Can't boot from a cloned disk.

[pvivekm]

1. My original hard disk got bad sectors and won't boot. Tried to run recovery options but did not work
2. Cloned it to new disk of same size using Macrium Reflect Free
3. Now can't boot from the cloned disk.
4. Used Windows Bootable USB Media created using Windows Media Creation Tool and booted from it.
5. Tried fixing boot record (BCDEdit, Bootrec, etc) but boot process still fails with BSOD ( 0xC0000135)
6. Now trying to repair Windows installation using DISM but DISM fails with error 0x800F081F
Dism /image:C:\ /WinDir:Windows /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:E:\sources\install.wim:1

OS: Windows 10 2004 (Build: 10.0.19041.504)
Disk: UEFI based partitions

PFA DISM logs.

Appreciate your help

 

[xrobwx71]

Hi! @pvivekm Welcome to Sysnative!


You either cloned the bad sectors or you've got to redirect boot to point to the correct partition where the boot Record is located.

Check this video and see if it will help.

 

[britechguy]

Cloning a disk that already won't boot results in a cloned disk that won't boot.

Cloning is exactly what it's name implies, an exact duplicate (even if you skip bad sectors, which some clone software will do), and if what was still viable would not boot on the existing drive, it's not going to boot on its clone, either.

 

[pvivekm]

Hi! @pvivekm Welcome to Sysnative!


You either cloned the bad sectors or you've got to redirect boot to point to the correct partition where the boot Record is located.

Check this video and see if it will help.

Checked the video... although its about windows 7, its pretty much similar to my situation - EXCEPT 1. Mine is UEFI based disk and 2. I cloned all partitions including the EFI, MSR, and OEM Recovery Partition (HP)
Nevertheless, trying to repair using options in troubleshooting didn't help.

 

[pvivekm]

Cloning a disk that already won't boot results in a cloned disk that won't boot.

Cloning is exactly what it's name implies, an exact duplicate (even if you skip bad sectors, which some clone software will do), and if what was still viable would not boot on the existing drive, it's not going to boot on its clone, either.

I agree... I may be wrong but I am thinking that only some files would be corrupted on target disk. Hence I am trying to fix them manually. Can it be done?
Secondly, would cloning result in PHYSICAL bad sectors on the target disk as well?

 

[pvivekm]

I agree... I may be wrong but I am thinking that only some files would be corrupted on target disk. Hence I am trying to fix them manually. Can it be done?
Secondly, would cloning result in PHYSICAL bad sectors on the target disk as well?

Just ran chkdsk on the new disk and found 16 KB in bad sectors
Not sure if its physical damage or just logical error (due to cloning from a bad-sectored-disk) Should I consider getting the disk replaced?
PFA log of CHKDSK

 

[xrobwx71]

How important is it to keep the data on the original disk? If you need to keep the data, I'd copy the data onto a USB drive and clean re-install Windows to the new disk.

Although not impossible, its improbable the new disk is bad and as Brian said, you simply cloned a non-booting disk.

We can test the disk after you secure the data.

 

[britechguy]

Depending on how you cloned the disk, that is, whether the cloning software was going sector by sector with no checking for things marked bad, or were using a "smart clone" (for lack of a better term) that skips sectors marked as bad, will determine whether there are any sectors marked as bad in the resulting cloned disk.

If the cloned device is known to be good, it certainly would not have any "hard" bad sectors, but would have any soft bad sectors from the original disk marked as same in the clone if it was a sector by sector clone.

It's not even guaranteed that the original media has actual hard bad sectors, and it is not at all unusual for any HDD to develop a few bad sectors over time. It's normal, actually, for that to happen. It's if you suddenly see bad sectors and the count is increasing rapidly that you know you've got a drive in the process of failure. I have a 2TB HDD that has had a single bad sector on it for years, and I'm actually presuming that's probably a "soft" bad sector. Now that I've just replaced it as my OS drive with an SSD, I'll find out when I reinitialize the whole drive.

See these two articles for a good description of bad sectors and when same should, or should not, be a cause for concern:
Bad Sectors Explained: Why Hard Drives Get Bad Sectors and What You Can Do About It
“A few bad sectors don’t indicate that a hard drive is about to fail — they can just happen. However, if your hard drive is rapidly developing bad sectors, it may be a sign that your hard drive is failing.”

What Is a bad sector and how can I repair it?
Bad sectors are fairly common with normal computer use and the imperfections of the world we live in . . .

Clearly, though, whether those bad sectors were hard or soft on the drive being discussed is irrelevant because things had already progressed to the stage where it would not boot. I agree that the best thing to do is to extract the user data then start with a fresh reinstall of Windows 10 on a new disc. You might be able to use a paid utility such as Fabs AutoBackup (there is a Home and a Pro verison, both paid) to attempt to extract more aspects of the existing Windows 10 installation for transfer, but it's a gamble. Also, as an aside, you really should be using the currently cloned disc to do all of your recovery attempts from. A badly damaged or failing HDD is at high probability of catastrophic failure the more you keep "hitting on it" for any purpose. One of the first rules of data recovery, when a failing but not yet failed drive is involved, is to clone that drive then use the clone as the media that you keep doing your digging on.

 

[pvivekm]

How important is it to keep the data on the original disk? If you need to keep the data, I'd copy the data onto a USB drive and clean re-install Windows to the new disk.

Although not impossible, its improbable the new disk is bad and as Brian said, you simply cloned a non-booting disk.

We can test the disk after you secure the data.

It is the windows installation (user accounts data, profiles etc) that I need. Of course everything is backed up just that there is some corruption of system files I need to resolve now.

Depending on how you cloned the disk, that is, whether the cloning software was going sector by sector with no checking for things marked bad, or were using a "smart clone" (for lack of a better term) that skips sectors marked as bad, will determine whether there are any sectors marked as bad in the resulting cloned disk.

If the cloned device is known to be good, it certainly would not have any "hard" bad sectors, but would have any soft bad sectors from the original disk marked as same in the clone if it was a sector by sector clone.

It's not even guaranteed that the original media has actual hard bad sectors, and it is not at all unusual for any HDD to develop a few bad sectors over time. It's normal, actually, for that to happen. It's if you suddenly see bad sectors and the count is increasing rapidly that you know you've got a drive in the process of failure. I have a 2TB HDD that has had a single bad sector on it for years, and I'm actually presuming that's probably a "soft" bad sector. Now that I've just replaced it as my OS drive with an SSD, I'll find out when I reinitialize the whole drive.

See these two articles for a good description of bad sectors and when same should, or should not, be a cause for concern:
Bad Sectors Explained: Why Hard Drives Get Bad Sectors and What You Can Do About It
“A few bad sectors don’t indicate that a hard drive is about to fail — they can just happen. However, if your hard drive is rapidly developing bad sectors, it may be a sign that your hard drive is failing.”

What Is a bad sector and how can I repair it?
Bad sectors are fairly common with normal computer use and the imperfections of the world we live in . . .

Clearly, though, whether those bad sectors were hard or soft on the drive being discussed is irrelevant because things had already progressed to the stage where it would not boot. I agree that the best thing to do is to extract the user data then start with a fresh reinstall of Windows 10 on a new disc. You might be able to use a paid utility such as Fabs AutoBackup (there is a Home and a Pro verison, both paid) to attempt to extract more aspects of the existing Windows 10 installation for transfer, but it's a gamble. Also, as an aside, you really should be using the currently cloned disc to do all of your recovery attempts from. A badly damaged or failing HDD is at high probability of catastrophic failure the more you keep "hitting on it" for any purpose. One of the first rules of data recovery, when a failing but not yet failed drive is involved, is to clone that drive then use the clone as the media that you keep doing your digging on.

Thanks for the detailed information.


So now there are 2 issues in this thread
1. How to revive the Original Windows Installation - User accounts, profiles, User Data etc.
2. Issue of the bad sectors

For now I am focusing on issue 1. Will deal with bad sectors later.

As of now I am able to resolve the point 6 of my original post - DISM error 0x800F081F

1. My original hard disk got bad sectors and won't boot. Tried to run recovery options but did not work
2. Cloned it to new disk of same size using Macrium Reflect Free
3. Now can't boot from the cloned disk.
4. Used Windows Bootable USB Media created using Windows Media Creation Tool and booted from it.
5. Tried fixing boot record (BCDEdit, Bootrec, etc) but boot process still fails with BSOD ( 0xC0000135)
6. Now trying to repair Windows installation using DISM but DISM fails with error 0x800F081F
Dism /image:C:\ /WinDir:Windows /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:E:\sources\install.wim:1

OS: Windows 10 2004 (Build: 10.0.19041.504)
Disk: UEFI based partitions

PFA DISM logs.

Appreciate your help

I checked the DISM logs and figured out the corrupt files. Copied those files from another working laptop and DISM now shows success.
Still not able to boot... so trying to run sfc /scannnow as suggested everywhere on internet and it fails. Here is the log....
Found these issues similar to mine ...
1. Why Does SFC Always Get Stuck On This One File?
This is very much similar to the one I am facing now. But doesn't have any resolution yet
2. [SOLVED] Windows Update, DISM, SFC all not working - help!
This has solution, but its specific to the user based on data collected from the person posting the question.
@softwaremaniac, Can you please help me in resolving my issue?

 

[pvivekm]

It is the windows installation (user accounts data, profiles etc) that I need. Of course everything is backed up just that there is some corruption of system files I need to resolve now.



Thanks for the detailed information.


So now there are 2 issues in this thread
1. How to revive the Original Windows Installation - User accounts, profiles, User Data etc.
2. Issue of the bad sectors

For now I am focusing on issue 1. Will deal with bad sectors later.

As of now I am able to resolve the point 6 of my original post - DISM error 0x800F081F



I checked the DISM logs and figured out the corrupt files. Copied those files from another working laptop and DISM now shows success.
Still not able to boot... so trying to run sfc /scannnow as suggested everywhere on internet and it fails. Here is the log....
Found these issues similar to mine ...
1. Why Does SFC Always Get Stuck On This One File?
This is very much similar to the one I am facing now. But doesn't have any resolution yet
2. [SOLVED] Windows Update, DISM, SFC all not working - help!
This has solution, but its specific to the user based on data collected from the person posting the question.
@softwaremaniac, Can you please help me in resolving my issue?

Sorry forgot to attach the log.... here it is...

 

[Rich-M]

I think Britetechguy said it all with cloning a drive that won't boot isn't going to give you a bootable system and I have really been down this road before
and wasted countless hours trying to accomplish that but time is better spent clean installing Windows and tweaking it personally that trying to make the old
clone work. In the days when installs and resultant updating took countless hours sometimes it made sense to try to save an old install but today the Media Creator disk
that is so quick and saves so much time over doing hours of Windows Updates just is the obvious way to go.

 

[pvivekm]

I think Britetechguy said it all with cloning a drive that won't boot isn't going to give you a bootable system and I have really been down this road before
and wasted countless hours trying to accomplish that but time is better spent clean installing Windows and tweaking it personally that trying to make the old
clone work. In the days when installs and resultant updating took countless hours sometimes it made sense to try to save an old install but today the Media Creator disk
that is so quick and saves so much time over doing hours of Windows Updates just is the obvious way to go

If I do a clean install, is there a way I can migrate all the user accounts, their %APPDATA%, etc to the new clean install since I have a backup of all of them.

 

[xrobwx71]

No, those would need to be re-installed. There are some things in the Roaming subfolder that can be moved, I think Firefox keeps your FF profile there but the apps and programs will need to be re-installed. Trying to figure out what goes where would be nye impossible. Then there are the registry settings for each app.

If you use a Microsoft account and have sync turned on, you'll get a lot of that stuff back after you clean install and log back on with an MS account to the clean system.

 

[britechguy]

And, not to rub salt in an open wound, but this is another teachable moment about why doing full system image backups at regular intervals, with "off interval" ones taken when you have a sudden and unusual creation of lots of additional user data, is a vital part of computer ownership.

If you want to avoid situations like this one, the only thing you have as insurance against it is a full system image backup, which (by definition) includes Windows plus all user accounts and their attendant data. You can be back up and running in a very short period of time.

Having something like this happen at some point in our own personal pasts is very often what turned on the proverbial light bulb about the absolute truth of what I just said above.

 

[pvivekm]

And, not to rub salt in an open wound, but this is another teachable moment about why doing full system image backups at regular intervals, with "off interval" ones taken when you have a sudden and unusual creation of lots of additional user data, is a vital part of computer ownership.

If you want to avoid situations like this one, the only thing you have as insurance against it is a full system image backup, which (by definition) includes Windows plus all user accounts and their attendant data. You can be back up and running in a very short period of time.

Having something like this happen at some point in our own personal pasts is very often what turned on the proverbial light bulb about the absolute truth of what I just said above.

I agree ... It's just that being a developer myself with quite some curiosity, I don't want to just give up easily

 

[xrobwx71]

This is from one of @britechguy 's tutorials. Give it a try: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1RZiHlLVtXewYBgoSvJNm9_08hj1tALPK
Clicking this link will download a word file. It's verified as safe.

You can keep your apps, files, and accounts with this method, providing there isn't physical damage to the drive.

 

[pvivekm]

This is from one of @britechguy 's tutorials. Give it a try: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1RZiHlLVtXewYBgoSvJNm9_08hj1tALPK
Clicking this link will download a word file. It's verified as safe.

You can keep your apps, files, and accounts with this method, providing there isn't physical damage to the drive.

Thanks for the tutorial.
If I understand it correctly, the process has a prerequisite : The machine in question should be able to boot.
Is that correct?

 

[xrobwx71]

Yes, from a usb drive, not the system drive. If the system won't boot from anything and we've tried everything there is to try then it's a boat anchor.

 

[Rich-M]

As suggested do a search for File History and then turn it on as it defaults to off.
The backup it makes to an external drive or additional hard drive is restorable to the new install of Windows
and if you sign in with a Microsoft Account as mentioned most of your files will come back to new install after you complete it
anyway once you sign in.
If Macrium will make an image file again it won't restore to a new drive if the drive you made an image of was corrupted but you could manually
restore the files from an image file to a new clean install as well and honestly if you had done any of these things in the first place you would have
saved so much time and effort.

 

[britechguy]

It is critically important to note that File History does user data backup ONLY. It is absolutely NOT a full system image backup utility.

I use it, in addition to, my chosen full system image backup utility. There are times when it's nice to be able to deal with only user data. I recently restored the user data I'd been keeping backed up on my primary laptop to this laptop after the SSD suffered sudden death. I really like file history, particularly on the backing up side, but the restore side, particularly if you're restoring to another machine, is not particularly intuitive. But there are a number of tutorials out there on how to do it when necessary. I do hope that Microsoft eventually improves the user interface such that it's easier to select a backup taken on one machine and restore it to another.