SSD toast ??

Once upon a time my old HD was successfuly cloned to new Samsung SSD 860 EVO. All was well until i tried to "image" the SSD to external HD for backup using USB cable - it failed apparently due to bad sector(s). Running CHKDSK to fix bad sectors was a DISASTER resulting in possibly toasted SSD. The MS "repair" pgm was run from CD with resulting SSD contents (files & fldrs) appearing to be normal (to my untrained eye) but booting from it is not possible. So the original HD was re-installed and appears to be running well except that CHKDSK cannot fix errs found on old HD since "hash totals do not agree" according to CBS.LOG (in preparation for re-cloning HD to SSD it seemed wise to first chk status of HD). So now: (1) the original HD still runs well but cannot be used as source for cloning to SSD and also cannot be fixed using CHKDSK (2) the SSD which was the target for previous successful HD clone is now unusable even 'tho files & fldrs on SSD appear to be normal. There is no Win 10 install CD avail. Shd CBS.log be sent to MS for analysis ?? Any other suggestions for successful SSD cloning ?? Thanx.

Bewildered Bob

ps: Win 10 bild 1809 is installed.

Do a clean install to the SSD? Connect the HDD via USB cable to copy your data files from it. Wipe the SSD off all partitions before starting the clean install.

NavyLCDR said:

Do a clean install to the SSD? Connect the HDD via USB cable to copy your data files from it. Wipe the SSD off all partitions before starting the clean install.

Hi Cmdr: I have no media from which to do "clean install" - Win 10 was already installed on my desktop. What do you suggest ? Thanx.

Bewildered Bob

Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10 | Tutorials

Make the media; start with the above tutorial.

SSD might be OK except it doesn't boot because of corrupted system files. This can be fixed by booting from Windows 10 DVD-ROM or USB Flash drive and using the Startup Repair option. If you are using a desktop computer with a free SATA port, then I would recommend to connect both disks internally, rather than using a USB adapter. This will be much faster and avoid any corruption because of USB I/O errors. If Windows 10 on SSD cannot be fixed, I would clone the hard disk to SSD again and then try to check disk and correct all errors before booting into Windows from the SSD. Worst case scenario, format the SSD, clean install Windows 10 and then copy any data from the old disk to the SSD. Unfortunately any application has to be reinstalled, you cannot just copy if from the old disk.

spapakons said:

SSD might be OK except it doesn't boot because of corrupted system files. This can be fixed by booting from Windows 10 DVD-ROM or USB Flash drive and using the Startup Repair option. If you are using a desktop computer with a free SATA port, then I would recommend to connect both disks internally, rather than using a USB adapter. This will be much faster and avoid any corruption because of USB I/O errors. If Windows 10 on SSD cannot be fixed, I would clone the hard disk to SSD again and then try to check disk and correct all errors before booting into Windows from the SSD. Worst case scenario, format the SSD, clean install Windows 10 and then copy any data from the old disk to the SSD. Unfortunately any application has to be reinstalled, you cannot just copy if from the old disk.

Hello: Thanx for the quick reply but addtl help is needed. The old HD was successfully cloned to a new SSD which worked as advertised until i tried to image it to external drive (via USB cable) for backup. The backup failed due to "bad sectors/tracks,etc" on SSD so i then ran CHKDSK which apparently was a mistake since my life has not been the same since. I tried various fixes including creation of a bootable CD using the re-installed old HD. Instructions say to label the bootable CD as "Win 10 Repair - 64 bit" even tho it was created using Win 7 backup function in Win 10 (i think). The new SSD was installed again now the CD boots successfully but fails to repair or restore the corrupted SSD (rotten thing to do to a nice guy like me) "NTFS file system" err msg appears. It wont even allow RESET which it apparently should. A "clean install" probably won't work because i have no Win 10 media and also have no application CDs to reinstall the apps. So any recovery apparently must begin with the old HD which hopefully will continue to work. However is there a "more powerful" rescue CD (not created using "Win 7 backup function" in Win 10) that can be created which will fix the broken SSD while preserving its contents to avoid cloning the HD to SSD for a third time ? If not and the old HD must once again be cloned to SSD how can CHKDSK and SFC (system file checker) be run without corrupting the SSD ? Thanx.

Bewildered

You could find many tools in a Windows PE Live CD, see this: Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk Solved - Windows 10 Forums To verify the health of SSD use the Hard Disk Sentinel utility. You can also run the repair (check disk) from the Live CD. You can download Windows 10 Media Creation Tool, run it, select your language and download Windows 10 ISO.

spapakons said:

You could find many tools in a Windows PE Live CD, see this: Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk Solved - Windows 10 Forums To verify the health of SSD use the Hard Disk Sentinel utility. You can also run the repair (check disk) from the Live CD. You can download Windows 10 Media Creation Tool, run it, select your language and download Windows 10 ISO.

Hello again: Thanx for the link for bootable rescue CD. However the web page shows a prominent "addtl option" for Win10XPE. Can i keep it simple and ignore this option and safely just download the "plain vanilla" ISO to start the rescue ?

Bewildered Bob

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spapakons said:

You could find many tools in a Windows PE Live CD, see this: Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk Solved - Windows 10 Forums To verify the health of SSD use the Hard Disk Sentinel utility. You can also run the repair (check disk) from the Live CD. You can download Windows 10 Media Creation Tool, run it, select your language and download Windows 10 ISO.

One more question for you - my Win 7 desktop works really well so can the questionable SSD be connected by USB cable to the Win 7 PC to run your suggested fixes ?? Or must the original Win 10 HD be re-installed first ? Thanx.

Bewildered Bob

If you can boot using an external flash drive then you may be able to:
a) backup all important files to another drive or to the cloud
b) test the drive
d) perform a reset save files equialent
e) perform a clean install

If you at anytime upgraded windows 7 to 10 then the new license should be on the Microsoft servers.
This should allow clean install without a manual product key entry.