Windows backup returning error

May 21, 2012 1:46 PM

I recently bought another 1TB HDD, so I now have two 1TB HDDs (Both western digital; caviar black) and an Intel SSD (operating system). The new HDD, after one day of use has gone bad. S.M.A.R.T has detected errors, I ran the western digital tool and that also detected errors. I was warned to backup my drive, so I tried to last night but after 2 hours I gave up to re-do it tomorrow (tons of files). I stopped the backup properly and shutdown. Now this morning I'm trying to get all 830gigs of my files off of the new bad drive, back onto my original storage hdd before the new drive goes completely bad and I lose all of my important files. The windows restore and backup program is giving me error code: 0x8007045D near the start of the backup. I/O device error. I've checked the destination HDD and it returned no errors (both with the western didgital tool and using chkdsk). I need to fix this problem quick before my new drive totally fails.
posted by johnx to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

While you figure this out, put the drive in the freezer.
posted by Capri at 1:59 PM on May 21, 2012

To be clear - you've already deleted those 830gigs from the original source - the only copy of them exists on the bad drive?
posted by ish__ at 3:42 PM on May 21, 2012

Can you just copy the files off the bad drive one by one? SuperCopier2.2 Beta (yes, Beta) works much better (and faster) than Windows standard "drag and drop" copy. You can set it to just skip files it can't copy or prompt you as to what to do, and continue on, so you might be able to get a large proportion of your stuff off the bad drive, then be left with a list of what couldn't be copied.
posted by Diag at 3:55 PM on May 21, 2012

I was going to write exactly what Diag wrote. Seconding the recommendation of SuperCopier. It sounds risky but I've been using it for years and it just plain works.
posted by fuzz at 4:00 PM on May 21, 2012

You *may* be able to non-destructively repair some of the issues via the use of HDDRegen or SpinRite, neither is free, both are *cough* available. They may be able to repair or remap damaged sectors. Not guaranteed, SMART errors are often physical damage, but it may be worth a shot. I've resurrected several drives this way.
posted by TomMelee at 5:35 AM on May 22, 2012

Best answer: Stop. DO NOT try to "repair" the failing disk, do not risk further damage by trying to copy individual files.

1. Check/reseat/reconnect the cable.
2. Get another 1TB+ drive.
3. get a Bootable Linux distro and check out ddrescue(not to be confused with dd_rescue). It's algorithm is cautious to recover all the data that can be recovered easily, and then very aggressive about getting back the rest.
4. Set the failing drive aside and recover files from the copy on the non-failing drive.
posted by Good Brain at 9:20 AM on May 22, 2012 [1 favorite]