image creation

A forum on data recovery using the professional data recovery software R-STUDIO.
onClick
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 4:08 pm

image creation

Post by onClick » Sat May 09, 2015 4:26 pm

Creating an image of a HDD with 2.7T of data on it. At 3.25 hours of elapse time, it currently indicates 8 days and 1 hour remaining. (The current size of the image file being created is 53.4 G (of 2.7 T). Slightly, concerned that the image will not be completed within the demo period : ).

What should I do, if the image creation process gets interrupted before completion ? Is there a way to resume imaging from where it left off (if it gets interrupted) ?

Other than the recently ailing HDD, the Win7 (12G RAM) computer is otherwise healthy. However, my limited experience with processes that take a long time (days) usually do not make it to completion. I don't know if it's memory leaks or if something just get "gummed up". (The system is not losing AC power or anything.)

(After already wishing that I had not ran CHKDSK for six hours, if the imaging task can not resume after a possible interruption, I expect I will skip imaging and just try recovering files. I do have a copy of about 1T of the data.)

Also, not using that computer otherwise, so not much else is running. Though, will it help to turn off Norton anti-virus ? (Sometimes antivirus software interferes with other tasks.)

Currently using the demo version of R-Studio to create image. And will definitely make purchase if get results from image creation and/or recovery utilities.


Thanks for any thoughts.
Cheers !

Corsari
Posts: 131
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:18 am

Re: image creation

Post by Corsari » Sun May 10, 2015 1:30 am

Hello onClick

Please find my others post on this forum

You are killing your drive and together with it... your data too.

BEFORE to either ONLY think about to clone an hard drive, it is a MUST to check its SMART values (there is the SMART menu available in R-Studio, though it works best if drive is plugged to a standard SATA port, which mean AHCI)

You should avoid a software cloning process if ANY of the SMART values is "yellow" and it is DENIED to software clone it if any of them is "red" especially those that refers to "sectors" values.

The reasons are explained in others my posts where I've written plenty of paragraphs about this argument.

Kind regards

Robert
Technical Manager in a Data Recovery Company
Robert
Technical Manager @ Recupero Dati RAID FAsTec (Italy)

USEFUL RULES and GUIDELINES
1) What to check BEFORE begin a disk image/clone process [link]
2) Disks that are too slow while imaging/cloning them [link]
3) All my posts on this forum [link]

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3126
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
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Re: image creation

Post by Alt » Sun May 10, 2015 7:59 am

The Demo mode of R-Studio doesn't have any time limit, it stays until R-Studio is registered.
Corsari is right - check the SMART data if you think something is wrong with disk imaging. I wouldn't be too much concerned with the yellow code, but the red one is definitely a stop mark. If you see it, the disk is dying, and your tampering with it makes the death faster and more painful, to the disk and to your data. From now on, this is a work for an experienced data recovery professional, with its skills and equipment. You may contact Corsari with this matter, by the way.

Corsari
Posts: 131
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:18 am

Re: image creation

Post by Corsari » Sun May 10, 2015 8:28 am

"Yellow" marks have to be read carefully

I agree with Alt until they are inside the original boundaries,

e.g. Seagate's drives typically have 100 as value for the various "Sectors" SMART values BUT STx000DM00x doesn't allow any :-( e.g. the ST2000DM001 have such an disruptive failure rate (see the link in this tweet and forget it is mentioned the 3TB one, the 2Tb is the same drive with just one platter and two heads more) that as soon the first "reallocated sectors" value turns from 0 to 1 or to 2, it is over.

It is die-ing at the speed of light. If you clone it by PC and cloning software which means to pass through BIOS and hanging over 1 minute on every bad sector... you'll never end the cloning process.

So take the worse value as threshold, if reallocated events are less than it (as stated above 100 for Seagate, 200 for WD etc) and you have less of, attempt a clone, but you must listen and follow the cloning process, if too many hangs happen, you are likely playing to Russian Roulette. This is said having had the possibility to watch so many bad drives and still seeing them in the everyday jobs.
On the other hand it becomes matter of experience and feeling.

To avoid those hangings the Data Recovery company will clone the drive by hardware devices in an hardware manner, bypassing the bad sectors in matter of milliseconds and avoiding killing the drive.
Robert
Technical Manager @ Recupero Dati RAID FAsTec (Italy)

USEFUL RULES and GUIDELINES
1) What to check BEFORE begin a disk image/clone process [link]
2) Disks that are too slow while imaging/cloning them [link]
3) All my posts on this forum [link]

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