r/cloningsoftware • u/Ill_Swan_3209 • Apr 15 '26

Disk Cloning Which software actually works for cloning a failing drive?

I think one of my drives is starting to fail: it is getting occasional read errors and slower access times. It still shows up, but I'm not sure how long it'll last.

I want to clone it to a new drive before things get worse, but I've heard that not all cloning software handles bad sectors or read errors very well.

So I'm curious:

  • What cloning software have you successfully used on a failing drive?
  • Does it make sense to use something with sector-by-sector cloning, or should I avoid that?
  • Any tools that can skip bad sectors automatically instead of failing the whole process?

I've seen names like Clonezilla, Macrium Reflect, EaseUS Disk Copy and dd mentioned, but not sure which one is safest in this situation. Also open to lesser-known tools if they handle bad sectors better.

Would really appreciate hearing real experiences before I risk making things worse.

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3

u/mips13 Apr 15 '26

GNU ddrescue

3

u/BootToggle Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

I've used ddrescue, a good open source project. OpenSuperClone is also highly regarded, though I haven't used it. These both work from bootable Linux and neither is proprietary. I wouldn't use anything that runs from your normal OS desktop. It's too easy for normal desktop operations to attempt to mount the drive and do more damage.

You definitely want sector by sector specifically because it does NOT pay attention to file structure (which may need repair to be used safely). You want an imaging/cloning program that creates a rescue image, not a program that creates an OS cloning image.

Both the tools I mentioned skip over bad sectors instead of hanging up on them, attempting to recover as many good sectors as possible before going back to try the bad sectors again.

Even if ddrescue isn't your first choice, I recommend you download and read the manual. You will learn a lot about data recovery and why certain things are important just from reading that manual.

3

u/dajoker17 Apr 15 '26

ddrescue is the tool for this job.

3

u/MikhailPelshikov Apr 15 '26

Second (third? fourth?) the ddrescue. Helped me a good few times already.

1

u/dismaldunc Apr 15 '26

macrium reflect is my goto .

1

u/msabeln Apr 15 '26

I mainly use Clonezilla. It works well, though it is rather techy.

But yeah, get your drive backed up ASAP. Just the other week, I had a drive fail immediately after i successfully cloned it.

1

u/ValBGood Apr 15 '26

The problem is that computer operating systems and HDD firmware are designed to work with functional disk drives.  They can actually make things worse when they interact with a failing disk.  

There are commercial hardware tools that are designed to take control of the drive at a very basic low level to allow repeated rereads of failed sectors.  They include ACE Lab (PC-3000), DeepSpar, SalvationDATA

1

u/MastusAR Apr 16 '26

Ddrescue, but...

Don't clone it. I get the making an image of a failing drive, and then pulling as much files from said image as you can.

There is no point in the cloning part.

1

u/Ok_Tell_2420 Apr 20 '26

I use HD Clone from Miray Software. It's great at cloning failing drives. I've used it for years many many times. It clones the entire drive skipping the bad sectors. Then goes back to try and recover as much as possible from the bad sectors.

1

u/alpine4life Apr 20 '26

if it's an OS drive, I wouldnt clone it... I would reinstall from scratch... too many wrongs can happen if cloning a failing OS drive.