BSOD ATTEMPTED_ SWITCH_FROM_DPC while using AOMEI Backupper

Thanks.

FYI, I couldn't get AOMEI Backup to work under Gandalf's Win10PE. Complained about a bad driver. I will try AOMEI's WinPE, perhaps tonight. Meanwhile, I used FastCopy to selectively get all the important things I could think of off the drive. (It's the first time I used FastCopy & it lived up to its name! Also didn't choke on long paths.) Dell is supposed to come tomorrow to replace my hard drive.

Looking at the benchmark result it indicates that the HDD is failing.

I am curious as to what aspect of the Benchmark test led you to conclude the disk is failing? The absolute numbers? The performance pattern in the graph? Something else?

Thanks for all the help.

I see. So basically, it's the incredibly slow performance that is the telltale sign. That explains a lot of things. My machine's been getting progressively less responsive in the last year, especially for things related to the file system (e.g., opening a common dialog). I had thought it was just the OS getting choked with all the detritus that I accumulate over time - I was planning to do a wipe-reinstall because of that, which is why I decided to do a full system backup (aside from my regular incremental CrashPlan backups). Odd this degradation - my disk is only 3 years old. I have other disks on other machines that have been running for a decade or more.... But this machine is my main workhorse now. I'll report back in a week or so after my disk is replaced and I've loaded it up & broken it in. I'll try Backupper again & see what happens.

BTW, FastCopy managed to do most of the copying at the top of the Benchmark speed. I was impressed by it. (I'm looking forward to being more impressed when I'm back to normal high-speed performance, though!)

Thanks again for all the help.

axe0 said:

Hi @Yoshm,

How is it going? :)

Hey, @axe0,

Well, the new disk is installed & it is noticeably faster than the previous one. I also used the opportunity to put in an SSD for the system drive. I had an accident, unfortunately - my full backups were on an external drive. As I was restoring them, someone walked by, tripped on the power cable and flung the external drive violently to the floor. It no longer works :-(

So now I am very slowly getting a backup restored off the cloud (CrashPlan). All my critical files should be available by the time I am done (within a day or two of the disk swap), but there are some non-critical files that weren't backed up anywhere else, but my external drive.

I did want to certify the new drive. I ran HD Tune on it and got better results - I'll paste them below. However, I really like to use SpinRite to fully certify the read & write capabilities of a drive. Its Level 4 will read every single byte, and rewrite a few times inverting bits & such and finally restore the original data. It verifies every single bit is usable. Unfortunately, for some reason SpinRite isn't able to read the hardware properties of the new drive so refuses to run. :-(

Dell's diagnostics still hang on the SMART Extended Self-test - it hangs now on the SSD, so it never even gets to test the new hard drive.

Overall performance is pretty snappy - but that may also be a function of a fresh install of Windows with out much detritus added yet

Do you know of a good non-destructive, full-disk write test? I would like to raise my confidence slightly before I let Dell close my ticket.

BTW, I did have another BSOD a few days after the new disk was installed. It reported stopcode of BAD POOL HEADER. I'm not sure its related to my hard drive. It hasn't recurred. Any thoughts about that?

Thanks again for your help & interest. If you have any more pointers or ideas, I'd be pleased to hear them.

Best,
Yosh

HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Benchmark


Test capacity: full


Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 14.2 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 117.9 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 86.4 MB/s
Access Time :
Burst Rate :
CPU Usage : 8.2%




HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Health


ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 253 51 0 ok
(03) Spin Up Time 189 189 21 1541 ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 6 ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 200 200 140 0 ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 253 0 0 ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 100 100 0 5 ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 253 0 0 ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 253 0 0 ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 4 ok
(BF) G-sense Error Rate 100 100 0 0 ok
(C0) Unsafe Shutdown Count 200 200 0 1 ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count 200 200 0 44 ok
(C2) Temperature 112 106 0 35 ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 200 200 0 0 ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 200 200 0 0 ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 253 0 0 ok
(C7) Interface CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 100 253 0 0 ok
(F0) Head Flying Hours 100 100 0 1 ok
(F1) Unknown Attribute 200 200 0 10027511 ok
(F2) Unknown Attribute 200 200 0 2449712 ok
(FE) Unknown Attribute 200 200 0 0 ok


Health Status : ok




HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Error Scan


Scanned data : 749 gB
Damaged Blocks : 0.0 %
Elapsed Time : 2:26:41











HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Random Access


Test capacity: full


Read test


Transfer size operations / sec avg. access time max. access time avg. speed
512 bytes 62 IOPS 15.989 ms 29.303 ms 0.031 MB/s
4 KB 63 IOPS 15.862 ms 28.669 ms 0.246 MB/s
64 KB 60 IOPS 16.465 ms 29.047 ms 3.796 MB/s
1 MB 37 IOPS 26.455 ms 81.662 ms 37.799 MB/s
Random 46 IOPS 21.305 ms 41.072 ms 23.816 MB/s
HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Random Access


Test capacity: full


Read test


Transfer size operations / sec avg. access time max. access time avg. speed
512 bytes 62 IOPS 15.989 ms 29.303 ms 0.031 MB/s
4 KB 63 IOPS 15.862 ms 28.669 ms 0.246 MB/s
64 KB 60 IOPS 16.465 ms 29.047 ms 3.796 MB/s
1 MB 37 IOPS 26.455 ms 81.662 ms 37.799 MB/s
Random 46 IOPS 21.305 ms 41.072 ms 23.816 MB/s

axe0 said:

I'd say, if the read tests go alright, you could assume the write test would also go alright.

Ah, if only that were true... my experience has been otherwise...

axe0 said:

The Google images aren't showing for me.

You mean the screenshots from HD Tune? Probably not critical. Don't know why you're not seeing them. I've reloaded my browser & they still show up.