Hi,

Rebooted Linux OpenSUSE. Now I cannot access my external Maxtor OneTouch4 USB HDD drive (ntfs).

The auto mount isn't working and a manual mount won't work either.

Error from Dolphin is:

"$MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 0)

Failed to mount '/dev/sdc1' Input/output error.

Boot to Windows, run Chkdksk /f. Reboot to Windows twice after."

The drive was working fine. I did have to power off because the shutdown in Linux didn't take. I don't have Windows installed. Is there something I can download, burn to a DVD, and run upon reboot to examine the drive and see if the records are a bit scrambled?

Thanks,
Petey

ntfsfix possibly
http://forum.ntfs-3g.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1049

man ntfsfix

or hook it up to a windows PC and run chkdsk on it

Another option would be to boot a Live Windows CD and chkdsk the drive.. something like Barts PE or the Windows PE

If you don't use the drive on Windows ever you know you could repartition it and format it as EXT3 or something along those lines. That's what I did to my 1TB Maxtor One Touch 4 USB/IEE1394 Drive..

Hi there,

Just tried NTFSfix and got this output:

ntfsfix /dev/sdc1
Mounting volume... FAILED
Attempting to correct errors...
Processing $MFT and $MFTMirr...
Reading $MFT... OK
Reading $MFTMirr... OK
Comparing $MFTMirr to $MFT... FAILED
Correcting differences in $MFTMirr record 0...OK
Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully.
Setting required flags on partition... OK
Going to empty the journal ($LogFile)... OK
NTFS volume version is 3.1.
NTFS partition /dev/sdc1 was processed successfully.

Then the drive would mount. Yippay!

Thanks.


My knowledge of partitions and formatting is limited...

Ext3 is a Linux-only format and could only be written/viewed by Linux?

The drive only had 50GB free from 465GB available space, am I able to change the drive format without wiping the data, or how does it work?

I assume if changing to Linux format, then any future problem with the drive (master record scrambled but files intack) could, broadly speaking, be fixed by a Linux app and Linux would be able to mount the drive in order to access it, to perform the fix? i.e. is that fact that it's an NTFS format mean any problem locks out Linux to fix it, is the fact that it's an external USB drive mean any problem locks you out regardless of format type?

Thanks,
Petey

If you don't have windows, don't use NTFS. The ntfsfix program only fixes some simple problems and then marks the disk as needing to be scanned. You should backup the data and reformat. An alternative, if you have less than half of the disk occupied is to use gparted to resize the NTFS partition, add a Linux partition and then copy the files to the Linux partition. Next you can delete the NTFS partition, and either try resizing the Linux partition, or create a new Linux partition.

Ext3 is indeed a Linux style partition.. but it could be accessed from Windows if you really wanted to.
http://www.howtoforge.com/access-lin...s-from-windows

You would need to move the data somewhere to change the drive from NTFS to EXT3. you can not make that file system switch without wiping the drive.

Correct, repairs to a EXT3 partition would be done using native Linux tools

NTFS is proprietary to Microsoft. They do not open all the information about the file system, therefore reading and writing to NTFS from Linux is do-able, but not without some risks (these risks have declined over the years but I'm not convinced they are entirely gone). Repairing a damaged NTFS drive from Linux is also questionable for the same reasons. You should really scan that drive with windows tools now that you can mount it again. Note the warning/notification in what jschiwal quoted

Any partition damage will cause mounting issues, no matter the file system involved, many can be repaired.. I don't know that the drive being USB external would cause any greater level of difficulty for repairing file system issues though.

..


I'm with jschiwal on this one.. if the drive will only be used in Linux then I would put a Linux file system on it. if I were going to go back and forth between windows and Linux, connecting to other peoples windows machines, I might include a Fat32 Partition.

I mentioned I have a 1 TB drive of the same make, I split mine into two partitions. 900 GB EXT3 and 100 GB Fat32 so any windows machine should be able to see and mount the Fat32 partion, Linux will be able to mount both the EXT3 and the FAT32, and I don't have to deal with NTFS. I should have made my fat32 partition smaller though.. I haven't used it yet..

Hi there,

Thanks for your thoughts.

I do some web development work. Used to be ASP/SQL Server based, but moving more to PHP/MySQL Linux. It's therefore handy to still be able to access the disk from Windows as I do store work docs there.

That said, I also store work docs on a separate internal drive, so probably could convert to Linux format if I can clear that much data. Sounds like a good idea. Weill also check out the link to ability to view Linux partitions in Win.

Petey

Petey