1 (edited by goubaas 2009-11-12 03:48:22)

Topic: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

After reading other similar topics on this issue, it appears that it is case-specific to each person, so I will post my data and hope someone can help me out.
I recently (today) tried to shrink my main partition that has Win XP installed from 500 GB to 350 GB, and create a second 150 GB partition to install Win 7 on.
After applying the operations in GParted, a warning sign appeared next  to my old partition.  Looking at the information gives:

Warning:
ntfsresize v2.0.0 (libntfs 10:0:0)
Device name   :/dev/sda1
NTFS Volume version: 3.1
Cluster size: 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 500097 MB
Current device size: 342073 MB
ERROR: Current NTFS volume size is bigger than the device size! Corrupt Partition table or incorrect device partitioning?

A thread with a similar problem:
http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=13765

Also I am using the latest version of GParted.
If possible, I would like to fix the MBR/PBR so that the old partition remains 350 GB, so that I don't have to resize it back to 500 GB and can keep the new partition I created.
If that is too much work, or too much of a hassle, any help so that I can boot from my old partition again with BSODing would be extremely appreciated.

A link to the .mbr and .pbr files:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=8995 … 9d3b204475

Thanks.

2

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Would you please also provide the output from the following two commands?

fdisk -l -u

where one of the options is a lower case "L" and not a one.

parted /path-to-your-device unit s print

where /path-to-your-device is something like /dev/sda.

3

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Thanks for the quick reply.

fdisk -l -u returns:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier 0x23212321

Device boot          Start                End              Blocks             Id         System
/dev/sda1  *             63    668111219     334055578+             7         HPFS/NTFS


parted /dev/sda unit s print returns:

Model: ATA WDC WD5000AACS-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 976773168s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition table: msdos

Number     Start     End                   Size                   Type            File System     Flags
  1            63s       668111219s      668111157s        primary        ntfs                boot

Thanks so much for helping me out.  I really appreciate it big_smile.

4

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

EDIT:  After re-reading this post I see that you have already provided these files.  I will examine them and report back.

EDIT2:  Upon examining both of the pbr files in the above upload, I am unable to find an NTFS file system marker.  Please perform the following commands and upload the results.


Next I will need a copy of the Master Boot Record, and the NTFS Partition Boot Record.


You can capture the Master Boot Record in a file with the following command:

NOTE:  Be extra careful to type this command in properly, otherwise loss of data could result.

dd if=/dev/sda of=sda-goubaas.mbr bs=512 count=1

where sda-goubaas.mbr is the name of the file that will need to be uploaded so that I can examine it.


You can capture the NTFS Partition Boot Record in a file with the following command:

NOTE:  Be extra careful to type this command in properly, otherwise loss of data could result.

dd if=/dev/sda of=sda1-goubaas.pbr bs=512 count=1 skip=63

where sda1-goubaas.pbr is the name of the file that will need to be uploaded.


Upload both of these files to a media sharing service, such as mediafire, and post links to the files back here.

5

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Are you using a Live CD?  If so which one and which version?

6

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Yes, I am using a Live CD.  It is GParted Live version 0.4.8-1 i believe.

Here is the new link to the .mbr and .pbr files:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e15a … d2eb488dac

Thanks for the help.

7

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Now we should be able to fix the problem.

668,111,157 sectors is the length of partition one
976,751,928 sectors is the length of the NTFS file system

Since it is not apparent which value is correct, I think it is safer if we increase the partition size to encompass the entire NTFS volume.

The change I have made to the file is from a length of 668,111,157 sectors:
000001C0   01 00 07 FE  FF FF 3F 00  00 00 35 91  D2 27 00 00
To a new length of 976,751,929 sectors:
000001C0   01 00 07 FE  FF FF 3F 00  00 00 39 0D  38 3A 00 00

Note:  The NTFS volume size is always 1 sector less than the total number of sectors in the partition table entry because the NTFS backup sector is not considered part of the NTFS volume.

To apply this change:

1) Download the new MBR: sda-goubaas_new.mbr

2) Load the new MBR on your hard disk.
NOTE:  Be extra careful when entering the commands.  Data loss could result otherwise.

dd if=sda-goubaas_new.mbr of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

3) Let "GParted" CHECK the partition again.

4) If all seems fine then I would advise booting into Windows and running "chkdsk /f /r" multiple times, until there are no more faults.

Also if you know a set of steps to recreate this problem then I would like to hear them.  So far I have been unable to recreate this problem where suddenly the "NTFS volume size is bigger than the device size".

8

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Sorry for the trouble, but after downloading the new .mbr file I went through the following steps but GParted still reports the same error:

-put the new .mbr file onto a flash drive
-mounted the flash drive in GParted using mkdir /mnt/usb, then mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb
-used dd if=/mnt/usb/sda-goubaas_new.mbr of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
-Checked the disk using GParted, returned the same error as before (current volume size is bigger than device size)
-decided to run chkdsk to see if problem could be resolved that way.
-Windows recovery reported that no parameter /f exists for chkdsk
-Instead I used chkdsk /r , but the boot problem continues.

Not sure if I performed a step incorrectly or missed one, reread your post several times over but couldn't find any step that I had skipped.
If it is any use to you, GParted reports my primary partition as being ~465 GB (the total physical size of my drive), but still reports the error.

Any extra help would be greatly appreciated.

9

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Can you try reloading the fixed MBR onto your system, rebooting, and then checking for the problem with GParted?

Can you boot into Windows?
It is from within Windows that I am suggesting to run the "chkdsk /f /r" command.

10

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Thanks so much for the help big_smile, finally got it to work after running reloading the .mbr, rebooting, then running chkdsk in the recovery console.

As for the steps to how I got to this problem, I can only tell you what I did, not going to try to recreate my old problem until I get a full safe backup in place.

1. Booted from GParted Live CD.
2. Resized my old partition back from ~465 GB to ~350 GB (had "Round to cylinders" box checked)
3. Created a new partition in the old space ~100 GB.
4. After applying these operations, the resize and creation operations went off without a hitch, but after they were done my old partition had a warning sign next to it.
5. Looking in the information about that drive, I saw the error "Current NTFS Volume size is bigger than the device size".

That's about it.  I've read around that leaving the "round to cylinders" box unchecked can avoid the problem I had, but since I haven't gone back and retraced my steps without that box checked, I can't say for sure one way or the other.  Hope this helps, and once again, thanks big_smile.  I'll try to remember to post back here if I ever do repartition my hard drive again, hopefully my experience will be better than this past one.

11

Re: [Solved]Error: Current NTFS Volume Size is bigger than the device size

Thank you goubaas for reporting back and marking the post as solved.  I am glad that we were able to fix the problem smile

I have done some more research into the cause and created a bug report to track the problem as shown in this post:
WARNING! Problem Resizing File Systems with GParted