eM Client backup causing HD bad clusters?

1

As part of my backup routine, I imaged my hard drive (HD) in February and it was fine with no errors.  I went to make a new image 2 days ago and got the error message “new bad clusters” were found and image failed.  So I ran CHKDSK on the whole hard drive and 2 of the 3 files with bad clusters were eMClient backups!  (see photo above).  I have only been running eMClient for a couple months so it was installed after the successful image in February.  Given that there were 2 backups that were corrupted, it seems there might be something wrong with the eMClient backup program.  Can you provide any insight into how the backup might have formed the “bad clusters?”  I don’t want to keep writing bad data to my hard drive that just messes stuff up down the line.  Running CHKDSK to fix it takes over 4 hours so I don’t want to be doing it regularly.

2

Hi Marg,

I don’t think a program like eM Client can cause bad clusters … bad clusters are more a hardware issue I think (and maybe a sign that it is time to replace your hard disk).

3

Software can cause bad clusters, albeit they can be fixed by overwriting the bad data.  See this article for a good explanation of “soft” vs “hard” bad clusters (sectors):

http://www.howtogeek.com/173463/bad-sectors-explained-why-hard-drives-get-bad-sectors-and-what-you-c…

Yes ALOT of bad clusters and increasing numbers of them can be an indication a hard drive is failing, but just 2 or 3 is not.  I had 3 files with bad clusters, 2 of them from EMClient backup.  A soft bad cluster can be caused by improper writing to the hard drive, such as during a shutdown or hard close or power failure, or by viruses.  I am not calling  emClient a virus :slight_smile: , but I have noted many people having trouble with the Auto backup not working properly and I myself had trouble, as it has a confusing way of having to shut down to make the backup and I am wondering this-- if the backup program hits a bug during its shutdown process, does it somehow write one of these soft bad clusters to the HD that then appears later to CHKDSK to be a bad cluster?  All software has bugs, (this is no slam of eMClient) I am simply trying to point out that if eMClient has the unfortunate ability to do this, it is a bug the developers are going to want to fix.  FYIIW, I have the full log of the CHKDSK that gives the actual addresses of the bad sectors found on my HD and I can send that in if you want.  Just tell me to whom.

Lastly, after CHKDSK fixed the bad clusters, I successfully ran my image backup last night with no bad cluster errors, so that really was the problem with that.  I have turned off the Autobackup of EmClient for now, and will do manual backups.  In a month I will image again and see if the bad clusters come back and which programs are causing them.  That will give us a ruling on EmClient manual backup program.  If no problem, I will turn the autobackup back on and see if that causes bad clusters.  That will determine if it IS the autobackup or was just a random occurrence.  I will report back on my findings. 

I see there is a new release of EM client, I will check it out.  I remember being told the backup program was going to the redesigned so if it is in the new version, the problem might already be fixed!

4

Hi, are you still having issues with this?

Thank you, sorry for my late reply,
Paul.

5

No, my hard drive suddenly crashed a week later so it was probably the HD going bad and just a coincidence of the bad files being from emclient.
Been too busy with the crash to follow up but please consider the case closed. The problem was on my end, not yours.

6

Hi again, sorry to hear this, but let us know if you come across any other issues or questions about the application, we’ll be happy to help.
Thank you for the update on this issue.

Regards,
Paul.