in its place, then replacement sectors that are logically adjacent to existing sectors (i.e., have sequential addresses) are now no longer necessarily physically adjacent to one another on the disk.  As a consequence, it seems that a defragmentation utility seeking to place a file in logically sequential sectors will in fact be fragmenting the file, under conditions where the file occupies one of the replacement sectors.

Your perspectives on this issue?

I believe the answer is "That depends".  If the defrag program reads the defective sector information in the partition table (I think that's where it is kept), and thus avoids placing any file across adjacent sectors, it could keep everything physically adjacent.

In reality, one or just a few bad sectors isn't normally a big performance issue.

It would be nice if there were a utility that would display all the bad sector information and what file-names fall across that sector.  Is there something like that?

Note, I created a new thread entitled How does Ghost 9/10 deal with bad-sectors? to discuss bad-sector issues.

Yes, I agree that it “would be nice if there were a utility that would display all the bad sector information and what file-names fall across that sector” – but have never seen such a tool.  Perhaps another forum member will be able to comment on this point.

I was under the impression (and could be wrong) that the defective sector information is stored in non-volatile memory within the resident electronics on the hard disk drive itself – i.e., the existence of a replaced (swapped) bad sector is completely transparent whenever the operating system or an application makes a disk read/write request.

An interesting discussion, but one that I agree is largely without any significant performance implications.

Pleonasm wrote on Mar 21^st, 2007 at 6:34pm:

I was under the impression (and could be wrong) that the defective sector information is stored in non-volatile memory within the resident electronics on the hard disk drive itself – i.e., the existence of a replaced (swapped) bad sector is completely transparent whenever the operating system or an application makes a disk read/write request.

I think you're right and I was wrong about where the bad sector information is kept.  It appears from this PC Guide Article that the drive controller handles the remapping.