• We should now be fully online following an overnight outage. Apologies for any inconvenience, we do not expect there to be any further issues.

Question

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Anyway to fix a "corrupt master file system on a HD without formatting it"

for some reason it used to work 2 days ago and doesent now. kind of annoyed. nothing extreamly critical on teh drive just 70+ gigs of anime. and some other stuff. i can get it back itll just take me a while

it just got more important cause all my installer files were on that drive alonbg with a bunch of other stuff
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
it doesent have windows installed on it. its just a drive i used for storage. i cant even run chkdsk on it
 

Ness

Diamond Member
Jul 10, 2002
5,407
2
0
Look for a program called "BadCopy Pro"

It helped me retrieve the files off of a corrupt floppy and corrupt zip disk, you might have some luck with it. I wasn't able to run chkdisk on my disks either, but this still worked. It scans every sector of the disk, regardless of what information it finds on it. Chdsk will stop and tell you the whole thing is corrupted if it encounters one bad sector.


The only downfall is that the trial version will tell you what it can save, but you have to pay 29.99 to get the full version and actually save them.
I'm sure you will *purchase* *wink*wink* the full version.

Hope this helps, be sure to tell us how it goes!
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: ness1469
Look for a program called "BadCopy Pro"

It helped me retrieve the files off of a corrupt floppy and corrupt zip disk, you might have some luck with it. I wasn't able to run chkdisk on my disks either, but this still worked. It scans every sector of the disk, regardless of what information it finds on it. Chdsk will stop and tell you the whole thing is corrupted if it encounters one bad sector.


The only downfall is that the trial version will tell you what it can save, but you have to pay 29.99 to get the full version and actually save them.
I'm sure you will *purchase* *wink*wink* the full version.

Hope this helps, be sure to tell us how it goes!


cool i check tis out in the morning. im too tired and pissed off to deal with it now. this has been a horrid week. I have a killer Flu. 2 days ago my comp damn near died and today i broke my promedia 2.1s. i should just die :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
well i tried Bad Copy Pro. it didnt work. when i select to check teh HD i get "sorry, no file detected, You mah choose"digital media" as recovery source and try again"

so then i choose that and get "sorry it is not a valid digital media or badcopy bro cannot suppory"

more pissed
 

NogginBoink

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
5,322
0
0
What is an HF?

What operating system is this?

What filesystem?

Your question predisposes this thread to getting you little help. Give us the information and background that we need to help you!
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
that was supposed to be HD smart guy. im running XP pro and teh hds master file system / file table is corrupt and i want to fix it without reformatting it
 

Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
8
81
What does scandisk say?

There are two copies of the FAT, so it should be able to fix itself...
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
its running NTFS chkdsk doesent work. how do i run scandisk

if i right click on teh drive and go to properties - tools. and scan for errors. i hit scan and it just stops it doesent do anything
 

NogginBoink

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
5,322
0
0
Okay, if the Master File Table is corrupt, you're in trouble.

Scandisk is a win9x tool; the NT tool is chkdsk. What error do you get when you run chkdsk against the volume? Go to a command prompt and run chkdsk x: with no parameters to get chkdsk to run in readonly mode.

NTFS does keep a mirror of the first 4 entries of the MFT. It might be possible to restore the MFT is the damage is in the first four entries.

Many times it is possible to use a sector editor to get data back. However, doing it over a communications medium such as ATOT is beyond laborious.

 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
ok i ran chkdsk like you said and this is what i got

"Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>chkdsk I:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is DeathStar.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
Corrupt master file table. CHKDSK aborted.

C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>"

same thing it says when chdksr runs during boot up
 

Zenmervolt

Elite member
Oct 22, 2000
24,514
44
91
Norton Disk Doctor (Part of Norton System Works) has usually worked for me, but it can take a long, long time. It revived a ZIP 100 disk that kept appearing as "unformatted", but it took two+ hours. That and it's fairly expensive since it can only be gotten as part of System Works. It's worth it for me though since it has saved my butt a couple times.

ZV
 

Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
15,395
78
91
Originally posted by: Anubis
ok i ran chkdsk like you said and this is what i got

"Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>chkdsk I:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is DeathStar.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
Corrupt master file table. CHKDSK aborted.

C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>"

same thing it says when chdksr runs during boot up

You need the /F for chkdsk to scan and repair.
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: Linflas
Originally posted by: Anubis
ok i ran chkdsk like you said and this is what i got

"Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>chkdsk I:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is DeathStar.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
Corrupt master file table. CHKDSK aborted.

C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>"

same thing it says when chdksr runs during boot up

You need the /F for chkdsk to scan and repair.

it does exactly the same thing

"C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>chkdsk /f i:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is DeathStar.
Corrupt master file table. CHKDSK aborted.

C:\Documents and Settings\Anubis>"
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Norton Disk Doctor (Part of Norton System Works) has usually worked for me, but it can take a long, long time. It revived a ZIP 100 disk that kept appearing as "unformatted", but it took two+ hours. That and it's fairly expensive since it can only be gotten as part of System Works. It's worth it for me though since it has saved my butt a couple times.

ZV

system works is only like 20$ thats not that expensive