Corrupted MFT

[heliopolix]

I recently got a strange error on one of my hard drives. Its a western digital 200 GB. The error was G:\$Mft is corrupted. Not realizing the significance, I restarted the computer, and now, I can't access either partition on the HD at all. I get the error G:\ is not accessable. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

I have run the Analyze diagnostic of TestDisk, and it found both partitions, and re-wrote the partition table, but the drive is still inaccessable. I tried to have it rebuild the MFT, but I get the error MFT and MFT mirror are bad. Failed to repair them.

I'm looking for recommendations on what to do now.

Thanks in advance,
Jeffrey

 

[DelJo63]

well, you've lost the data anyway, so delete the partition, recreate a new one,
reformat with a full initialization.

beware however, your hd may be going south (ie bad)!

 

[Bluemouse]

Dont format yet. You still have a chance of recovering your data. I had the same problem, but used a program called "GetDataBack" or something similar to recover the data, copy it to another location, and then format.

Funnily enough, mine is a WD too, and it was also the G:/ drive. I had shoved in a second HDD for dual booting vista/more space, and had partitioned it in two. So, i finally got all the data back and everything set up again, when lo and behold, I got another "delay write failed" error, and then my mbr decided to corrupt itself again. Im just going to return the damn thing and go with a seagate (making a backup of my recovered files first).

 

[Rick]

Yes, there are utilities which can recover data without the MFT, but its going to be a sketchy process. Fragmentation and writing to the hard drive afterwards can make recovering files nearly impossible and for the most part, what you'll find are smaller files... not the bigger ones. You certainly won't be able to recovery everything, but you might be able to recover that word document you need or that certain picture you like..

You should definitely run a manufacturer's drive diagnostic (Check the sticky at the top of this forum) to verify the physical health of your drive.

 

[Bluemouse]

Couldn't hurt to try and recover them though