Failing hard drive and disk migration

Hi All,
I hope you are well.
I have a laptop with Windows 10 where I suspect the hard drive is failing - Samsung Momentus 750GB
I have noticed that because the system is slow and in Task ManagerI can see hard drive working hard 100% most of the time with pretty low transfer speeds.
I have looked and followed the instructions how to improve this, but none of the steps helped against this terrible slowness.

I have used ddrescue software to clone the failing disk to the identical brand new Samsung hard drive.
I have followed the ddrescue advise and run the whole procedure twice including report log.

The whole process of course has finished with some errors.
I have swapped the disks but at bootup I got "Operating System not found"

I have run Windows 10 installation disk and run a Startup Repair, but it said that it could not succeed and I still got "Operating System not found"

What would you suggest to do next, reinstall from scratch?
This is originally Windows 10 in French and I had to spend time to convert it to English.
If I somehow extract the serial number from it can I install Windows 10 in English and use this serial number or will it work only in French version and do I have to go through this process again?

Please advise
Thank you

Welcome to the forum. Its never a good idea to clone a bad hard drive as it can copy bad sectors to the new drive and also you dontknow what files will be corrupt. Use diskpart to clean the drive then do a clean install

Please download and run SeaTools for Windows.

Before the installation begins you will be prompted to either Decline or Accept the terms of the installation, click on I Accept.



1. SeaTools for Windows will search for HDDs and SSDs on your computer. Please remove any external storage devices connected via USB ports.

2. Detected Drives will list the HDDs and SSDs found. Place a check mark in the drive box you want to run the scan on. This should be the drive that has the operating system installed on it, this is usually C: drive.

3. You will see Basic Tests toolbar above Detected Drives, move the mouse pointer over this to open the test options. Please click on Long Generic Test

4. This will start the scan. When the scan is complete you will see the result under Test Status , please post the results in your topic.



5. The test will indicate either Pass or Fail. Post the results of the scan in your topic.

6. Click on Help, then click on View Log File. If the scan failed take a screen shot of the Log File and post it in your topic.

Ok Gents
I have run SeaTools and started with SMART and Short Test. Both have PASS.
The other day I have run the Long Test, but this one was hanging at 3% for hours.
It seems there is something weird going on with the disk or the bus?

I have run the Long Test again, will see.
How do you think since I have an the same hard drive for replacement perhaps I should just reinstall the system onto new drive?
However how can I safely extract the serial number of my Windows 10 system and what Windows 10 DVD should I use so this serial is going to work?

Thank you for your input so far.

JohnnyBishop said:

Hi All,
I hope you are well.
I have a laptop with Windows 10 where I suspect the hard drive is failing - Samsung Momentus 750GB
I have noticed that because the system is slow and in Task ManagerI can see hard drive working hard 100% most of the time with pretty low transfer speeds.
I have looked and followed the instructions how to improve this, but none of the steps helped against this terrible slowness.

I have used ddrescue software to clone the failing disk to the identical brand new Samsung hard drive.
I have followed the ddrescue advise and run the whole procedure twice including report log.

The whole process of course has finished with some errors.
I have swapped the disks but at bootup I got "Operating System not found"

I have run Windows 10 installation disk and run a Startup Repair, but it said that it could not succeed and I still got "Operating System not found"

What would you suggest to do next, reinstall from scratch?
This is originally Windows 10 in French and I had to spend time to convert it to English.
If I somehow extract the serial number from it can I install Windows 10 in English and use this serial number or will it work only in French version and do I have to go through this process again?

Please advise
Thank you

You already clone the bad HDD to new HDD but you said you are having "Operating System not found" error when you try to boot from new HDD if this the case connect the new HDD and execute following commands.

Please boot your computer with Windows Setup Media and from Windows Recovery Environment start the Command Prompt.

Please type below commands into Command Prompt and press Enter key.

Following commands will repair Master Boot Record (MBR), Boot Sector and BCD Store.

Code:

Bootrec /FixMbr

Bootrec  /FixBoot

Bootrec  /RebuildBcd

Ok, I have run all 3 commands, 1st two completed with success.
The 3rd one:
Successfully scanned Windows installations.
Total identified Windows installations: 0
The operation completed successfully.

It didn't find Windows 10 system. I have mapped this drive and looked inside and I can confirm there are valid Windows 10 files.
I think the corruption is too wide.

Since the BCD store exists and lists a Windows installation, you'll first have to "remove" it manually and then try to rebuild it again. At the prompt, execute the bcdedit command as shown and then press Enter:

bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup

The bcdedit command is used here to export the BCD store as a file: bcdbackup. There's no need to specify a file extension.
The command should return the following on screen:
The operation completed successfully.

Meaning the BCD export worked as expected.

At this point, you need to adjust several file attributes for the BCD store so you can manipulate it. At the prompt, execute the attrib command exactly like this:

attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

What you just did with the attrib command was remove the hidden, read-only, and system attributes from the file bcd. Those attributes restricted the actions you could take on the file. Now that they're gone, you can manipulate the file more freely - specifically, rename it.

To rename the BCD store, execute the ren command as shown:

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

Now that the BCD store is renamed, you should now be able to successfully rebuild it.

Try rebuilding the BCD again by executing the following, followed by Enter:

bootrec /rebuildbcd

Restart your computer after rebuilding the BCD store.