# Disc Cloning a drive with Bad Sector



## fremaint (Dec 29, 2006)

I used PC INSPECTOR clone maxx (0.95 Build 769) to clone a 40 GB HD with bad sectors to an newly bought 80 GB one. It took around 3 hours to clone. At the end I found out that it made a partition with exactly 40 GB with all the data and an unallocated part with 40 GB. In windows it looks like one HD with 40 GB, is there a way to clone all the data and have it be one partition of 80 GBs.

PS: The data is the OS with all the Apps and everything in it.


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## gdi1942 (Nov 2, 2006)

at this point, seeing as it's all said and done now it might be easier to resize the 40 gb partition to 80 gb. I think fdisk can do it, but partition magic might be a safer route to go. I'm pretty sure theres a trial version around too.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

FDISK cannot resize the partition. Partition Magic could as can Acronis Disk Manager, or my favorite is Paragon's Partition Manager. Chances are it won't let you clone to a different partition size if there's issues with the original partition, Acronis TrueImage has this issue as well.


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## fremaint (Dec 29, 2006)

ThX a lot for the suggestions. 
I think ill go with Paragon's program.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Acronis True Image will clone a disk with bad sectors, you can set it to ignore any bad sectors.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Oh, I know it will and it does a good job - unlike Ghost which would quit. But it doesn't seem to resize the partition if the destination drive is bigger.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I confess I haven't tried to resize with a bad sector, though I can't imagine why that in itself would inhibit TI from resizing. If they're ignoring the sector error, they should really ignore it.


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## fremaint (Dec 29, 2006)

I think the program for cloning I used ignored the sectors. It began everything fine at high speed UDMA 5 I think. Then it suddenly said a message that it was reducing speed to UDMA 4 until it got to UDMA 0 and finally forced PIO mode which went everything fine until the completion of the cloning.

After that I made a diagnostic test to the 80 GB drive with the WD Diagnostic Tool and did a Quick Test and everything was allright, so from that I think that the program didn't copied the bad sectors.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Bad sectors are physical defects on the hard drive platters, they cannot be copied.


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## fremaint (Dec 29, 2006)

Now that you mention bad sectors. Which would be better to label a drive as defective, the Diagnostics Tools of the HD Brand or any other tool like for example SpinRite ?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

The way to "fix" bad sectors on most IDE drives is to use the disk manufactirer diagnostic and do a complete zero of the drive. This will reallocate spare sectors for any truly defective sectors.

Note that if an IDE drive starts developing bad sectors, it's time to IMMEDIATELY shop for it's replacement. It's rare that they don't continue to grow.


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