IFD fails to write image to disk after backup

[Specular]

I've been using Image for DOS for about two years off-and-on, using the a live CD to backup my laptop's hard drive to an external drive. I currently have 177GB free space on the external, and the laptop's drive is 160GB, with maybe 75% actual used data. I always use Verify Byte-for-byte, and the uncompressed option.

However the past couple attempts at backing up an image have failed to write the image to the external drive, after I've checked the drive in Windows Explorer.

The most recent attempt was about an hour ago, and when I last checked the screen during the backup it showed a completion time of 30 minutes. After coming back later it showed the main IFD menu screen, so I assumed it had completed. However it hadn't, apparently, as I checked the external drive and no new image was there.

Is there something wrong, or does IFD now add /that/ much overhead to images than it was before?

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

Have you checked the file system on the external drive for any errors (e.g. run chkdsk /f on it)?

Is this a newer laptop with Windows 8 on it? If so, you can have that type of problem if "Fast startup" is enabled or any hard drive accelerators are used (see http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=575).

[Specular]

Thanks for the reply. I'm running XP.

I've tried chkdsk on different drive in the past but it froze at one point while running, and I've heard it can occasionally cause data corruption in some cases - would it still be worth trying? Apologies for the rather basic question, but I don't currently have a backup of the external backup so just wanted to be sure.

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

It is possible that running chkdsk /f (or /r) might cause further corruption, especially if there is something other than normal file system fixes that need applied. It's not going to tell you everything, but you could run chkdsk without any repair options (e.g. chkdsk s:) and see if it reports that there are repairs needed.

Is it only this one drive/partition that exhibits the problem? Do you have another external (or internal) drive you can save an image to and see if it shows up correctly in Windows?

Are you running IFD where you could view the log file afterwards? It may show something. Otherwise, you could try IFL.

[Specular]

Ran chkdsk /f on the drive and thankfully it seems fine, as well as correcting the actual free space count, which is now 280GB free.

The only option I've seen in IFD for logging results is the 'Log results to file' option IIRC, but as it's running from a bootable CD it never shows anything.

Will run IFD overnight and see how it goes. Hopefully it was just the drive acting up.

[tas3086]

This is an excellent example of a deficiency in IFD. I wish Terabyte would have a logfile option that allowed one to specify more explicitly where the log file is. I suggest: logfile=bd@p:\path to\logfile.txt" which would operate like /b and /f file specifications work. This would help people running from CD.

[mjnelson99]

I have found using a USB stick or even SD card boots faster and would
maybe give the option to save the log file. It also allows updating the
stick when IFD/IFL are updated.

Unless your computer is over 8 years old, chances are it can boot from
USB sticks. Just check out your bios settings.

On 1/29/2014 9:41 AM, tas3086 wrote:
> This is an excellent example of a deficiency in IFD.

I wish Terabyte would have a logfile option that allowed

one to specify more explicitly where the log file is.

I suggest: logfile=bd@p:\path to\logfile.txt" which would operate like
/b and /f file specifications work. This would help people running from CD.
>
>

[Specular]

Ok, so quick update: after coming back to the computer it is stuck now on a red error message saying,

"A hard drive error has occured reading from 127 sectors at LBA 268435432. Ignore all errors and continue (Y/N)?"

What does this mean, if I continue will the backup not work anyone? Some clarification would be appreciated.

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

If you ignore the errors the backup will continue (might be slow if lots of errors), but the data in those sectors will not be valid. You may need to run "chkdsk /r" on the drive to try and fix bad sectors.

[Specular]

So at 95% overall progress, and 87% progress on verifying the last remaining partition, IFD reported 'Unable to read from device', with the only option being 'OK' to close the error message.

Clicked OK it went to the IFD menu screen, rebooted back into Windows, and once again _there is no image of the backup_ that has taken many hours to complete.

Why is IFD not saving my backups? Is it that any error on the source disk causes IFD to forfeit the entire image?