When copying/restoring hard disk you get a message “Since a different sector size on the source hard disc the selected hard disc cannot be selected as a copy target” and can’t continue.
A hard disk (HDD) has physical sector size determined by its geometry and logical disc sector size. Info about logical sector size is stored in disk controller and is reported to operating system (OS), determining how OS sees this drive: as 512 bytes per sector or as 4K per sector drive.
Common drives have 512 bytes per sector both on physical and logical level, while Advanced Format Drives (AFD) have 4096 (4K) bytes per physical sector but emulate 512 bytes per logical sector. However some external USB boxes (especially if HDD was designed for external connection) provide 4096 bytes per sector for both physical and logical geometry. It is not possible to copy one drive to another if logical sector size of target drive differs from logical sector size of source drive.
How to check disk type
To check logical sector size please open
Start – Programs – Accessories – System tools – System information
Within System Information please find Components – Storage – Disks and check “Bytes/Sector” value of source and target disks in the list.
It’s possible to copy 512 to 512, and 4K to 4K. If values are not the same, then disk copy between these devices will not be possible.
It may be possible to copy one drive to another using the following workarounds:
Backup & Recovery, Drive Copy, Hard Disk Manager™ for Windows
Tags: error, general, issue, windows, WinPE
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