6
3
For example, I have Windows 7 on a hard drive where SMART reports "many bad sectors". If I buy a new hard drive, and attempt to clone over Windows to the new hard drive, will that fix the problem so I have Windows on a clean hard drive, or will that also copy over the bad sectors and so therefore SMART will find errors on the new hard drive?
My guess is that bad sectors aren't propagated during a clone process, but I could be wrong, so I wanted your opinion. THanks!
EDIT: Actually, I copied windows to a new hard drive, and the new hard drive has the bad sectors. So my question is a bit backwards, but you get the idea. :)
Based on the answers: cloning from a clean drive to a bad-sector drive is fine, data-wise. From a bad-sector drive to a clean drive is also fine. And, the cloning process itself won't destroy any data. The only thing to worry about is if data was lost when the original drive acquired bad sectors.
1if it's the case that the physical problems affect the clone, the 1s and 0s.. then maybe chkdsk on the new drive afterwards, will pick up errors and fix them, and then if those things are true, then for sure it'll be a permanent fix.. until the new drive gets physical errors. but I don't know if those things are ever the case. – barlop – 2011-04-20T23:30:20.090
1I think SMART only shows physical issues, data about the drive given by the drive, not from scanning user data on the drive. (I assume that's how it works hence how SMART data is given so fast). So i'm sure it wouldn't show issues but the (user) data on the drive may have issues I don't know. At worst it shouldn't be too bad. – barlop – 2011-04-20T23:33:53.740