How can I make an infallible backup?

Reliable backup system?

I think I've had a malware-attack. I booted up and all was working then everything slowed way down until the only thing I could do was instigate a restart which I did. The PC never booted again. I tried to use the W8 install disc to make repairs but it took ages for the disc interface to load. Repair did not work - the process would not continue, all went dead, and I couldn't instigate the install process. I tried things in DOS but the system drive was shown as having an I/O error, and nothing I tried in DOS worked to solve the issue.
So I put in the recovery disc I made to load an image, but the recovery disc would not load, it crawled along for a bit and then all went dead.

I thought the drive may be dead, but it turns out it isn't. I solved the problem by installing W7, which worked as normal, formatting the main drive on the way. From that position I was able to now use the W8 disc to re-install that, which is where I am happily typing from now. All components are working.
I think the W7 disk worked because its boot protocol is older.

My question is - how can I make a bootable image loader thing that would actually boot against this apparent attack?

Given that we don't know exactly what went wrong it's tough to say.

I'm having a hard time believing that malware could stop a clean installation of the OS (you don't mention but I presume you tried just a fresh installation with the windows 8 disk). A far as loading an image, im not 100% sure how that works from a technical point of view, but worst case you can do as you have done. Get to a clean copy of the OS and then load from it.

mantadog said:

I'm having a hard time believing that malware could stop a clean installation of the OS (you don't mention but I presume you tried just a fresh installation with the windows 8 disk). A far as loading an image, im not 100% sure how that works from a technical point of view, but worst case you can do as you have done. Get to a clean copy of the OS and then load from it.

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I'm not sure it was malware, but it was odd. I was able to get to diagnostic tools on the W7 disc and it let me see all my drives except for the C drive which was locked to any attempt to do anything with it.
Like I said the W7 disk worked fine, and once the C drive had been formatted so did the W8 disk. It made me think that there was some sort of conflict between a more modern boot protocol and what was on the C drive. That doesn't explain the original issue though.
I've got everything up and running again.

Very odd indeed. I can only think something got screwed up in the OS installation, not really an expert on it though. As I keep saying I'm a hardware guy, software is nasty stuff if it decided to just not work.

It doesn't sound like malware to me either. I'd put it down to a filesystem problem on the hard disk. You say you "couldn't instigate the install process", did you try deleting the exiting partition and starting from scratch? I'm pretty sure that would have worked. I can't explain why Win7 install worked, perhaps it didn't try to access the faulty bit of the filesystem? Did you delete the existing partition when you installed Win7?

In general when doing any reinstall I always delete the existing partition and start again with an empty disk. As you (may) have discovered, garbage can get left behind if you reuse an existing partition.

The words infallible and computer are mutually exclusive, but I've always found Macrium Reflect to be as reliable as anything else (it's free too). You make a boot disk with Macrium Reflect and it boots a Windows PE environment with the Macrium Reflect software installed in it. So not only can you do a restore of a previous Macrium Reflect disk image but you have access to basic Windows troubleshooting tools as well. Get it from http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx.

ubuysa said:

It doesn't sound like malware to me either. I'd put it down to a filesystem problem on the hard disk. You say you "couldn't instigate the install process", did you try deleting the exiting partition and starting from scratch? I'm pretty sure that would have worked. I can't explain why Win7 install worked, perhaps it didn't try to access the faulty bit of the filesystem? Did you delete the existing partition when you installed Win7?

The words infallible and computer are mutually exclusive, but I've always found Macrium Reflect to be as reliable as anything else (it's free too). [/COLOR][/URL].

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Macrium is what is was using and the boot disc I made with it wouldn't boot!
I did format the drive via the W7 install process. I initially tried the repair option with the W8 disc, but the process went dead. When I rebooted to re-install W8 it never got to any option screen.

I realise infallible is not possible.

I don't understand why the Macrium WinPE disk wouldn't boot but the Win7 install disk did. Does the Macrium WinPE disk boot now?

ubuysa said:

Does the Macrium WinPE disk boot now?

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Yes.

I'm at a loss then, but I still don't think it was malware. I think the most likely explanations are either a glitch on the disk or the disk is flaky. I'd keep regular backups and watch for any signs of disk trouble.

I'm so glad someone that actually knows what they are talking about answered this one first, because I misread the thread title and had a whole thing planned for a PC that had a life raft underneath that auto-deployed if it detected water...

ubuysa said:

I'm at a loss then, but I still don't think it was malware. I think the most likely explanations are either a glitch on the disk or the disk is flaky. I'd keep regular backups and watch for any signs of disk trouble.

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A dead disk is what I thought it was. Trying W7 was a slight hope, but it worked. Now I am up and running on W8 again everything is fine. CrystalDiskMark says all is well with this drive.
I will be doing backups more often now.

Spuff said:

A dead disk is what I thought it was. Trying W7 was a slight hope, but it worked. Now I am up and running on W8 again everything is fine. CrystalDiskMark says all is well with this drive.
I will be doing backups more often now.

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It was very likely a bad boot sector on the disk, one which isn't used by the new installation of Win7 but was used by Win8, when you reallocated partitions and formatted the disk it repaired the issue and you were able to use the Win8 disk. It may have just been a glitch sorted out by the format but I'd keep an eye on it all the same.

Androcles said:

It was very likely a bad boot sector on the disk, one which isn't used by the new installation of Win7 but was used by Win8, when you reallocated partitions and formatted the disk it repaired the issue and you were able to use the Win8 disk. It may have just been a glitch sorted out by the format but I'd keep an eye on it all the same.

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If it was a bad boot sector why would that have caused the first symptoms? The first symptoms were when I had booted as normal I was using the internet. I tried opening one of my favourites in a new tab and it wouldn't load, I tried another and that wouldn't load either. I thought it was an internet issue so I checked my connection and the bit of Windows that shows it was slow to open, but it said I was connected. The slowness made me suspicious so I tried to open an application form a desktop link, and that did nothing. I couldn't open Explorer either. This was all behaviour that had never happened before. So I attempted the old turn it off and back on again (via restart) and it never booted again.

Spuff said:

If it was a bad boot sector why would that have caused the first symptoms? The first symptoms were when I had booted as normal I was using the internet. I tried opening one of my favourites in a new tab and it wouldn't load, I tried another and that wouldn't load either. I thought it was an internet issue so I checked my connection and the bit of Windows that shows it was slow to open, but it said I was connected. The slowness made me suspicious so I tried to open an application form a desktop link, and that did nothing. I couldn't open Explorer either. This was all behaviour that had never happened before. So I attempted the old turn it off and back on again (via restart) and it never booted again.

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That really does sound like a flaky disk. When you did the Win7 install you will have formatted the disk and that will find the bad sector, mark it as bad and assign a replacement sector to cover for it. That's why the disk looks good now.

ubuysa said:

That really does sound like a flaky disk. When you did the Win7 install you will have formatted the disk and that will find the bad sector, mark it as bad and assign a replacement sector to cover for it. That's why the disk looks good now.

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This..

All the symptoms can be symptoms of a bad sector on a disk, when Win7 formatted the drive it either fixed the sector or more likely metaphorically swept the sector to the side and hid it under a mat.

Androcles said:

This..

All the symptoms can be symptoms of a bad sector on a disk, when Win7 formatted the drive it either fixed the sector or more likely metaphorically swept the sector to the side and hid it under a mat.

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Oops, sorry. That'll teach me to read posts more thoroughly.

Now sweeping self under mat.......

Thanks for the replies. You seem to have closed the case.
:detective: