HELP: Unnamed MFT Table Entry problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jisha
  • Start date Start date
J

Jisha

(This post is being carried over from "microsoft.public.win2000.general")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How can I repair this?
I have noticed numerous instances of "{file#} Unnamed MFT Table Entry".

Clearly, the MFT has become corrupted over time, probably due to some really
bad luck with series of HDD's crashing.



Some probably relevant history follows:
----------------------------------------------
Recently, I heard that unmistakable "CLICK" of an eminent HDD failure.
When rebooted, win2Kpro failed to start (as I suspected)... in varying
degrees depending on which F8 options I tried.

I put the Drive into another win2Kpro computer, and ran chkdisk on it there.
Replaced it into it's proper computer, and then booted up fine.

However, I decided to clone it to a new back-up drive, just in case.
The clone was successful, and I am now using that drive.

It was during the cloning process that I noticed the overabundance of
"Unnamed" entries.


PS:
I AM planning on doing a total... clean reinstall... but don't have time to
work on that right now, so I'm nursing my current installation along as best
as possible.


FORMER THREAD HISTORY FOLLOWS:
**************************************

OK... here's what I did.

To save myself hours of re-booting...

1) I cloned the system drive (Call it D1) to another
brand-new-fresh-out-of-the-anti-static-bag-drive (Call this one D2).

I compared my notes on the {filenumber} from when I first noticed this
problem (scroll down to the end to review my comments at the beginning of
this thread...) Several filenumbers matched.

I know this is hit-or-miss... because I really can only confirm files which
are displayed long enough to catch the filenumbers... but it seemed to be
about the same as the first time.

2) Forced a dismount on the newly cloned drive (D2) and ran Chkdsk /f/r/v
repeatedly.
It took 4 passes for Chkdsk too complete w/o any clean-up messages.
All clean-up messages pertained to phase-3: security descriptors.

3) Swapped the drives, booting from the newly cloned and cleaned up
system drive (D2).
BTW, system booted a wee-bit more efficiently.

4) Cloned the "cleaned-up" copy (D2) back over the original copy (D1).
Again... numerous "unnamed MFT table entry" messages were displayed.

5) Ran Chkdsk /f/r/v again on (D1)... and no clean-up messages were
displayed.

This tells me 2 things...
a) the file system problem is NOT a result of the cloning process, and
b) there is corruption in my MFT which Chkdsk is NOT detecting.

I vaguely recall a reference to some utility which will clean-up, fix/repair
MFT, re-compact it, etc...
I'll have to track that down...

And, I suppose I will move this post over to
"microsoft.public.win2000.file_system" as Gary suggested in


Thanks...




"Jisha" (e-mail address removed) wrote in message
 
Does anyone out there know how to fix this problem?
Apparently there are numerous "unnamed" entries in my system drive MFT.

Is there a way to repair the MFT from within w2k,
or any utilities out there?

Any help will be totally appreciated...

Christopher
 
Back
Top