Troubles with Cloning and Recovery of my Windows 10 PC

Self | 4/23/2018 | Dan Baker

[poconopundit]

Having trouble with my PC. Here are some of the issues:

• SSD Crash -- A 250 Gig PNY Solid State Disk I bought at BestBuy only 2 months ago crashed. What crashed was the BIOS software in the SSD. I was able to recover my user data. I am suspecting that Windows 10 is causing problems since the machine is constantly downloading security updates.
  
  
• Second SSD Crash -- I was able to use my former (smaller) PNY SSD to get up and running. But then, just as I was getting ready to start using the old SSD, that also crashed on me. That SSD was running just fine for 2 years and now at the worst moment is crashed.
  
  

• No CD-ROM Player in PC -- Complicating all of this is the fact that the new PC I'm using has no CD-ROM disk input. The guy at the Computer Repair shop says that's normal and that I should start using software disks. But when I tried to convert my CD program disks via CDBurnerXP to an image of that CD, a few of my programs didn't translate. I ordered a standalone CD-ROM player and waiting for that to arrive soon.
  
  

• "Free" Clone Software Doesn't Recover -- Meantime I've been trying to find a free Disk Cloning software. Apparently there are many available, but they give you no instructions on how to RECOVER your disk once you've made the clone. Complicating even further, I can't see the actual image on the Disk. So I believe that FREE clone maker software is basically a scam. They let you make a clone, but you have to buy their software to recover it. Am I right?

Any hints on how to solve such problems would be much appreciated. Thank you.

[ConservativeMind]

Acronis True Image will backup and restore to different hardware.

Cloning a corrupted hard drive doesn’t work. Reinstall Windows from scratch and try identifying files you want to save from the bad drive (if you can boot and see them to copy).

[ConservativeMind]

Boot from a CD or the other working drive and then use file manager to view the non-booting drive.

There are free downloadable Linux CD/DVD images which let you view Windows volumes.

[trebb]

Do any research on the SSDs or the computer you got? Might be an answer out there.

Never bothered with SSDs - have only had one HD crash and that was from a off-balance CD that shook it to death in short order - current HD is 8 years old and humming smooth.

If the computer was an older model, it's likley the BIOS needed to be updated to be able to accepts all the Win10 updates - I hjave a year+ old laptop that I had to do some BIOS updates on to make it fully compatible with the Win10 updates even though it came with Win10.

Good luck

[dinodino]

Another vote for Acronis TrueImage here, but please note that it’s not freeware. Any freeware other than dd is not going to be trustworthy.

Also, SSDs are fine as primary drives, but you MUST, MUST, MUST have real-time incremental backups! In my experience, the average life of an SSD is roughly two years. When an SSD fails, it fails catastrophically, like flipping a switch. That’s why your backup plan is critical.

[ConservativeMind]

Samsung SSDs are more reliable, overall. Consider those, next time.

Also, leave a little room at the end of each disk volume unallocated (not formatted). The SSD can utilize it to swap it for “sectors” (memory chips) which are slowly going bad. There are already some in reserve you can’t see, but not many.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

I put an ssd in as a boot drive and it seemed to be fine until major update time. I used acronis to clone the old hdd but version level updates wouldn’t take. The partions weren’t set in the right order.

[Fhios]

suspecting that Windows 10 is causing problems since the machine is constantly downloading security updates. I use SSD for Windows 10 installation then I use a regular 6/gbs hard drive for my ~/user space and ~/download space and ~/installation space (everything installed that's not OS), and of course ~/swap space or ~/page space. Then, all I back up is the SSD drive to yet another hard drive. You can even use a large USB drive to backup and create recovery usb drives. The idea is to erase/write as little as possible to the SSD drive since they have a finite # of rewrites. Windows 10 installation drivers for SSD drives are known to be rock solid. I can't imagine you having TRIM turned on cause I think Windows 10 won't let you. Bottom line is there is too much exposure for using just 1 SSD drive. It's better (IMHO) to use 1 SSD and 1 Hard drive. I use and SSD of 120gb and 1tb drive with 120gb reserved for backing up the SSD drive. Your SSD drive should have diagnostic tools that came with it. It's tough to use when your computer is down, but thats why I have the USB sticks as last resort. I boot to the USB disk and run what diagnostics I need to there. There are many ways to create restore disks, but I've always have had problems with Windows UEFI cause Microsoft is a dick that thinks it's the only OS you'll want to run on the computer. For some reason (probably a setting I haven't discovered yet) creating another boot drive/partition makes my old drive/partition unbootable.

[TomServo]

And yet another vote for Acronis.

[Flick Lives]

Samsung SSDs are more reliable, overall. Consider those, next time.

—

Ditto on Samsung SSD. Got a Samsung 500 GB SSD two years ago to upgrade an old iMac. Works perfectly (knock on wood).

[Flick Lives]

Additional info on SSD. Enabled TRIM via Terminal.app after SSD was installed.

[Bikkuri]

Make sure it’s a LIVE CD
(and boot it from a thumbnail USB)

[poconopundit]

Thanks, Trebb,

Your luck with HD drives is pretty impressive.

That BIOS compatibility issue is interesting. That might explain why two PNY disks went bad on me — with these constant Windows 10 updates. PC was about 5 years old.

[Elderberry]

Set up the SSD for the OS and swap space. Use another, or multiple drives for user space.

Institute a backup routine. I am using Macrium Reflect to perform incremental backups to another machine, a NAS.

Why are you limiting your software search to Free?

Hardware is not free. Why do you think that software should be free?

I haven't used a CD in years. They have gone the way of the floppys before them. I rarely use a DVD as well. I xfer data over the network, or wireless, or use memory sticks/cards.

With multiple drives, you can have multiple, bootable drives of differing OSs. Just select which is the boot drive in your BIOS.

[Bikkuri]

How old is your PC (and have you ever flashed the BIOS)?

[poconopundit]

Hi Fhios,

Thank you. Let me get clear. Are you saying all your programs and Windows 10 OS should be on the SSD, and the user data on a separate disk?

In my case I use a laptop exclusively. I use USBs for incremental backup. But sounds like I should be using a hard disk for my user data. So for the laptop, should I take an external HD drive with me all the time? The laptop only has one disk.

Many thanks.

[poconopundit]

PC is 4 or 5 years old. Never heard of flashing the BIOS, but it sounds like good advice.

[poconopundit]

OK. Three recommendations for Acronis are a charm! I’ll get that to avoid future trouble. Many thanks.

[Bikkuri]

If it is only 4-5 years old, you shouldn’t have a problem (it should already be able to boot from Flash-drive (USB)).

Normally, if a person isn’t having issues with the PC itself, you shouldn’t attempt to flash your BIOS unless you are comfy doing so (but it isn’t that hard, and there are walk-throughs available how to do it.. it would only take a maximum of, maybe 5 minutes).

[AbolishCSEU]

I’ve heard that Acronis can be pricey. I use an “engineered” version of Clonezilla at work— GPartEd which is Linux based. We don’t have an image server to PXE boot from so this is what I came up with.
Also yeah, a no no to clone a corrupt drive.

SSDs seem convenient but they are generally smaller in size than standard HDDs, unless you want to pay quite a bit more.

I’ve had a few of these get zotted in tablets. And if you want to put one into an existing laptop that has the standard 2.5” HDD, then you have to update the BIOS or you’ll get “invalid partition table.”

With GPartED you just need two usb drives