Sorry if this exact question has been asked before...
I found threads about cloning disks with bad sectors, but my situation is a little different.
I have a dying disk on my laptop and I bought a new one and have external enclosure for it.

I tried cloning with different tools:
- Acronis True Image
- Roadkil's RawCopy
- Runtime Software's DriveImage XML

Acronis needs reboot, and then it doesn't find the external drive (since it's USB).
The other two work directly in Windows, but I can't make them ignore bad sectors (and they get stuck whenever they encounter the damaged area).
I am starting to think there's something generally wrong with my setup -- whatever software I use, I'll end up in one of those two situations.

Am I right?
Are there any ways to do the cloning on my laptop?
If not, I should probably attach both drives on a desktop (with some 2.5" to 3.5" SATA adapters) and use one of the low-level tools that have option to ignore bad sectors?

thanks a lot for your help!

I'd attach the drive to a SATA port on your computer's motherboard. Then use imaging software that understands how to work around bad sectors.

Some freeware cloning tools are ...

HDclone: http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html
dd_rescue: http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/
ddrescue: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Comparison between ddrescue and dd_rescue:
http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Ddrescue

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Problem : if the disk as you said is failing in a certain way, without HW tools can die in your hands. This is the risk. There is NO possibility of overcoming the issues with software. Be careful with your strategy and... good luck.

Both BlackST & fzabkar are right. Strange !!!
disk with bad sector will become more worse if you play with fancy softwares, yes there are few software which can do the job but surely you will lose some of your data !

getting 100% data out of the failing drive is not possible without special equipment, this is the point !

Good luck ! choice is yours

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RAID/Server Recovery

Thanks to all.
Although I am not really looking to recover anything (in fact I don't see anything missing yet, there are "only" 12 bad sectors right now).
The only visible problem is the OS just hangs once every 3-4 days (when it touches a damaged part). I know there is something broken/lost, it's not all in the free space ... but nothing really important.
Of course, the sooner I move to the healthy drive, the better.

My main concern is to avoid re-installing and setting up everything on the new drive. I am ok if I lose the bad sectors, just don't want to get trapped for hours/days/forever trying to read them.

Thanks fzabkar, I'll look at the dd's.
I ordered some extra SATA cables and will do the cloning this weekend. Until then the bad disk is motionless.

If there are only 12 bad sectors, then you could identify those files that occupy them. Delete these files and replace them with backup copies, if possible, or avoid these files when copying your data to a backup drive.

Tip: How to determine which file occupies a particular sector:
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda- ... /m-p/35567

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.