MR7: Verify = "Permission Denied"

Bob1212 · 17 Apr 2021

I'd made the System Image 3 weeks ago, and verified it the next day. Today, I ran the verification again. After a half hour, it got about 60% of the way through and then gave me "Verification Failure. Read Error. Permission Denied"

The drive had not been removed from File Explorer, so it was still detected. Was this just a transient glitch? Why would it be denied partway through and not from the very beginning?

I restarted the verification, this time checking the box to fix errors. At about the same 60%, it said "Read Error - Invalid Argument".

I restarted the verification, this time checking the box to fix errors. At about the same 60%, it again said "Verification Failure. Read Error. Permission Denied".

The quick scan from File Explorer found no errors.

Is this a disk error that chkdsk can fix or something else?

dalchina · 17 Apr 2021

Verification of an image simply checks the consistency of the image file on your backup disk without reference to anything else.

You should check your backup disk using e.g.
Hard Disk Sentinel (trial) - SSDs too -best instant appraisal right on its GUI I know of.
A surface scan (assuming your backup drive is a HDD) could be instructive.

E.g. using this: (free)
Check Hard Disk for Bad Sectors | Scan Disk on Windows

Bree · 17 Apr 2021

@Bob1212, I agree with dalchina. Both your attempts to verify reported "Read Error". This suggests that a sector on on the hard drive that's in use as part of the image has become unreadable.

Bob1212 · 17 Apr 2021

2.5 hours to scan 320GB at USB2.0 speed. 4 bad sectors found only at the very very end, at last-1 last-3 last-5 and last-7

Is there possibly any way to use a tool to try to fix those without having to start all over from the very beginning with chkdsk? I doubt it, so I just started chkdsk G: /r and will wait 2.5 hrs for it to finish. Then I'll scan it again overnight to make sure there are no errors remaining.

Thanks.

Macrorit Disk Scanner
Device: 1. Ext Hard Disk USB Device (298.1 GB)
Disk Signature: C00BFD65
Scan area: 0 Byte ~ 298.1 GB
Start time: 4/17/2021 2:03:05 PM
Elapsed time: 02:33:51
Completed: 100%
Bad sectors found:
Physical bad sector No: 623611904, count: 2048.
Starting bad sector location: 297.4 GB, size: 1.000 MB.
Physical bad sector No: 624019456, count: 2048.
Starting bad sector location: 297.6 GB, size: 1.000 MB.
Physical bad sector No: 624427008, count: 2048.
Starting bad sector location: 297.8 GB, size: 1.000 MB.
Physical bad sector No: 624834560, count: 2048.
Starting bad sector location: 297.9 GB, size: 1.000 MB.

Samuria · 17 Apr 2021

Bad sectors can not be fixed. What you have to understand is that when bad sectors are found they are marked as bad so if you run chkdsk it wont find any errors as they are marked bad so wont be tested this may mean the disk has lots of bad blocks ir its dieing

Bob1212 · 17 Apr 2021

Samuria said:

Bad sectors can not be fixed. What you have to understand is that when bad sectors are found they are marked as bad so if you run chkdsk it wont find any errors as they are marked bad so wont be tested this may mean the disk has lots of bad blocks ir its dieing

You're right, I shouldn't have said 'fixed'. I should have said that chkdsk will 'mark' bad sectors.

But the Macrorit program itself doesn't say anything about having marked the 4 bad sectors, neither in the GUI nor in the log. Is it automatically presumed that the Macrorit program did mark the bad sectors? (What I'm going off of is having read that chkdsk /f finds but doesn't mark anything, so you have to do chkdsk /r to mark bad any sectors.)

Also, I suppose you are saying that if some go bad, more will soon go bad? Does this pattern tell anything?

Thanks.

MR7: Verify = "Permission Denied"-sectors.jpg

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It's a Verbatim drive, about 7 years old, but hardly ever been used at all except during its few first months; then just kept in a box until this March.

[I've also seen various programs offered online that say their free versions only scan but don't repair or change anything.]

Samuria · 17 Apr 2021

If the disk finds bad sectors it first remaps them to engineering tracks and only bad disk apear on the disk once thats full so there are more bad block than you see. It may go for years or die next week there is no way to tell.
Its all ways best to scan with the free disk makers test as its written specific to their disk

Bree · 17 Apr 2021

Bob1212 said:

You're right, I shouldn't have said 'fixed'. I should have said that chkdsk will 'mark' bad sectors.

....Also, I suppose you are saying that if some go bad, more will soon go bad? ....
[I've also seen various programs offered online that say their free versions only scan but don't repair or change anything.]

Anything, chkdsk or otherwise, is only a sticking plaster. It will mark the sectors as 'bad' so they won't be used in the future. And yes, more may go bad.

Another way to assess the health of a disk is to read its SMART data. This will show you sectors that may have already turned bad and been replaced by sectors from a pool of 'spares', or sectors that are suspected of being weak and may be about to fail. CrystaDiskInfo (free) can show you the SMART data. I prefer the portable version that requires no install.

CrystalDiskInfo Portable (disk health monitoring) | PortableApps.com

The 'Reallocated Sector Count' are the bad sectors that have been replaced, the 'Current pending Sector Count' are sectors that may need replacing soon. If either of these values are increasing then its a sign that the drive may be failing. If so, I'd throw it away and get a new drive.

As you rely on this for your system images then I'd replace the drive as a matter of course. It may be useable for a while, but I wouldn't trust it with important data.

Bob1212 · 17 Apr 2021

Samuria said:

If the disk finds bad sectors it first remaps them to engineering tracks and only bad disk apear on the disk once thats full so there are more bad block than you see. It may go for years or die next week there is no way to tell.
Its all ways best to scan with the free disk makers test as its written specific to their disk

Thanks. I had checked at Verbatim's site, because I knew in the past they had a good disk check program. But all I see now is a "green" program and an encryption program.
Downloads | Verbatim

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Bree said:

Anything, chkdsk or otherwise, is only a sticking plaster. It will mark the sectors as 'bad' so they won't be used in the future. And yes, more may go bad.

Another way to assess the health of a disk is to read its SMART data. This will show you sectors that may have already turned bad and been replaced by sectors from a pool of 'spares', or sectors that are suspected of being weak and may be about to fail. CrystaDiskInfo (free) can show you the SMART data. I prefer the portable version that requires no install.

CrystalDiskInfo Portable (disk health monitoring) | PortableApps.com

The 'Reallocated Sector Count' are the bad sectors that have been replaced, the 'Current pending Sector Count' are sectors that may need replacing soon. If either of these values are increasing then its a sign that the drive may be failing. If so, I'd throw it away and get a new drive.

As you rely on this for your system images then I'd replace the drive as a matter of course. It may be useable for a while, but I wouldn't trust it with important data.

Thank you for CrystalDiskInfo, Bree. That looks pretty darn good. I'd spent 20-30 minutes today wending through a recent "Top 10 Disk Check Programs" article that in actuality only had old programs, pre-Win10. None gave the SMART data either, IIRC.

I started up chkdsk /r because I don't know if Macrorit actually marked any bad sectors. It's 82% done, so I'll let it go on. Then I'll go immediately to CrystalDiskInfo as I am super curious what it will tell. chkdsk seems to have locked my Verbatim external drive while chkdsk runs. I can see the external drive with File Manager, but it tells me "not accessible".

Meanwhile, CrystalDiskInfo is telling me about my Seagate main drive (laptop bought November 2019). For reallocated, pending and uncorrectable, all say 100, both under current and worst. I imagine that every new 1TB drive has some bad sectors right out of the factory. However, CrystaDiskInfo does not yet see my Verbatim external drive that is the topic of this post.

Yes, I need to buy a new ext HDD regardless and was browsing them today, thanks.

========

Now here's an oddity. My March update-from-hell means that UAC wrongly denies me as admin from starting up Disk Manager and Device Manager. But CrystalDiskInfo can start both of those. Strange.

Bree · 17 Apr 2021

Bob1212 said:

Thank you for CrystalDiskInfo, Bree..... CrystalDiskInfo is telling me about my Seagate main drive (laptop bought November 2019). For reallocated, pending and uncorrectable, all say 100, both under current and worst. ...

The significant column to look at is the Raw value. For a healthy disk those two should be zero (by default they are displayed in Hex). If either is above zero then it's a cause for concern, if they increase as the disk gets used, then it's a bad sign. See this....

Backblaze said:

For the last few years we’ve used the following five SMART stats as a means of helping determine if a drive is going to fail.

Attribute		Description
SMART 5		Reallocated Sectors Count
SMART 187		Reported Uncorrectable Errors
SMART 188		Command Timeout
SMART 197		Current Pending Sector Count
SMART 198		Uncorrectable Sector Count

When the RAW value for one of these five attributes is greater than zero, we have a reason to investigate....

What SMART Hard Disk Errors Actually Tell Us