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Backup Errors

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2022-05-09
2022-05-11
  • Kevin Eisinger

    Kevin Eisinger - 2022-05-09

    I am trying to backup hard drives and I am getting Errors and G4L returns back to LOCAL USE screen.
    I have two test systems that have the same computers and I am getting errors with both of them.

    G4L V 0.60, I have tried A: bz5x14.11, D: bz5x15.rc5.
    G4L V 0.57, I have tried D: bz5x6.15, A: bz4x19.128.
    I get the same errors on all of these.

    Computer: 3U MS-98K9
    Motherboard MSI MS-98K9
    BIOS American Megatrends inc V2.9b4, 4/9/2021
    Hard Drive Samsung SSD870

    I have tried using a 2TB HD and a 4TB hard drive in different USB slots, UBS 2.0 and USB 3.0.

    Error Messages:
    ata1.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
    ata1.00: cmd 60/00:d8:00:6c:1b/08:00:00:00:00/40 tag 27 ncq dma 1048576 in
    res 41/40:00:a0:70:1b/00:08:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x409 (media error <f>
    ata1.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
    ata1.00: error: { UNC }
    print_req_error: I/o error, dev sda, sector 1798304
    ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x8000 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
    ata1.00: irq_stat 0x40000008
    // then repeat with different numbers a few times, then goes back to the LOCAL USE screen.</f>

    Any help would be much appreciated.

    Note, it concerns me that the errors happen and G4L then goes back to the LOCAL USE screen.  If I was not watching when the errors occurred I might not realize the backup was unsuccessful. I have been meaning to submit a request that when G4L completes a backup successfully that an message shows up indicating backup successful with an OK button to remove the message.  This way I can know for sure the backup operation was successful.
    
    Thanks,
    Kevin Eisinger
    
     
  • Michael Setzer II

    G4L primarily uses dd for most of the backup processes.
    Unfortunately, dd does not handle hard errors within disks/partitions. There are options to use ddrescue, which does have a number of methods to attempt to copy the readable data, and does try to recopy the bad areas a number of times before leaving those blocks as what it was able to get. May or may not make a useful image.

    You didn't mention what file systems are on disk. If it is windows, you might be able to use ntfsclone option to backup the partition since it only copies used sectors, so if bad parts are currently not being use for active data.

    It also has fsarchiver, that is also suppose to be a file level backup versus bit level using dd, but it hasn't been updated for a long time, and I added it as requested by a user. Tested it a few times, and seemed to work well.

    So, probable doing a ddrescue clone would be the best option to try.

    Sometime booting from the g4l and running fsck on the source partitions to see if it can fix issues. Sometimes using the badblocks options as well.

    I recently upgrade a system with an old 1TB regular disk to a 1TB SSD disk. Seems it had a couple soft errors, so regular dd clone worked.

    One had a person with a disk that had lots of errors, and nothing would clone disk. Had GRC Spinrite, and ran it on disk, and it took 4 days to run. Afterward linux was able to mount the ntfs partition, but lots was corrupted, but fortuantely, the critical directories with files needed where readable..

     
  • Kevin Eisinger

    Kevin Eisinger - 2022-05-09

    Michael,
    I am backing up a windows 10 system. It has 4 partitions, EIF partition, MS reserved, NTFS, MS windows recovery.
    Windows 10 is working with no problems so the errors should be in unused sections (hopefully).

    I did boot using an old Ubuntu 17 flash drive and started running badblocks and it found errors. Thus, it looks like hard drive issues.

    You mention ddrescue, is this an option on G4L? If so where can I find it.

    Thanks,
    Kevin Eisinger

     
  • Michael Setzer II

    Had to look. It is under the Utilities options.

     
  • Kevin Eisinger

    Kevin Eisinger - 2022-05-11

    Michael,
    Where should I post requests for new features in G4L?
    I would like to request that G4L add a screen when backup is complete indicating it completed successfully. We would have to click OK to acknowledge that screen and to go back to previous screen. Hopefully this is not difficult to add.

    When G4L encounters hard drive errors it goes back to the previous screen, thus if you were not watching the entire backup process you may not realize that the process did not complete successfully.
    Thanks,
    Kevin Eisinger

     

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