Not Again!! NTFS hemorrhaging bits; oh the pain...

[E_tron]

The following also occurred on a 160GB seagate HDD about 2 years ago, same computer and OS:

My 200GB seagate HDD's filesystem, NTFS, is... experiencing amnesia. Now virtually all of the files on it are corrupt and about 70% of the original data is left. The more i access it in windows 2000 or UBCD4win (im not writing any files), the more it forgets. SpinRite 6 suggests the HDD is okay, physically. I agree with its conclusion. This HDD is used only for storage; the OS and system files are kept elsewhere. I don't think this a virus, because it is only attacking this HDD, there are 4 other drives in the same computer that are unaffected.

Would anybody know about this behavior? I think the MFT may be corrupt, i dont know, but i cannot afford to experience these random events any longer. Could someone provide a link to some troubleshooting information?

thanks

[aftermath]

you could try to use the fixmbr util on the win2k cd you boot it and select repair or recovery options.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/bootcons_fixmbr.mspx?mfr=true

One more possibility could be a damaged cable another could be excessive noise created by wires near the cable or the hard disk could be corrupting bits sent or read. this could be effecting the drives on board controller or the cache.

I would then say its because of you oc but i read your sig and you look @ spec so much for that. some of my mp3s were chirpy because of an oc once it was just the one disk.

just for a test if nothing else works try and slow the drive down a little reduce the DMA rate to a lower number just down -1 ie dma5--> dma4

edit i should say in spec not @ spec cos 200fsb is a good number for dividers to work

[E_tron]

I've learned that the Master File Table was corrupted; how it happened is beyond me. I also discovered there is no way to fix the MFT; the partition must be reformatted.

I used some cheap file recovery software to lift data form the HDD before reformat. about 99% was recovered and about 86% checksumed correctly.

[Xaotic]

Test your RAM. I've had sticks that had errors cause corrupted data on HDDs prior to failing completely. If that doesn't show errors, then I'd suspect the controller itself, either onboard or PCI.