Here we go again!
The boss’s computer is a bit slow as usual, but I decide to use
Windows 7 backup image creator (still available in windows 10) to
make a backup, just in case. It takes a while, as it’s a 1Tb
disk. This fails with “your disk has new bad sectors”. I run
chkdsk, but this fails to fix the issue.
So, boot from a
linux USB stick, and run ‘disks’ to have a look. It shows 55 bad
sectors. Not good!
Scanning up with
‘dd’ shows that there are uncorrectable errors in the 100Mb
System Reserved partition. Chkdsk on this partition doesn’t fix
them. I’m amazed it boots at all.
I order a
replacement disk. This has a noisy spindle as soon as it powers on,
so I send it back for a replacement and also order another different
make of disk. This arrives sooner than the other, so I make a start
with ‘clonezilla’. This clones the C: partition and the
so-called recovery hidden partition, but won’t copy the 100Mb
system reserved one. Now what to do.
My computer doesn’t
have this 100Mb partition, so no help there.
Checking the
partition table shows that this is ok, so I boot from the Windows 10
Repair Disk that Windows asks you to make after the backup. Deep,
deep in the menus in ‘Advanced Options’ is a “repair my system”
function. This also fails. Some searching around suggests you need to
do this 3 times. Why?
Anyway it still
fails. In a flash if inspiration, I decide to format the System
Reserved partition.
Slightly better, the
repair function runs, but the system still wont boot. It says “No
Operating System Found”. Well that’s sort of true. The OS is
there, but the boot process evidently can’t find it.
Further searching
around finds that others have been there, and a suggested fix is to
boot the repair disk, open a command prompt as administrator and run
the following 3 commands:-
bootrec.exe
/fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
A
restart and it magically boots. What a faff!
Further
analysis with ‘disks’ shows that her data disk has 32 bad
sectors. Let’s hope that’s easier to clone, although it might
take longer, it’s 3Tb.
