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How to debug problems with simple copying files?

I often have a problems when just copying many files from one disk to another. Probably the problem occurs only with ONE of hard drives, installed on my computer, only if copying FROM any drive TO this drive.

Copying application hangs while doing copy. I can't interrupt copying, because when I click cancel or closing copy window is starts "finishing" and never stops. Also I can't KILL copying application in any way.

Logout/login (closing a session with pressing "by force") helps, but if copy again, it can freeze again.

My question is: how to detect ALL potential problems with copying? How to know, for example, which program occupies hard drive in the same way we see processor or memory occupation in task manager?

HARDWARE

Disk is Seagate Constellation ES, ST1000NM0011

Motherboard is ASUS "P7P55-M" (iP55, 4xDDR3, SATA II-RAID, U133, PCI-E, SB, 1Gbit LAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, mATX)

Windows in Windows 8 x64 prof

enter image description here

TO UNFREEZE

I found a way to unfreeze copying.

To unfreeze copying, I should run some another copy in parallel! When parallel copy stops, first copy can freeze again, may be not immediately. To unfreeze it, one should run parallel copying again and again.

Windows For Workgroups

I remember similar was in Windows 3.11 times when copying over network was freezing. Microsoft can't fix 20 year old bugs?

UPDATE: no errors in event viewer

There are no errors in event viewer at the time of describing events and after last reboot.

UPDATE: no errors on disk

Chkdisk also show no errors.

UPDATE: probable explanation

Probable explanation is some buggie Windows File Explorer plugin.

UPDATE: upgrade to Windows 8 didn't help

UPDATE: Resource Monitor shows nothing special - just "pulsing" which looks normal

UPDATE: Far and Windows Explorer behave apparently equal

UPDATE: Turning on AHCI didn't help (was off in Windows and BIOS)

Oliver Salzburg
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Dims
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  • I'm not sure if a tool exist, but, I would consider your AV and download the Acronis Disk Monitor Smart Tool for free to check your hard drive – Dave Jan 08 '13 at 15:04
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    Long hangs and extremely slow copying is an indication of SATA controller or disk problems. You aren't running an early Sandy Bridge chipset (Q67 or so) on the 3GB/s (SATA-II) port, are you? Are you aware that this port has a known defect? Also check the Windows event log and see if it documents any ATA transfer errors (disk write timeouts or so). – allquixotic Jan 08 '13 at 15:08
  • @allquixotic how to check? I have ASUS "P7P55-M" (iP55, 4xDDR3, SATA II-RAID, U133, PCI-E, SB, 1Гбит LAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, mATX) motherboard. – Dims Jan 08 '13 at 15:16
  • If the OP is using an old IDE (40 pins parallel) hard drive then it will not be connected to a SATA connector. @OP: did you mean "IDE/PATA drive" or "SATA drive in ancient IDE compatability mode" ? – Hennes Jan 08 '13 at 15:23
  • Any errors in the event viewer, system log part? (You can start that with [start] [run] `eventvwr.msc`. Then open [windows logs] and [system]). – Hennes Jan 08 '13 at 15:26
  • when a system freezes by accessing the harddisk you may have corrupt sectors. run `chkdsk c: /f /r`. in your system eventlog you may also see Disk controller warnings, that are in fact most probably sector problems. – metadings Jan 08 '13 at 15:45
  • @Hennes, I think I am using SATA drive, not sure, will look. – Dims Jan 08 '13 at 15:58
  • The relevant part of "P7P55" is the first "5" which means it's a Nehalem-era chipset, so this is not suffering from the SATA degradation defect in Sandy Bridge. Shoots down that theory... – allquixotic Jan 08 '13 at 16:04
  • re one of the things you asked, there is http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=24 roadkil's sector editor, which apparently lets you see a hard drive at the low level. I did use it to save the MBR of a floppy disk though haven't used it for anything else This SU question examines one of the things you ask http://superuser.com/questions/97823/how-do-i-determine-what-file-occupies-a-given-sector – barlop Jan 08 '13 at 16:04
  • @barlop I think modern harddrives relocate bad sectors at low lever which is not visible for OS – Dims Jan 08 '13 at 17:35
  • @allquixotic suppose this is SATA problem; how one can fix it programmatically? – Dims Jan 08 '13 at 19:34
  • Is Windows fully patched including optional updates ? – harrymc Jan 17 '13 at 08:49
  • Are you copying between physically different drives, or just partitions on the same drive? Does the error occur regardless of which files you try to copy? Does the error reoccur a second and third time once you've gotten some 'copies' to run? Does the error also occur if you limit the transfer rate (you can e.g. do that with Total Commander while background copying)? Did you run chkdsk with the option read scan all sectors (or better yet, use Spinrite on level 4)? – Jan Doggen Mar 02 '13 at 12:40
  • And you probably already tried this, but there's plenty of hits Googling for "copying files freeze" – Jan Doggen Mar 02 '13 at 12:42
  • Also, spell out your hardware configuration. I see people assuming SATA/IDE, but you can give more specific info about your config. – Jan Doggen Mar 02 '13 at 12:44
  • And you wouldn't by any chance copy to a solid state flash drive? – Jan Doggen Mar 02 '13 at 12:45
  • Kinda sounds like the device is dropping an interrupt to me. – Daniel R Hicks Apr 19 '13 at 18:36
  • @Dims have you tried using the DOS command for copying? This would exclude problems with Explorer – Pincopallino Apr 25 '13 at 12:47
  • @Pincopallino I think I was trying XCOPY and many things else. Apparently error can raise with ANY copying utility. – Dims Apr 25 '13 at 12:51
  • @Dims then this is likely to be an OS problem or a hardware problem. How is your drive partitioned and formatted? If it is FAT32, you could try and make some copies using a Live USB Linux distribution (eg Ubuntu). If it is NTFS, even if Linux can handle it very well, I wouldn't recommend accessing the drive with Linux unless you have a backup of your data. – Pincopallino Apr 25 '13 at 12:57
  • I have several drives all NTFS. – Dims Apr 25 '13 at 14:06
  • Do you have the possibility to backup all the content of the drive? A reformat could be a possible solution – Pincopallino Apr 26 '13 at 07:10
  • This is so hard work with no guaranteed results... Would like to detect problem first! – Dims Apr 26 '13 at 08:32
  • @Dims Given the situation, a backup of the drive is advisable. Since we don't know the cause of the problem, you might loose the content of the hard drive. To exclude operative system problem, you should a) try with a Linux Live Distribution b) Reinstall Windows c) Install windows on another partition and hence create a dual boot configuration d) Move the hard drive to another computer. I don't see any other possible way to diagnose the problem within Windows. Also, we never talked about antiviruses. Do you have one? What happens if you disable it? – Pincopallino Apr 29 '13 at 14:03

4 Answers4

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In rare cases, I've met such situation when you are copying the FILE/FOLDER which is SYMLINK, but the source of symlink doesn't exist on that place.

T.Todua
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First thing is to check that the SATA/IDE controller or hard disk is working correctly. You could achieve this, as suggested by Hennes in the comment above, by checking the event viewer for I/O errors.

Next step would be to test your hard drive using a program such as HDTune. If speeds reported are unusually low, then there is a problem either with the disk or the controller.

If the controller and the disk are working properly, I suggest you check your hard disk for errors.

Another possible cause for the extremely low speed could also be excessive fragmentation; this is not likely as in Windows 7 defragmentation is done periodically by default.

If you want to monitor the hard drive usage, you can run Windows Resource Monitor.

Pincopallino
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  • No errors in log and no errors from `chkdsk`. `HDTune` is not required since as with "parallel copying" method the speed is 16 Mb/sec which is ok. The reason of low speed is freezing. While frozen the speed is zero. The reason of freezing is unknown. – Dims Jan 08 '13 at 21:20
  • Have you tried using Resource Monitor to watch the hard drive bandwidth usage while copying? – Pincopallino Jan 09 '13 at 17:52
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If you suspect that the problem is with a Windows File Explorer add-on, then boot Windows in Safe Mode and see if the problem still exists. If the problem disappears, then the cause is some installed program (not necessarily an Explorer add-on).

To analyze the problem, download Autoruns for Windows and use it to see all your boot startups. Autoruns lets you save the current state, turn off startup items, and also turn them back on.

The Explorer tab is of special interest, containing all the Explorer add-ons. You can here turn them off, singly or in groups, then reboot to see if the problem still exists.

If the problem is not with Explorer add-ons, then use the Everything tab of Autoruns to do the same with other boot startups.

Before starting, I suggest creating a system restore point just in case.

harrymc
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  • I can't enable/disable dozens of plugins. There thous be more precise way to catch the reason. – Dims Jan 19 '13 at 14:03
  • You can disable them all by first booting into Safe mode. This will at least tell you if this is the problem or not. – harrymc Jan 19 '13 at 14:39
  • This may not help since freezing is not 100% guaranteed – Dims Jan 19 '13 at 17:54
  • It's certainly hard working in Safe mode for long. But anyway, you shouldn't have dozens of Explorer add-ons, so with Autoruns you can do this easily. – harrymc Jan 19 '13 at 18:21
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This error may be related to Windows Explorer, or it may be related to low-level I/O subsystem.

To sort out Windows Explorer issues, try copying your files in the Far Manager. If it doesn't hang, then this problem should be resolved by uninstalling shell extensions, plugins, etc. If it still hangs, then problem is at low level: drivers, AHCI/IDE mode, cable, disk hardware etc.

Also it's a good idea to set "use system copy routine" = off in the Far Manager settings (F9, Options, System Settings) just for this test. System file copy routine is very complicated since Windows Vista.

Mikhail Kupchik
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  • Today I was hanged with FAR, although "use system copy" was ON. – Dims Apr 15 '13 at 11:33
  • If "use system copy" is OFF then it hangs too. – Dims Apr 15 '13 at 11:34
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    Look for CRC cable errors, disk hardware errors and remapped sectors in some SMART monitoring tools. Do some error counters have nonzero value? Does CRC cable error counter grow over time? – Mikhail Kupchik Apr 15 '13 at 11:44
  • See SMART report above. I found no "cable" information there. May I used wrong tool? – Dims Apr 15 '13 at 11:52
  • It's attribute 199 (UltraDMA CRC Errors) and it's equal to zero. SMART report looks good, high values of 001 and 007 attributes are normal for Seagates. – Mikhail Kupchik Apr 15 '13 at 12:04
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    Another probable cause of errors like this may be disk controller, especially buggy NCQ in AHCI mode. Try updating chipset drivers and BIOS first; if it doesn't help, then turn AHCI off in the BIOS setup. Windows will likely fail to boot with BSOD "STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" after toggling this setting, in this case you should revert SATA controller to the AHCI mode, boot Windows, enable PCIIDE.SYS ( http://www.overclock.net/t/1227636/how-to-change-sata-modes-after-windows-7-installation ) and try changing this setting in BIOS setup again ( http://goo.gl/5BaAf ). – Mikhail Kupchik Apr 15 '13 at 12:15
  • I guess I have opposite situation: I have AHCI off and don't know how to turn it on... – Dims Apr 15 '13 at 12:48
  • Install latest chipset drivers and then follow this guide: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-change-sata-hard-disk-mode-from-ide-to-ahci-raid-in-bios-after-installing-windows/ . But please update the firmware and chipset drivers first, and retest the hangup - maybe problem goes away before switching SATA controller from IDE to AHCI mode. – Mikhail Kupchik Apr 15 '13 at 12:53
  • I have updated firmware some time ago ant it didn't help. Now in AHCI mode made according to your overclock link. Looks like it helped, but may be not all programs loaded yet. – Dims Apr 15 '13 at 13:04
  • Still OK, probably it solved... Probably it was some bug or incompatibility in IDE mode... Will test more... – Dims Apr 15 '13 at 13:35
  • Unfortunately the problem manifestated again today, i.e. AHCI didn't help. – Dims Apr 16 '13 at 11:37
  • Does this problem occur under different OS (e.g. Slax, Knoppix)? – Mikhail Kupchik Apr 16 '13 at 13:27
  • hard to say :) I can't change OS to test this... – Dims Apr 16 '13 at 18:16