TOC · Work · Menu · Tools

### Copy Sectors

A tool for creating disk images, clones, writing images back to disk, and copying different disk objects. Write is performed directly to the destination, the operation may not be undone. For changes to take effect in OS you may probably have to reload computer. See Volume locking also.

#### Source and Destination

Button | Purpose
--- | ---
Device | Select Device, Logical disk (volume), Image as source/destination sectors
Partition | Select Partition as source/destination sectors (use Device button to select the disk before),
| To select the entire current device/disk/RAID double click the topmost item in the partition list
File | Use file as source bytes / a destination (alternatively Device · Open Image to use file as sectors)
Editor | Use the object opened in the Disk Editor window as source bytes
Selected | Use selected block of the Disk Editor object as source bytes

Source fields Start Sector/Byte, End Sector/Byte, Number of Sectors/Size in Bytes are filled in automatically on source selection by buttons. If a File or Editor is used as a source then fields are specified in bytes. You may manually specify a range inside the source object to copy.

Destination field Start Sector is also filled in automatically on destination selection by the button Device or Partition. Start Sector is an offset relative to the beginning of the destination object. Start Sector of the source is copied to the Start Sector of the destination regardless the direction of copying.

If RAID is constructed then it may be used as a source/destination.

Using the Device button you may select a file (disk image) as a source or a destination. Then you may specify parameters available for a disk only.

If Editor or Selected is used as a source then some logical errors (such as invalid cluster or sector numbers) are silently ignored.

#### Parameters

Log file contains a report on the copied sectors and errors. If a partition is selected as a source then sector numbers are relative to the beginning of the disk (not the partition).

The option "use log to continue copying" allows skipping already copied sectors (the option is available in Professional Edition only). In particular if copy settings and parameters are not changed then copying will continue from the last position when started. The option may also be used for multi-pass copying with decreasing jumps on bad sectors, preliminary copying of important areas, copying in different directions.

Changing some device I/O parameters (decreasing jump over sectors, increasing auto retries number from 0, decreasing I/O buffer size if there are 0 retries) on a new pass will cause copying sectors previously skipped due to jumps after bad sectors.

The option "Retry copying bad sectors from log" is to copy bad sectors again when all skipped sectors are already copied (Professional Edition only). On each pass bad sectors are being copied from the beginning, continuation is not possible.

Flush log when number of sectors copied: flush buffer log to disk (update log-file) regularly when number of sectors is copied.

The button "Parameters" allows setting device I/O parameters to handle errors (such as retries, jumps through bads, etc.)

Reverse copy: copy backward (from the end to the beginning) to create an image of a disk with problems.

Double thread: perform read and write operations in parallel threads to increase the speed. Do not use the option for copying disks with errors.

The field Continue from sector/byte specifies the position to continue copying. The position is relative to the source beginning. Copying in reverse direction starts previos to the specified position and goes backward (e.g., if set to 10 then sector 9 is copied first and copying goes to the beginning).

The option Lock the source for copy is for locking the volumes located over the source area to prevent modification of the source during copying (Windows only).