corrupt Master File Table

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aitch
  • Start date Start date
A

Aitch

My bootdisk (Seagate 80GB) has gone on the fritz. The drive shows Healthy &
Active in Disk Management yet returns 0 bytes used and 0 bytes available
under right click Properties/General. Tools / Error Checking literally does
nothing. From the command line CHKDSK returns Corrupt Master File Table,
CHDSK aborted. The drive makes no nasty noises and appears to spin fine. It
is recognized by the BIOS in bootup correctly as ST3800013A. Strangely there
are little about solutions to fix this, yet I distinctly remember rebuilding
or repairing a FAT or FAT32 in an earlier smaller drive without loss of data.
Perhaps that was to the MBR or its equivalent whereas this problem seems to
be with the MFT. However since XP and NTFS? have two copies of the MFT,
itself and a mirror, it seems I should be able to cobble something together
to get the drive working again. Any ideas? -Thanks, Aitch
 
I've just had the same thing happen on my spare 500GB seagate drive that I
use for storing family videos etc. did you find a solution. searching on
google comes up with lots of software making great promises to repair, but
charging $69, and no idea if it'll do the job.
Had non stop hassles since I built this new maching and made the mistake of
installing VISTA.

Aitch, or anyone else please post here if you've found a solution.
regards
Bruce

"Aitch" wrote:

> My bootdisk (Seagate 80GB) has gone on the fritz. The drive shows Healthy &
> Active in Disk Management yet returns 0 bytes used and 0 bytes available
> under right click Properties/General. Tools / Error Checking literally does
> nothing. From the command line CHKDSK returns Corrupt Master File Table,
> CHDSK aborted. The drive makes no nasty noises and appears to spin fine. It
> is recognized by the BIOS in bootup correctly as ST3800013A. Strangely there
> are little about solutions to fix this, yet I distinctly remember rebuilding
> or repairing a FAT or FAT32 in an earlier smaller drive without loss of data.
> Perhaps that was to the MBR or its equivalent whereas this problem seems to
> be with the MFT. However since XP and NTFS? have two copies of the MFT,
> itself and a mirror, it seems I should be able to cobble something together
> to get the drive working again. Any ideas? -Thanks, Aitch
 
http://www.ntfs.com/quest14.htm

http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/forum/messages/174/428.html?1100272376

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DRBE wrote:
> I've just had the same thing happen on my spare 500GB seagate drive
> that I use for storing family videos etc. did you find a solution.
> searching on google comes up with lots of software making great
> promises to repair, but charging $69, and no idea if it'll do the job.
> Had non stop hassles since I built this new maching and made the
> mistake of installing VISTA.
>
> Aitch, or anyone else please post here if you've found a solution.
> regards
> Bruce
>
> "Aitch" wrote:
>
>> My bootdisk (Seagate 80GB) has gone on the fritz. The drive shows
>> Healthy & Active in Disk Management yet returns 0 bytes used and 0
>> bytes available under right click Properties/General. Tools / Error
>> Checking literally does nothing. From the command line CHKDSK
>> returns Corrupt Master File Table, CHDSK aborted. The drive makes
>> no nasty noises and appears to spin fine. It is recognized by the
>> BIOS in bootup correctly as ST3800013A. Strangely there are little
>> about solutions to fix this, yet I distinctly remember rebuilding or
>> repairing a FAT or FAT32 in an earlier smaller drive without loss
>> of data. Perhaps that was to the MBR or its equivalent whereas this
>> problem seems to be with the MFT. However since XP and NTFS? have
>> two copies of the MFT, itself and a mirror, it seems I should be
>> able to cobble something together to get the drive working again.
>> Any ideas? -Thanks, Aitch
 
On Oct 3, 7:02 pm, "Gerry" <ge...@nospam.com> wrote:
> http://www.ntfs.com/quest14.htm
>
> http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/forum/messages/174/428.html?1100272376
>
> --
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Gerry
> ~~~~
> FCA
> Stourport, England
> Enquire, plan and execute
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> DRBE wrote:
> > I've just had the same thing happen on my spare 500GB seagate drive
> > that I use for storing family videos etc. did you find a solution.
> > searching on google comes up with lots of software making great
> > promises to repair, but charging $69, and no idea if it'll do the job.
> > Had non stop hassles since I built this new maching and made the
> > mistake of installing VISTA.
>
> > Aitch, or anyone else please post here if you've found a solution.
> > regards
> > Bruce
>
> > "Aitch" wrote:
>
> >> My bootdisk (Seagate 80GB) has gone on the fritz. The drive shows
> >> Healthy & Active in Disk Management yet returns 0 bytes used and 0
> >> bytes available under right click Properties/General. Tools / Error
> >> Checking literally does nothing. From the command line CHKDSK
> >> returns Corrupt Master File Table, CHDSK aborted. The drive makes
> >> no nasty noises and appears to spin fine. It is recognized by the
> >> BIOS in bootup correctly as ST3800013A. Strangely there are little
> >> about solutions to fix this, yet I distinctly remember rebuilding or
> >> repairing a FAT or FAT32 in an earlier smaller drive without loss
> >> of data. Perhaps that was to the MBR or its equivalent whereas this
> >> problem seems to be with the MFT. However since XP and NTFS? have
> >> two copies of the MFT, itself and a mirror, it seems I should be
> >> able to cobble something together to get the drive working again.
> >> Any ideas? -Thanks, Aitch- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

You might want to try the following: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
 
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