NTFS index corrupt?

Dragor · Jan 7, 2009

Hi!

One fine morning, when I powered up my Vista I noticed that it was unusually slow and all of a sudden, it froze for no apparent reason. I rebooted [by pressing reset on case as keyboard wouldn't respond] and booted into XP and ran chkdsk on the Vista partition. Sure enough, it found two errors but in the index area. Here's the output of DOS window:

Code:

C:\>chkdsk /r d:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is NEW_C.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
Deleting index entry SBEServer.exe in index $I30 of file 1153.
Deleting index entry SonicMCEBurnEngineIcon.png in index $I30 of file 1153.
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is recovering lost files.
Recovering orphaned file SonicMCEBurnEngineIcon.png (35830) into directory file
1153.
Recovering orphaned file SBEServer.exe (103493) into directory file 1153.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

  38909398 KB total disk space.
  31164840 KB in 91492 files.
     54752 KB in 18604 indexes.
         4 KB in bad sectors.
    223698 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
   7466104 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
   9727349 total allocation units on disk.
   1866526 allocation units available on disk.

To my absolute shock, chkdsk reported bad sectors! I have my Vista on a seagate HDD so I promptly went to their site to look for diagnostic tools. I downloaded seatools for Dos and prepared a dos boot disk.

On running SeaTools, I found 1 bad sector and when prompted, I repaired it and the tool showed repair success. Here is the log that the tool recorded:

Code:

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH ---------------
Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS      
On Intel ICH7
Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB )
This drive supports Security Features
SMART Is Supported And ENABLED
SMART Has NOT Been Tripped
DST Is Supported
Logging Feature Set Is Supported
POH 7097  Current Temp 41  Worst Temp 49
Start Short Test on 1/3/2009 @ 14:02.25
Starting Short DST
Short Test FAILED on 1/3/2009 @ 14:02.31

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH ---------------
Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS      
On Intel ICH7
Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB )
This drive supports Security Features
SMART Is Supported And ENABLED
SMART Has NOT Been Tripped
DST Is Supported
Logging Feature Set Is Supported
POH 7097  Current Temp 41  Worst Temp 49
Start Read Scan on 1/3/2009 @ 14:02.45
[LBA   39402195 Repaired    ]
Read Scan Repaired 1, Skipped 0 and 0 Failed Repair
Read Scan PASSED After Repair on 1/3/2009 @ 14:47.58

After that, I returned to XP and tried running chkdsk again and it showed the exact same output as shown above. And this happens every single time I run chkdsk on that partition.

I saw that the errornous entries were related with some kind of Index so I went into Vista and opened Indexing Options and found the option to Rebuild the index which I did. After a long time Vista said Indexing was complete, so this time I tried to run chkdsk from Vista, which prompted me to reschedule disk check on next startup, which I did.

When I rebooted, the test began and I got the exact same thing as I had in XP. So, I rebooted and ran seatools again but found no error! Here's the log:

Code:

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH ---------------
Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS  9RA0X5K9      
On Intel ICH7
Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB )
This drive supports Security Features
SMART Is Supported And ENABLED
SMART Has NOT Been Tripped
DST Is Supported
Logging Feature Set Is Supported
POH 7116  Current Temp 41  Worst Temp 49
Start Short Test on 1/4/2009 @ 13:26.57
Starting Short DST
Short Test PASSED on 1/4/2009 @ 13:28.11

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH ---------------
Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS  9RA0X5K9      
On Intel ICH7
Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB )
This drive supports Security Features
SMART Is Supported And ENABLED
SMART Has NOT Been Tripped
DST Is Supported
Logging Feature Set Is Supported
POH 7116  Current Temp 42  Worst Temp 49
Start Read Scan on 1/4/2009 @ 13:28.17
Read Scan PASSED on 1/4/2009 @ 14:12.43

So, I'm pretty sure that there are no bad sectors now, but Windows, for some strang reason still detects 4kb of bad sectors and keeps correcting but the correction dosent seem to make any effect!

Now, here's my question: How can I repair my Vista drive without reformatting?

Any and all help is gladly appreciated!

Thank you for your time!

Dzomlija · Jan 7, 2009

Dragor said:
Hi!

One fine morning, when I powered up my Vista I noticed that it was unusually slow and all of a sudden, it froze for no apparent reason. I rebooted [by pressing reset on case as keyboard wouldn't respond] and booted into XP and ran chkdsk on the Vista partition. Sure enough, it found two errors but in the index area. Here's the output of DOS window:

Code:

C:\>chkdsk /r d: The type of the file system is NTFS. Volume label is NEW_C. CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)... File verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)... Deleting index entry SBEServer.exe in index $I30 of file 1153. Deleting index entry SonicMCEBurnEngineIcon.png in index $I30 of file 1153. Index verification completed. CHKDSK is recovering lost files. Recovering orphaned file SonicMCEBurnEngineIcon.png (35830) into directory file 1153. Recovering orphaned file SBEServer.exe (103493) into directory file 1153. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)... Security descriptor verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... Usn Journal verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)... File data verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)... Free space verification is complete. Windows has made corrections to the file system. 38909398 KB total disk space. 31164840 KB in 91492 files. 54752 KB in 18604 indexes. 4 KB in bad sectors. 223698 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 7466104 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 9727349 total allocation units on disk. 1866526 allocation units available on disk.

To my absolute shock, chkdsk reported bad sectors! I have my Vista on a seagate HDD so I promptly went to their site to look for diagnostic tools. I downloaded seatools for Dos and prepared a dos boot disk.

On running SeaTools, I found 1 bad sector and when prompted, I repaired it and the tool showed repair success. Here is the log that the tool recorded:

Code:

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH --------------- Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS On Intel ICH7 Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 7097 Current Temp 41 Worst Temp 49 Start Short Test on 1/3/2009 @ 14:02.25 Starting Short DST Short Test FAILED on 1/3/2009 @ 14:02.31 --------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH --------------- Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS On Intel ICH7 Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 7097 Current Temp 41 Worst Temp 49 Start Read Scan on 1/3/2009 @ 14:02.45 [LBA 39402195 Repaired ] Read Scan Repaired 1, Skipped 0 and 0 Failed Repair Read Scan PASSED After Repair on 1/3/2009 @ 14:47.58

After that, I returned to XP and tried running chkdsk again and it showed the exact same output as shown above. And this happens every single time I run chkdsk on that partition.

I saw that the errornous entries were related with some kind of Index so I went into Vista and opened Indexing Options and found the option to Rebuild the index which I did. After a long time Vista said Indexing was complete, so this time I tried to run chkdsk from Vista, which prompted me to reschedule disk check on next startup, which I did.

When I rebooted, the test began and I got the exact same thing as I had in XP. So, I rebooted and ran seatools again but found no error! Here's the log:

Code:

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH --------------- Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS 9RA0X5K9 On Intel ICH7 Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 7116 Current Temp 41 Worst Temp 49 Start Short Test on 1/4/2009 @ 13:26.57 Starting Short DST Short Test PASSED on 1/4/2009 @ 13:28.11 --------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH --------------- Device 1 is Seagate device ST3160215AS 9RA0X5K9 On Intel ICH7 Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 312581808 ( 160.042 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 7116 Current Temp 42 Worst Temp 49 Start Read Scan on 1/4/2009 @ 13:28.17 Read Scan PASSED on 1/4/2009 @ 14:12.43

So, I'm pretty sure that there are no bad sectors now, but Windows, for some strang reason still detects 4kb of bad sectors and keeps correcting but the correction dosent seem to make any effect!

Now, here's my question: How can I repair my Vista drive without reformatting?

Any and all help is gladly appreciated!

Thank you for your time!

A similar issue that I had several months ago (which resulted in an enormous amount of STOP 0x124 blue screens) was resolved by entering the BIOS and turning on 32-Bit Disk Access for the IDE controller to which the drive was attached. I never discovered why the setting was turned off, but turning it on resolved my problem.

limneos · Jan 7, 2009

if you set your disk to be checked from within Vista, (disk properties - tools - check for errors) and it asks you to schedule a disk check upon next reboot, does it check the disk on reboot? what errors appear after that?

Dragor · Jan 7, 2009

Thank you for all your replies!

Dzomlija said:
A similar issue that I had several months ago (which resulted in an enormous amount of STOP 0x124 blue screens) was resolved by entering the BIOS and turning on 32-Bit Disk Access for the IDE controller to which the drive was attached. I never discovered why the setting was turned off, but turning it on resolved my problem.

Ya, I know of that setting but for some strange reason, it is set to OFF by default, so if you ever happen to load defaults in the BIOS, you'll have to go into every device's property page and enable 32 bit transfer.

But you see, when the problem happened, that setting of mine was set to Enabled. I never leave it disabled.

limneos said:
if you set your disk to be checked from within Vista, (disk properties - tools - check for errors) and it asks you to schedule a disk check upon next reboot, does it check the disk on reboot? what errors appear after that?

Actually, that chkdsk NEVER works! What happens is the Checking Disk dialog box just disappears! No error message no report no nothing! That's the reason I have to use the command prompts version.

And as for your question as to what happens: Exactly the same output as I see in XP. i.e. It delets the index entry, recovers the "orphaned" files, but if I do it again its the same thing again and again!

However, I have discovered something new here, the chkdsk command for vista has a new switch called /b which rechecks bad sectors.

I ran the command and the check was scheduled for next reboot. At the next reboot, I saw this line:

Removing 1 cluster from Bad Sectors file

and at the end of chkdsk, it finally showed 0kb in bad sectors!

But, the index problem still remains! Here's the latest chkdsk but from xp since I cant copy text which Vista's chkdsk outputs as it is during boot up:

Code:

C:\>chkdsk /f d:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is NEW_C.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Deleting index entry SBEServer.exe in index $I30 of file 1153.
Deleting index entry SonicMCEBurnEngineIcon.png in index $I30 of file 1153.
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is recovering lost files.
Recovering orphaned file SonicMCEBurnEngineIcon.png (35830) into directory file
1153.
Recovering orphaned file SBEServer.exe (103493) into directory file 1153.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

  38909398 KB total disk space.
  31176884 KB in 91498 files.
     54752 KB in 18605 indexes.
        [COLOR=Red][B] 0 KB in bad sectors.[/B][/COLOR] :D
    223698 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
   7454064 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
   9727349 total allocation units on disk.
   1863516 allocation units available on disk.

limneos · Jan 7, 2009

lol that's cool...It removed the bad sector cluster...lol.

I guess it had mistakenly been marked bad and now it's fixed.(or something).

However, since in my opinion it's better to run chddsk at boot time, you can try setting it "dirty" manually, so that the system will perform a startup disk check.

You can do this at the command prompt by typing:

fsutil dirty set C: (where "C" is your disk letter)

this command sets the volume to be checked upon startup.

Note: By the way, since the orphaned files are always related to Sonic Burn Engine, did you try removing this app and reinstalling it?

Warning: Don't keep running disk checks from XP on Vista drives, I remember a case a few months ago that ruined a Vista install...

Dragor · Jan 7, 2009

What would happen if I moved the above mentioned files to some place else? Oh and as a side note, both of them are in the same dir i.e. %windir%\ehome\CreateDisc

Also, it now struck me that on the night before the problem started, Windows update was trying to install an update for Windows Media Center which had failed for 3 consecutive times! I cant recall, now, I'll post back when I switch over to Vista [am in XP now].

Thanks! and pls don't mind the double post! This info deserved a seperate post! ;-)

EDIT: Got it! The update that failed was:

Update for Windows (KB948610)

Installation date: ‎2 / ‎1 / ‎2009 11:27 AM

Installation status: Failed

Error details: Code 800F0900

Update type: Important

Fix for KB948610

More information:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=948610

Help and Support:
http://support.microsoft.com

Now, about what limneos said about removing Sonic burn Engine: That's impossible cause that dir belongs to Windows Media Center. Since I have Vista Ultimate, I obviously can't remove it!

Edit 2: Oh! Sorry! The update belongs to .Net Service Pack 3.0 which was also giving me quite a headache! Here, see for yourself:

http://www.vistax64.com/windows-updates/195073-kb948610-failed-2.html#post926832

Dragor · Jan 9, 2009

Sigh! I have come to a very grim conclusion that I will inevitably have to format my Vista drive sooner or later!

I searched on the internet and found that todays HDDs have spare clusters which are used in place of the bad clusters.

That is how SeaTools managed to repair the bad cluster. But, unfortunately, the NTFS Index was hurt and it just won't heal.

Currently, the stability problems continue, although not as frequent. Also, I can't leave the computer idle as it just hangs up. I have setup the computer to auto-shutdown using a handy little utility called Poweroff which works perfectly. So, I leave the computer ON overnight and have Poweroff shut it down in the morning. But since the mess, the computer never manages to get shutdown completely!

In the morning, I find the computer in a hung state with the monitor in standbay mode. Nothing I do can bring the monitor out of standby mode, so I just reset it.

So, I'll have to prepare my drive for format, backup stuff n all. Also, will do a bit of background reading on whether or not to switch to 64 bit after seeing a sticky in this forum! But then again, how could I even benefit from it? My motherboard allows only upto 2GB of RAM! But, I'll look around to find a reason to switch, or I'll just do it anyway just for the heck of it!

Afterall, I am curious as to why Vista's 64 bit offerings are more ... ahem ... how should I say this?? ... "stable" compared to XP's 64 bit version!

Thanks for all your replies!

SCSIraidGURU · Jan 9, 2009

When you start getting bad clusters, I would recommend a new hard drive. Some drives only show bad clusters when they run out of repair cluster space. It sounds like you are going to reinstall. Why not do it on a new faster drive. It is a good time to replace it. if you can RMA the drive, do it. Get a new drive and install the returned drive for backups.

NTFS index corrupt?

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