Should I Be Concerned and Extra Cautious  

You may want to look at this, it may explain Macrium better to you. Just a suggestion. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/6...p-restore.html Personally, I don't use incremental or Differential images. I always do a Full Image,

essenbe said:

You may want to look at this, it may explain Macrium better to you. Just a suggestion. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/6...p-restore.html Personally, I don't use incremental or Differential images. I always do a Full Image,

I 'reply with quote' because I have information that might be relevant to the 'file system' causing a problem.

Based on an entry on the Macrium Reflect forum, I tried running chkdsk at an elevated prompt on the 2TB Toshiba eSATA disk. Here is what it reported:

F:\>chkdsk F:/f/v/r
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first.
ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N)

When I replied 'N' to this question it then asked if I wanted chkdsk to run on startup.

Not being confident which disk(s) might be checked, I replied 'N' once again and exited. "Dig no deeper holes."

I tried researching this reply but find unsatisfying answers.

Is it relevant? Does it suggest what to do to render this disk 'suitable for the storage of Macrium Reflect image backups?'

The image file seems to create properly. There appear to be 'read problems' during the verification phase.

I believe I followed Macrium's instructions regarding properly formatting the image storage drive.

EDIT: I remember your issues with Macrium, but I think it was a problem with your file system that caused it not to verify.[/QUOTE]

Try this and see if it completes without all that dismount/open handles business:

Open File Explorer.
Right-click on drive F and select Properties.
Select the Tools tab.
Select Check (Error checking - this option will check the drive for errors)

Thank you, simrick, for your reply.

I'm getting tired, but I think I went through this process earlier as a result of a bit of research and saved this image. (This is in Win7 of course.)



Yesterday I tried running Process Explorer on the drive and it appeared to show that nothing was using F:\. I could do it again tomorrow and screen capture an image, if that would help.

Should I reformat the F:\ drive and then run chkdsk? I did save seven screen dump images from the 'properties' views of this drive. Is there another tab that might give a clue?

At this point there is not much to see on the disk. Here is what TreeSizeFree shows. It seems innocuous to me.

Windows 10 will scan a drive without making changes, to determine if it needs repairing. This can be run while the disk is being accessed. It's basically a read-only chkdsk without any switches. If it needs to be repaired, Windows will tell you, and it will run the chkdsk, or ask you to unmount the volume so it can be run. I think it's okay to unmount, as it is not your system drive. Windows will close all open handles and run the check. It shouldn't hurt anything.

Thank you, simrick!

I ran chkdsk without parameters and it ran just fine, just as you predicted. See below for the elevated command prompt details. Unless I missed something, evidently the problem is not with the disk!? Do you see something subtle?

I will file another support ticket with Macrium since I am now running their Home Edition. I hope they find a solution some time next week. My support tickets from last week must have been filed too late in the week for consideration.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>f:

F:\>chkdsk
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is BackupDrive.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
256 file records processed.
File verification completed.
0 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
0 EA records processed.
0 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
286 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
256 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
16 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
14256 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

1953512447 KB total disk space.
3093720 KB in 10 files.
20 KB in 17 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
126339 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
1950292368 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
488378111 total allocation units on disk.
487573092 allocation units available on disk.

F:\>

That looks good to me. :)

Thank you for the confirmation.

I will put together a service ticket with Macrium next.

baumgrenze said:

Thank you for the confirmation.

I will put together a service ticket with Macrium next.

You're quite welcome! :)
For the future:
The switch /R locates bad sectors and recovers readable information, and so it implies /F.
The switch /V displays list of every file in every directory, on FAT32. On NTFS, it displays the cleanup messages. Not really necessary.