SuperDuper back up fails repeatedly

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SuperDuper back up fails repeatedly

I have a mid-2011 27" iMac Core i5, purchased in October, 2011. I've been trying to create a Mirror Backup from the latest version of SuperDuper (2.6.4 v89) to my external G-Tech drive — this used to work just fine — but now I keep getting a message that says "failed to copy files from Macintosh HD..."

My iMac HD is 1 TB

External HD is 3 TB (2 partitions)

– Mirror iMac: 1TB (used for SuperDuper mirror copy)

– Archive: 2 TB (used by OS Lion Time Machine)

"About this Mac" says:

– Mirror iMac: 985.73 GB free out of 1 TB

– Macintosh HD: 800.68 GB free out of 999.35 GB

So it is not, presumably, a question of space.

I did all of the steps outlined in the SuperDuper Help page re: "Out of Space" errors

– Ran Disk Utilities (booted from a flash drive, and ran DU on both the iMac and the external drive: no problems.)

– I ran "Erase then Copy" files

– I erased the Mirror iMac partition and reformatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

The back up kept hanging up on a particular file. SO I sent an error report to Shirt Pocket and received this reply:

Lion - confusingly - is sometimes returning "disk full" errors when it can't read or write a file. In this case

Jan 30 15:36:27 macbook-pro SDCopy[365]: reading from /Users/jo/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/TV Shows/LOST/14 There's No Place Like Home, Pt. 3 (HD).m4v: Input/output error

the problem si reading from that particular Lost episode. This is likely because your internal drive is starting to fail.

Please navigate to that file in Finder and try to duplicate - not open or play - it. Do you get an error -36? If so, you'll need to delete it, empty your trash and give the copy another try.

I did try to copy the file, as suggested, and did get an "error -36". So I threw it away and retried the backup: it made it past the point where it had been failing, and copied almost all the files, but now is giving me a similar error message (same msg as before, but different file):

| 07:08:19 PM | Error | SDCopy: Error copying /Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Magic GarageBand/02. Rock.mwand/Media/Big Stack 1#1.caf to /Volumes/Mirror iMac/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Magic GarageBand/02. Rock.mwand/Media/Big Stack 1#1.caf of type 8 due to error 28: No space left on device

I also tried to copy this file and it too gave me an "error -36."

I have looked through these forums and tried the only one that seemed to pertain (turning Time Machine off, which I did: no luck.)

Could my hard drive really be failing? I checked the serial no. of my iMac here: http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/ and it says that my hard drive is not affected by this particular recall.

I am NOT technical, so if anyone has any suggestions for me, please be merciful when giving instructions. It has taken me hours to get this far...😀

Thanks so much!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 30, 2012 7:49 PM

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Answer 1

Ziatron

Level 5

4,186 points

Jan 30, 2012 8:08 PM in response to jo lfrommo

Your first step is to contact shirt-pocket (the software publisher) and get their advice.

I use the same software on my Mac Pro with no problems. ( I back up to one of my 4 internal hard drives.)

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Answer 2

jo lfrommo Author

Level 1

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Jan 30, 2012 8:29 PM in response to Ziatron

Hi, I did contact them, and have copied their (first) reply above re: "error -36" and the likelihood of my hard drive failing. I them an additional question and their tech says they did have a hard drive fail (that showed these errors) so I am posting here to see if anyone else has had this problem.

I too have used SD for a few years with my MacBook Pro, and a G-Tech external, and have had no problems.

What worries me is not being able to clone files on the iMac hard drive itself.

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Answer 3

FangSuede

Level 4

2,195 points

Jan 30, 2012 8:37 PM in response to jo lfrommo

Have you tried Carbon Copy Cloner?

http://www.bombich.com/index.html

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Answer 4

jo lfrommo Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 30, 2012 8:46 PM in response to FangSuede

No I haven't, but I will. Thanks for the link. Have read the name in lots of other posts re: back ups.

But is it trouble when I try to Shift-Option-drag a file (to copy it), on the iMac hard drive itself, and get this "error -36"? That seems like a problem with the iMac and not just with the software I use to copy the files elsewhere...

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Answer 5

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,370 points

Jan 30, 2012 9:03 PM in response to jo lfrommo

Shirt Pocket has given their opinion that you may have a HD problem. What I don't know is if they meant you internal HD or the EHD. If it's the internal then then you should run Apple Hardware Test in Extended Mode. If no errors are found the first time run it at least another 2-3 times to be sure. You can find instructions in your owners manual, if you don't have the manual click Support in the upper right of this page and then click Manuals and navigate to your manual.

To check the EHD, run Disk Utility (Applications - Utilities - Disk Utilities) - select the EHD and click the First Aid tab and run Repair Disk. If there are errors run it until no errors come up and then try SD again.

No amount of changing software will fix hardware failures so chasing after CCC is probably a waste of time.

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Answer 6

jo lfrommo Author

Level 1

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Jan 30, 2012 9:18 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Shirt Pocket definitely thought it was the internal hard drive. When I asked, just now, why the files are copying via Time Machine, but not SD, this was his reply:

I think it's quite likely that Time Machine is failing silently. After all, you can see the files aren't readable with Finder!

But I went to my Time Machine back up and copied the files that had given me "error -36" msgs previously (when they were in their respective folders on the internal HD.) Then I threw away the originals, and replaced them with the Time Machine copies. Now they Shift-Option-Drag copy just fine. (I have no idea what that indicates other than that the original files were somehow problems.)

BUT now I've opened up the manual for my iMac and am going to learn how to do the Apple Hardware Test. Will let you know what I find out. Thanks for the tip!

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Answer 7

snazawa

Level 1

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Feb 1, 2012 9:53 PM in response to jo lfrommo

So, I never had any issues with SD before this last week but it kept failing to copy and it seemed fail on a different file every time. I did all the things suggested like repairing the disk, erasing, etc. Finally, I turned off Timemachine and that got me past the .mobilebackups fail issue mentioned several places. But then it failed on an iphoto photo in the iphoto library. I went ahead and deleted that and that took care of the problem. So after spending several hours trying to figure this out, I finally got a good backup.

Confusing thing is that SD has never done this before. Perhaps it was a fluke.

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Answer 8

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,370 points

Feb 1, 2012 9:57 PM in response to snazawa

So what happened when you did what Shirtpocket told you to do?

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Answer 9

jo lfrommo Author

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Feb 2, 2012 8:37 AM in response to snazawa

I am still in the middle of trying to ascertain if my hard drive is failing or not (as Shirtpocket suggested was happening.) Have to use this computer for work so am biting my nails.

I tried to run the Apple Hardware Test, as rkaufmann87 suggested, but got embroiled in the whole "AHT is missing from Lion" mess (my iMac came with Snow Leopard installed, with SL install discs. I had to download/install Lion, and it apparently does not have AHT. Tried and tried the Lion directions, but nothing came up. Finally got it to run from the Internet, but the steps I went through did not always work. Several failed attempts, two successful, more failed.)

HOWEVER, the two attempts that did run the test both stalled and I had to power down (using the power button, as the "cancel test" button did not work.) No error messages. In the first case it hung up at 3 minutes, and the second it hung up around 6 min. I waited an hour in each case before powering down.

So then I ran Carbon Copy Cloner to see if, in fact, it was a Super Duper fluke. It hung up on the same file that SD had last hung up on (a different Garage Band "mwand" file.) The error message says:

"This file is sitting on a bad section of hard disk media and is unrecoverable. Delete this file (ie.e. in the Finder) and restore it from a known good backup, then try the backup task again."

Must say, unlike SD, CCC didn't quit at that point, it copied the rest of the files. SO I retrieved the file from a recent Time Machine backup and replaced it on my internal HD, re-ran CCC on that file, and it worked.

Am confused b/c the Time Machine backup is from the very same source that failed in SD and CCC.

So I am thinking that my next step is to take the iMac to the Genius Bar for a check up. Don't know if this is a Lion issue, or if my HD really is failing.

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Answer 10

FangSuede

Level 4

2,195 points

Feb 2, 2012 9:33 AM in response to jo lfrommo

"This file is sitting on a bad section of hard disk media and is unrecoverable. Delete this file (ie.e. in the Finder) and restore it from a known good backup, then try the backup task again."

CCC is a very nice product and running it told you basically what Shirt Pocket Support eluded to, the hard drive has problems.

Using a hard drive utiliy like Prosoft's Drive Genius can isolate those bad sectors and defrag the HDD.

If that iMac Hard Drive has bad sectors on it already I think using your warranty and visiting the Apple Store Genius Bar is a good plan.

If there are a lot of bad sectors on that new HDD, it needs replacement.

Might be a good idea to do a good clone backup before taking the iMac for service.

Some folks wipe the iMac HDD so that any personal info/passwords is not seen by others working on it, your choice.

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Answer 11

jo lfrommo Author

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Feb 2, 2012 1:26 PM in response to FangSuede

Thank you for the recommendation (this is the first time I've ever asked for help on a user forum. I really appreciate all the suggestions!) I just finished doing the scan that Drive Genius's free test allows me to do and it turned up 4 bad blocks. I found this article that seems germane to my situation:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3586143?start=0&tstart=0

His blog says this:

http://tech.kateva.org/2011/12/mac-drive-diagnostics-techtools-pro-and.html

... TechTool Pro should not normally report bad blocks for these types of drives. The drive controller in them automatically tries to map out bad blocks as they are encountered. It will do this unless either the bad block is in a critical area that cannot be mapped out at the moment or the bad block table is full. ... So the bad blocks I see now are probably a small fraction of the number that have already been mapped out. I'm seeing the overflow, including blocks that went bad after they'd been written to.

Modern drives don't write to bad blocks. Based on the dates of the files that were involved the involved blocks went bad in the past month. That fits with Carbon Copy Cloner not complaining until recently. (See my backup issue post for a twist to this story.)

Carbon Copy Cloner complained about bad sectors in files during backup, but Time Machine didn't. That may be because Time Machine only reads files that have changed?

So I guess I could try Tech Tool Pro and see what it finds. (Am also trying to finish projects on deadline while troubleshooting! Yuck.)

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Answer 12

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,370 points

Feb 2, 2012 1:58 PM in response to jo lfrommo

To be honest now that you have determined the issue is your internal HD you should work on getting it replaced. Then restore from your SuperDuper backup and be back up and running. Continuing to soldier on with a damaged HD is a waste of time and resouces.

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Answer 13

iCare

Level 4

2,490 points

Feb 2, 2012 2:17 PM in response to jo lfrommo

I agree with rkaufmann87 that you're just wasting your time to continue evaluating the drive, especially if you haven't already been backing up your data. You're operating on borrowed time. Get your system in for evaluation if there appears to be a problem with data integrity.

If you're interested in taking one additional look at your drive's SMART status then give this application a try. I think it will confirm what you've already been told.

http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php

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Answer 14

jo lfrommo Author

Level 1

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Feb 2, 2012 2:37 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks all. Will call Apple and see what they say (Will try the volitans too just for the education) and check back later with the results.

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Answer 15

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,370 points

Feb 2, 2012 2:44 PM in response to jo lfrommo

If you purchased AppleCare or it's less than 90 days old simply call AppleCare, otherwise don't waste time on a phone call. Make an appointment with your local Apple Store to have it serviced or contact an AASP to do the same. Apple isn't going to be able to fix it over the phone. If you have AppleCare let them know what you have done and the results and request to have the HD replaced. If you have AppleCare you can use the AppleCare Contact Info link.

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