FreeFileSync stuck in 'Creating file ...' for a very long time with 0% progress

[datamgr]

Hi All,
I'm trying mirror one old external drive to a newer one.
I can copy files from the old drive manually, albeit it takes time.

About 50% of the old drive's data was mirrored using FreeFileSync until a 'plateau' in the copying rate happened when the data transfer dropped to 0% for a very long time. At this point, I aborted the mirroring and tried again multiple times, but keep hitting the same 0% transfer each time with no improvement.

screenshot.JPG (50.6 KiB) Viewed 800 times

I'm on a Windows 10, using FreeFileSync v13.8 Donation Edition.
The older external drive is a WD 2 TB USB powered drive, while the newer one is a larger 5.5 TB Seagate Expansion drive with independent power supply.

Any help would be appreciated.

[xCSxXenon]

I bet the old HDD is not 100% healthy and that file exists within a bad spot on the drive.
I would recommend downloading Gsmartcontrol and checking the Attributes tab for that old HDD. If there are any pending reallocations, reallocated sectors, or uncorrectable errors, the drive is bad.
You can also try running "chkdsk /f X:" in an ADMINISTRATOR command prompt
Replace 'X' with the drive letter of the old HDD. This doesn't help a failing/failed HDD, but it can repair 'dirty' file systems.

[datamgr]

_/\_ Thanks for the suggestions.

As suspected GSmartControl showed some damage indicators. So, I guess it is indeed a hardware issue :|.

WD_screenshot.JPG (173.67 KiB) Viewed 776 times

I bet the old HDD is not 100% healthy and that file exists within a bad spot on the drive.
I would recommend downloading Gsmartcontrol and checking the Attributes tab for that old HDD. If there are any pending reallocations, reallocated sectors, or uncorrectable errors, the drive is bad.
You can also try running "chkdsk /f X:" in an ADMINISTRATOR command prompt
Replace 'X' with the drive letter of the old HDD. This doesn't help a failing/failed HDD, but it can repair 'dirty' file systems.

[xCSxXenon]

All drives go bad, at least you found out with some time left! To work around these issues, I do this:
1. Pause the sync when it locks up
2. disconnect and reconnect the drive
3. Resume sync once it detects.
This should cause FFS to throw an error for that file and skip it for this sync. This allows getting the good data copied before trying to squeeze water from a stone trying to read a bad sector over and over. Since it is an internal HDD, you would need hotswap enabled in BIOS or an external dock for the drive.
Results vary wildly, you are essentially entering data recovery territory LOL