Unable to mount external hard drive - Damaged file system and MFT
- by Khalifa Abbas Lame
I get the following error when i try to mount my external hard drive.
UNABLE TO MOUNT
Error mounting /dev/sdc1 at /media/khalibloo/Khalibloo2: Command-line `mount -t "ntfs" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177" "/dev/sdc1" "/media/khalibloo/Khalibloo2"' exited with non-zero exit status 13: ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error
Failed to read of MFT, mft=6 count=1 br=-1: Input/output error
Failed to open inode FILE_Bitmap: 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.
It doesn't mount on windows either: "I/O Device error"
it's an ntfs hard drive with a single partition
Of course, i tried chkdsk /f. it reported several file segments as unreadable, but didn't say whether it fixed them or not (apparently not). also tried with the /b flag.
ntfsfix reported the volume as corrupt.
TestDisk was able to fix a small error with the partition table by adding the "80" flag for the active (only) partition. TestDisk also confirmed that the boot sector was fine and it matched the backup. However, when attempting to repair the MFT, it couldn't read the MFT. It also couldn't list the files on the hard drive. It says file system may be damaged.
Active@ also shows that MFT is missing or corrupt.
So how do i fix the file system? or the MFT?