Topic: External USB backup drive mysteriously corrupted
G'day folks
I have a 2TB Seagate USB external NTFS drive I use for backups, from my Linux Mint KDE 17.3 partition on an old Dell Dimension 4600i 32 bit desktop. For some unknown reason, the last time I tried to use it, the drive could not be mounted and error messages suggest it is corrupted. In Win 7, the drive properties suggest it is 0 bytes in size, and cannot be accessed.
From my past experience with drive corruption problems in this forum, I have noted and tried the following:
Error message from Dolphin file manager in Linux Mint 17.3 KDE when attempting to access (mount) drive by clicking on it:
An error occurred while accessing 'Home', the system responded: The requested operation has failed: Error mounting /dev/sdc1 at /media/frankadmin/Expansion Drive: Command-line `mount -t "ntfs" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177" "/dev/sdc1" "/media/frankadmin/Expansion Drive"' exited with non-zero exit status 13: MFT is corrupt, cannot read its unmapped extent record 19 Note : chkdsk cannot fix this, try ntfsfix Inode is corrupt (0): Input/output error Failed to load runlist for $MFT/$DATA. highest_vcn = 0x3, last_vcn - 1 = 0x4c065 Failed to load $MFT: Input/output error Failed to mount '/dev/sdc1': Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g. /dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation for more details.
Error message from Partition>Information menu in GParted 0.18.0 in LM17.3KDE (Has ntfsprogs / ntfs-3g package):
MFT is corrupt, cannot read its unmapped extent record 19
Note : chkdsk cannot fix this, try ntfsfix
Inode is corrupt (0): Input/output error
Failed to load runlist for $MFT/$DATA.
highest_vcn = 0x3, last_vcn - 1 = 0x4c065
Failed to load $MFT: Input/output error
Failed to mount '/dev/sdc1': Input/output error
NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE!
The usage of the /f parameter is very IMPORTANT! No modification was
made to NTFS by this software.
Unable to read the contents of this file system!
Because of this some operations may be unavailable.
The cause might be a missing software package.
The following list of software packages is required for ntfs file system support: ntfsprogs / ntfs-3g.
Error message from GParted Partition > Check menu in GParted 0.18.0 in Linux Mint 17.3 KDE
GParted 0.18.0 --enable-libparted-dmraid --enable-online-resize
Libparted 2.3
Check and repair file system (ntfs) on /dev/sdc1 00:00:00 ( ERROR )
calibrate /dev/sdc1 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )
path: /dev/sdc1
start: 63
end: 3907024064
size: 3907024002 (1.82 TiB)
check file system on /dev/sdc1 for errors and (if possible) fix them 00:00:00 ( ERROR )
ntfsresize -i -f -v /dev/sdc1
ntfsresize v2013.1.13AR.1 (libntfs-3g)
MFT is corrupt, cannot read its unmapped extent record 19
Note : chkdsk cannot fix this, try ntfsfix
Inode is corrupt (0): Input/output error
Failed to load runlist for $MFT/$DATA.
highest_vcn = 0x3, last_vcn - 1 = 0x4c065
Failed to load $MFT: Input/output error
ERROR(5): Opening '/dev/sdc1' as NTFS failed: Input/output error
NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE!
The usage of the /f parameter is very IMPORTANT! No modification was
and will be made to NTFS by this software until it gets repaired.
========================================
Extract of Tests via Terminal in Linux Mint 17.3 KDE:
frankadmin@frankadmin-Dell-LM17:~ > sudo fdisk -l -u
[sudo] password for frankadmin:
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes [THIS IS THE COMPUTER INTERNAL HDD; TRIPLE BOOTS WIN7, LM17.3KDE AND LM18XFCE]
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc23ecbb9
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 71665964 35832951 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 71666026 625141759 276737867 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 71666028 523074392 225704182+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 614357793 625137344 5389776 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 523075584 582772735 29848576 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 582793216 614336511 15771648 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)
**Disk /dev/sdc: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes [THIS IS THE FAULTY EXTERNAL DRIVE]
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5cb5880f
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 3907024064 1953512001 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
**frankadmin@frankadmin-Dell-LM17:~ > sudo parted /dev/sdc unit s print [THIS IS THE FAULTY EXTERNAL DRIVE] Model: Seagate Desktop (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 3907029168s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 63s 3907024064s 3907024002s primary ntfs
frankadmin@frankadmin-Dell-LM17:~ > sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdc
[sudo] password for frankadmin:
Mounting volume... NTFS signature is missing.
FAILED
Attempting to correct errors... NTFS signature is missing.
FAILED
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
NTFS signature is missing.
Trying the alternate boot sector
Unrecoverable error
Volume is corrupt. You should run chkdsk.
frankadmin@frankadmin-Dell-LM17:~ > sudo chkdsk
sudo: chkdsk: command not found
My question is whether there is anything else I can do in Linux, or whether I need to boot into Win 7 and run the chkdsk /f command in cmd prompt? If the latter, I am not sure how to write this in cmd. My guess would be something like: "chkdsk /f H:"
My apologies for such a long post; not sure how much I need to tell you. I would be grateful for any suggestions.
Cheers