External HDD mft corrupt file events.

[Mike Photo]

Hi all,

I have two identical external HDDs one is a backup of the other. I hadn't used them in a while and went to add some of the content to a larger raid backup I have. That's when I realized the back up had only backed up a portion of the 3tbs.

I started to back up the files to both the original backup and the new one and occasionally the drive gets an error and disconnects and reconnects. Occasionally I come across a file that can't be deleted or moved and causes the error. In the Event Viewer, I see I am getting

"A corruption was discovered in the file system structure on volume G:.

The Master File Table (MFT) contains a corrupted file record. The file reference number is 0x1000000000021. The name of the file is "\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$Repair".

each time the problem happens.

I am slowly trying to back up as much as I can first but figuring out the bad files is difficult. I was going to run chkdisk to try and repair but I'm worried about losing data.

It is going to take some time to slowly back up all the data in small chunks to reduce the chances of causing an error.

What are my options? If the error keeps happening while I'm backing up will that cause more damage? Should get a new drive and try to clone it instead? If so should I power it off and wait till I can get another drive?

I just need to try and reduce the risk of losing data while trying to back it up.

It is possible it was corrupted as a result of an improper shutdown from another PC that crashed, but I haven't used the drive much so unsure.

[Mike Photo]

Ok I have completely backed up this hdd. I ran CHKDSK and it said everything was ok and didnt clean any files.

The hdd health says it is ok.

After running CHKDSk I could now delete the files that would cause the error before however, it still was erroring and re-connecting randomly.

So I tried to run testdisk. It seemed like it was unable to repair the mft and boot index but Im not to familiar with this software.

It seems to have stopped causing the initial error but does still experience the re-connecting problem and there is now a warning of
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk6\DR17 during a paging operation.
Not sure what to do next.

Should I just reformat and hope the drive is actually healthy?

[Ensign Tzap]

Mike,


Please go here: https://www.wintips.org/how-to-fix-d...ing-operation/




Signed: Ensign Tzap