Help with Macrium cloning

piazza2

Member
Hi everybody ,
My 1 1/2 years old Dell 5675 is showing me "drive errors" on C 250GB ssd ,and the repair drive error says it cannot repair after trying a few times , the computer still works , with occasional warnings , Firefox doesn't work anymore . I have an empty pci,e slot for an NVMe M2 ssd ,so I read that I can clone the C drive with free macrium trial version onto a newer drive , my question is ,how urgent should I do it ? Is my Dell just about to die ?
Can I order the new drive and wait or I have to rush to a shop ?
I already have inside a slow 3TB hd half full ,can I clone onto the 3TB hd without affecting the files already there?
After the cloning do I have to go into the Bios or Uefi to switch the boot drive?
Some article suggested that just taking out the old drive does the trick and the Mobo will boot with the new drive.
Please help , I accept any suggestion.
Thanks in advance
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
I would not clone the drive. Stop using it and buy a new drive, reinstall windows, then move your personal data to the new drive.
 

piazza2

Member
Thanks John , but I don't want to go through the ordeal of reinstalling more than 40 programs , most of them paid , ACS , Nero suite ,etc... , I should deactivated them first ,very complicated and many don't give you a way to deactivate , why is it not preferable to clone ? my windows works perfect without a glitch ,it's the ssd that's having "errors".
Are these ssd errors something you would worry about? or maybe I'm overreacting ?ssd errors 1.jpg Ssd errors 2.jpg
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Well my concern here is that the ssd drive should be used for windows install. What is windows installed on currently and what is on the ssd drive?
 

piazza2

Member
The SSD that's showing errors is the C. main drive . I also have a 1 TB + 3TB HDDs that are working fine . The SSD is 256 GBs with the Windows OS and all the programs . All the pics, vids, media and documents are in the 2 big drives .
So I heard that Macrium can make an exact clone immediately bootable , Am I wrong ?
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Have you actually downloaded the manufacturer software and verified that it reports issues on the SSD? Windows throwing errors like that could be OS corruption too and SSD's rarely fail.
 

AlienMenace

Well-Known Member
You can also download https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/ and paste the results here too. Download the "Standard Version". I would get a new drive as soon as possible. And if the drive is messing up as you say, then what John says about doing a clean install would be the best bet for the computer. Because the cloning of the drive might not work like it should if it is throwing errors out.

And to one of your questions, if you clone your c:/ to an occupied drive it will erase that drive and just have everything from the c:/ Drive on it afterward.

And for Dell, I think they throw some crappy SSD's into their machines. A friend of mine just got a new Dell Desktop, and NVME drive that he got was crap. The read speed was good but the write speed was really really low, it was a Toshiba drive.

This is what CystalMark Info looks like. And yea, I have lost 6% of my new drive since December 26, 2018. I am keeping a watch on it. In a couple of months, I will get a new one and do a clean install next time. I cloned this drive at the time. And I will be getting a 250gb next time just for the c:/ drive. Sometimes, you just get a lemon. Generally, SSD's last a long time. The original SSD that I had for my c:/ was at 89% before replacing it was going on 6 yrs. It is an OCZ Vertex 4 128gb. And I had 50 GB free left on it.

And where it says "Health Status", if it is any other color than green, start thinking about a new drive. Especially if it is "Red", that drive is not long for this world.

Screenshot (19).jpg
 
Last edited:

OmniDyne

Active Member
I would get a new drive as soon as possible.

We don't know if the drive is bad yet.

This is what CystalMark Info looks like. And yea, I have lost 6% of my new drive since December 26, 2018. I am keeping a watch on it. In a couple of months, I will get a new one and do a clean install next time.

I remember the thread you posted and talking to you about health generally being meaningless. If you're that worried about it, why don't you contact Crucial and send them the usage statistics and SMART data? They may warranty it out for you. I still say there's nothing wrong with your MX500. Check the SMART attributes and see if anything looks funny.

The Crystal Disk health percentage number is seriously meaningless.

ToolBox.jpg

As you can see, the percentage value given is estimated. How ADATA, Crucial or any other manufacturer report health is pretty much unknown and they probably use different formulas, so Crystal Disk is definitely not going to be more accurate than competing reporting software.
 
Last edited:

AlienMenace

Well-Known Member
We don't know if the drive is bad yet.



I remember the thread you posted and talking to you about health generally being meaningless. If you're that worried about it, why don't you contact Crucial and send them the usage statistics and SMART data? They may warranty it out for you. I still say there's nothing wrong with your MX500. Check the SMART attributes and see if anything looks funny.

The Crystal Disk health percentage number is seriously meaningless.

View attachment 9475

As you can see, the percentage value given is estimated. How ADATA, Crucial or any other manufacturer report health is pretty much unknown and they probably use different formulas, so Crystal Disk is definitely not going to be more accurate than competing reporting software.

FINE! I'LL KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT FOR NOW ON. I WON'T HELP OUT ANY MORE. ALL I WAS DOING IS MAKING A SUGGESTION.
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
FINE! I'LL KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT FOR NOW ON. I WON'T HELP OUT ANY MORE. ALL I WAS DOING IS MAKING A SUGGESTION.

You give out awesome suggestions consistently and are a huge help. I'm just stating there's no reason for either of you to replace hardware that isn't broken. I know you're worried about the MX500, but I wouldn't be. We don't know if the OP's SSD is bad yet, we need to see the what the manufacturer software says about the drive before recommending anything.
 

AlienMenace

Well-Known Member
You give out awesome suggestions consistently and are a huge help. I'm just stating there's no reason for either of you to replace hardware that isn't broken. I know you're worried about the MX500, but I wouldn't be. We don't know if the OP's SSD is bad yet, we need to see what the manufacturer software says about the drive before recommending anything.
But doing the Crystal Disk Info and post the results, maybe someone in here can see what is going on maybe.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Honestly I'd only really trust the manufacturer software for SSD's as a single wrong flag somewhere can trigger software to report it as bad even if it's really not. CrystalDisk is good for speed testing but any type of measurement of SSD life will just be a calculation and prone to error by nature and should be taken with a grain of salt. A firmware flash might also fix problems too and should be tried before concluding the drive is kill.

Always verify the hardware is indeed dying before you replace it. It very well may be. A Dell laptop I had for a customer was listed and came with supposedly a 250GB SSD but device manager and the firmware list it as 500GB so they definitely aren't using the highest quality drives. I suspect that one had bad nodes on it and was set to have 250GB, as this was what disk management reported. If it's indeed bad hit up Dell for warranty if you're still covered, and if not then the SSD manufacturer might cover it too. As I said, SSD's rarely die but it's possible, just want to make sure first.
 
Top