VSS Troubles

[vxspiritxv]

I'm trying to use vmware converter and convert a running machine to a VM.

Problem:

The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because of an IO failure on volume C:.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The device, \Device\Harddisk0, has a bad block.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

I have ran chkdsk /r c: many times, here is the last output:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 48 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 48 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 48 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

  12586927 KB total disk space.
   8121852 KB in 25922 files.
      9512 KB in 5142 indexes.
         8 KB in bad sectors.
    644403 KB in use by the system.
     64992 KB occupied by the log file.
   3811152 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
   3146731 total allocation units on disk.
    952788 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
70 c7 00 00 64 79 00 00 a0 a0 00 00 00 00 00 00  p...dy..........
47 05 00 00 06 00 00 00 32 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  G.......2.......
f6 a0 0b 03 00 00 00 00 00 49 7f 0f 00 00 00 00  .........I......
0e 8f 90 09 00 00 00 00 de c7 d7 9f 00 00 00 00  ................
f0 b1 fe 5e 00 00 00 00 ba f0 cd 35 01 00 00 00  ...^.......5....
90 2b f3 e1 00 00 00 00 cd 9d 82 7c 03 00 00 00  .+.........|....
42 65 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 f0 b7 ef 01 00 00 00  Be..............

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Anyone have any ideas on getting around this problem so I can make a VM of the system? System is a windows 2003 server that I'm remotely administering. The C drive is all of 12gigabytes, and I really don't want to create a new install of windows to replace this server at this point in time as there are many mapped drive and printers that people rely on this server for. Microsoft backup software is failing with the same volume shadow copy issue.

 

[ashman]

You may want to consider imaging software, something like Acronis, I know you can convert their images into virtual machines, only downside is their software isn't cheap.

Also, have you tried shrinking the size of the C drive when you convert it, that might bypass any bad sectors it thinks the drive has. Just a thought.

 

[boss6021]

You can try an program called HDD regenerator. I have had good luck with it on failing drives.

 

[vxspiritxv]

Simple solution, shrink it, seems to be working. Thanks!

 

[CRASCH]

If it was a bad sector chkdsk should have marked it, and then it should complete. There is always the chance of media in the process of failing developing more bad sectors. I usually run chkdsk a couple times in a row, hoping for a clean run.

I've seen an older anti virus packages (Symantec) install a VSS provider that will generate an IO error. run vssadmin http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754968(v=ws.10).aspx check to see if there are any non-MS providers. If there are try to uninstall them or the software it came with.

If there is a way to exclude certain files and a log which will tell you which file the IO error occurred on, that might help.