Windows 10: BSOD ATTEMPTED_ SWITCH_FROM_DPC while using AOMEI Backupper

I have previously backed up successfully without issues. Last night I tried backing up, expecting to see successful completion in the morning, but instead I found my computer had restarted. I downloaded the latest version of AOMEI Backupper & tried again. This time I was sitting in front of the computer when I got the BSOD.

I have a Dell Precision M4800 running Windows 10. Was attempting to back up to a Seagate Backup Plus 5TB drive. Same hardware as I have used successfully in the past.

I've attached the output of the Log Collector and a photo of the BSOD.

Will much appreciate any help in tracking this down and eliminating it.

Thanks,
Yosh

:)

 

Win10 prevents 3rd party backup programs from creating a bootable iso

never heard of Aomei backupper pro.

Try Rufus. Never failed me yet...

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

 

change of hard drive after getting the win 10 upgrade

Hi,

I suggest you use a freeware called AOMEI Backupper Standard. you can just use System Clone to migrate Windows 10 from HDD to SSD.

 

Although this is a few months old, it doesn't hurt to check
Code: Event[15559]: Log Name: System Source: disk Date: 2016-12-13T00:59:57.118 Event ID: 153 Task: N/A Level: Warning Opcode: N/A Keyword: Classic User: N/A User Name: N/A Computer: Yosh-M4800 Description: The IO operation at logical block address 0x3b5e18a for Disk 1 (PDO name: \Device\Scsi\O2FJ2RDR1Port1Path0Target0Lun0) was retried.[/quote]





Diagnostics Test

HDD TEST
*Arrow Run HDTune to

• check the health,
• scan for errors, no quick scan but full scan
• run a benchmark.

It may take some time, but please take the time you need to perform it properly.
When above is done please make screenshots of the following

• the health,
• the error scan,
• the benchmark incl. following
  • transfer rate,
  • access time,
  • burst rate,
  • cpu usage.

*Arrow Run SeaTools DOS to check the integrity of your HDD. SeaTools for DOS and Windows - How to Use - Windows 7 Help Forums
Run the long test.
*Arrow Run chkdsk
Disk Check - Windows 7 Help Forums
Use option TWO with parameter /r
Upload the chkdsk log *Arrow Check Disk (chkdsk) - Read Event Viewer Log - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

Thanks, Axeo. FYI, I ran SpinRite on the disk a couple weeks ago - about 1/4 at Level 4 and the remainder at Level 2 (I didn't have time to let it finish at Level 4). I also ran the Dell disk diagnostics. It passed everything except for the SMART Self-Test, which timed out. Should I still go ahead and run the tests you recommended? Or should we examine something else first?
Many thanks,
Yosh

 

Run the tests, so far I understand the tests didn't finish which means incomplete data. With incomplete data you have to know what to look for and hope it has what you want to properly move on to a next step/stage/level.

 

Just touching base to let you know I ran HDTune last night. I went to sleep while it was running the Error Scan. In the morning I found my computer had restarted in the middle of the night :-(

I am re-running it now. It's gone for 3 hours so far & I'd estimate it's got another 2 hours to go. I saved the interim results of hte Health & Benchmark tests, so even if it crashes my system, I've at least got those. Meanwhile, I've also burned SeaTools to a CD and will move on to that when HDTune is done.

BTW, the diagnostics I ran a couple weeks ago did complete (except for the Dell extensive disk test, which hung on the SMART Self-Test). The Dell short disk test and the SpinRite and the Dell BIOS tests did complete. SpinRite was not able to connect to the SMART system, but otherwise, showed no errors. It included a full read scan of the disk. The Dell BIOS test showed no errors. The Dell online short disk test showed no errors except for a time-out on the SMART Self-test.

If I don't hear otherwise from you I shall continue with the disk tests you prescribed and report back. Meanwhile, I am wondering about the meaning of the specific STOP CODE I got. Any ideas related to it?
Many thanks,
Yosh

 

Why the BSOD happened is straight forward, but why the action was performed is unknown.

Just for explanation, I've written a little about DPCs in this post
Basically, the system is already waiting for a DPC routine to finish when a driver decides to wait in the DPC routine, a double delay in execution that cannot be allowed due to several reasons.

I don't suppose you still know the details of the scan?

 

Thanks. I followed up with a google search & found this page:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...(v=vs.85).aspx
There it says

So I am wondering if we examine the stack trace if we could find the code/program that caused the stop? I don't know where to look, but would it be in those log files I originally submitted?

The SpinRite scan said all was OK.

Meanwhile, the HDTune has finished, so here are those results:
HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Health

Code: ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status (01) Raw Read Error Rate 200 200 51 4 ok (03) Spin Up Time 184 184 21 1775 ok (04) Start/Stop Count 99 99 0 1449 ok (05) Reallocated Sector Count 200 200 140 0 ok (07) Seek Error Rate 200 200 0 0 ok (09) Power On Hours Count 85 85 0 11272 ok (0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 0 0 ok (0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 0 0 ok (0C) Power Cycle Count 99 99 0 1441 ok (BF) G-sense Error Rate 1 1 0 44650 ok (C0) Unsafe Shutdown Count 200 200 0 92 ok (C1) Load Cycle Count 199 199 0 4823 ok (C2) Temperature 107 97 0 40 ok (C4) Reallocated Event Count 200 200 0 0 ok (C5) Current Pending Sector 200 200 0 0 ok (C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 253 0 0 ok (C7) Interface CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 ok (C8) Write Error Rate 200 200 0 0 ok (F0) Head Flying Hours 85 85 0 11203 ok (F1) Unknown Attribute 200 200 0 160859330646 ok (F2) Unknown Attribute 200 200 0 101239767154 ok (FE) Unknown Attribute 53 53 0 147 ok Health Status : ok[/quote]
HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Benchmark

Code: Test capacity: full Read transfer rate Transfer Rate Minimum : 0.3 MB/s Transfer Rate Maximum : 57.2 MB/s Transfer Rate Average : 2.2 MB/s Access Time : 78.0 ms Burst Rate : 51.4 MB/s CPU Usage : 10.6%[/quote] Attachment 126023

HD Tune Pro: WDC WD7500BPKX-75HPJT0 Error Scan

Code: Scanned data : 749 gB Damaged Blocks : 0.0 % Elapsed Time : 5:29:57[/quote] Attachment 126024

And here's the Speed map. The reason it slowed down in the middle is that I had to get some work done (couldn't put it off any more) so it was competing with me.

Attachment 126025


So.... I won't be able to run SeaTools until later. I've still got to get some work done.
Meanwhile, I was puzzled as to why my computer restarted last night while running HDTune. I checked and there were no new minidump files, so I didn't see evidence of a crash. I also did not see a record of restart by Windows Update (looked in History). But then I poked around in the Event Viewer and saw that at about 1:20 AM this happened:
The process C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe (YOSH-M4800) has initiated the restart of computer YOSH-M4800 on behalf of user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM for the following reason: Operating System: Service pack (Planned) Reason Code: 0x80020010 Shutdown Type: restart
Grrr.... Thank you, Bill Gates! I did not know Windows was planning to do a restart!

OK - that's the story so far. Thanks for your help. Will appreciate any new ideas. Meanwhile, tonight I'll try to continue the other disk testing (unless you tell me it's pointless). Before that, though, I'm going to find another way to backup my disk. Remember this whole thing started because it blue-screened in the middle of AOMEI Backupper.

Many thanks,
Yosh

 

In the stack trace an Aomei driver is where it all starts.

However, because of some logs (posted in post #2) about I/O operations that have been retried it would've been better to identify the health of the HDD (hence the tests). Looking at the benchmark result it indicates that the HDD is failing.

Getting back to the BSOD, this is just a wild guess, but what if the Aomei driver in DPC routine was waiting for data that the HDD couldn't provide in time because the transfer rate is incredibly low as we identified. The Aomei driver gets the blame, because it's forced to wait, but the root cause looks to me the hard drive.

 

Hmmmm.... So I can proceed with the SeaTools test. Will that give us confirmation of your suspicion?

How long should I expect the SeaTools test to take with a 750GB drive?

Here's another idea I had: what if I try booting from Gandalf's WinPE and try running AOMEI from there? If it succeeds, that would indicate the problem may be OS or software caused. If it fails, also, that would indicate that the H/W issue is more likely the root cause. What do you think?

Meanwhile, I'm asking Dell to get my hard drive replaced. But that means getting a complete backup is even more urgent!

At any rate, I'm copying off what I can to an external drive, but I'd like to do a proper full backup.

Thanks,l
Yosh

 

SeaTools wouldn't be worth it, it would take too much time.

You could do that. Just to clarify, it isn't about errors that you may get but about the slow transfer rate that assumingly causes the issue. This means that in the WinPE you may not get problems (other than a long backup process).
This is, because the WinPE works different than Windows itself. A WinPE is not as complex as Windows and may not have the same rules Windows has.

 

Thanks.

FYI, I couldn't get AOMEI Backup to work under Gandalf's Win10PE. Complained about a bad driver. I will try AOMEI's WinPE, perhaps tonight. Meanwhile, I used FastCopy to selectively get all the important things I could think of off the drive. (It's the first time I used FastCopy & it lived up to its name! Also didn't choke on long paths.) Dell is supposed to come tomorrow to replace my hard drive.

I am curious as to what aspect of the Benchmark test led you to conclude the disk is failing? The absolute numbers? The performance pattern in the graph? Something else?

Thanks for all the help.

 

Look at the amount of the transfer rate minimum and the pattern, it is 0.3MB/s and an average of 2.2MB/s. This means that the hard drive reads data at a minimum of 0.3MB/s, at best 57.2MB/s and normally 2.2MB/s. This is slow.

The lower the transfer rate is getting, the slower the HDD is going to perform. Ultimately it will take a long time for data to be read and the mechanics of the HDD is physically failing what could result in an unbootable HDD.


This is just for comparison.
From what I read, your HDD has a 7.200 RPM. I have a laptop with a HDD of 5.400 RPM. The HDD reaches a maximum of 120MB/s and a minimum of roughly 50MB/s after a few years of use, which is reasonable.

 

I see. So basically, it's the incredibly slow performance that is the telltale sign. That explains a lot of things. My machine's been getting progressively less responsive in the last year, especially for things related to the file system (e.g., opening a common dialog). I had thought it was just the OS getting choked with all the detritus that I accumulate over time - I was planning to do a wipe-reinstall because of that, which is why I decided to do a full system backup (aside from my regular incremental CrashPlan backups). Odd this degradation - my disk is only 3 years old. I have other disks on other machines that have been running for a decade or more.... But this machine is my main workhorse now. I'll report back in a week or so after my disk is replaced and I've loaded it up & broken it in. I'll try Backupper again & see what happens.

BTW, FastCopy managed to do most of the copying at the top of the Benchmark speed. I was impressed by it. (I'm looking forward to being more impressed when I'm back to normal high-speed performance, though!)

Thanks again for all the help.