Vista - Vista RTM Vol License - MFT Corrupt - File or Directory unreadable

In my company, I have setup two computers with Volume release Vista RTM fresh
on HD and then 2 other computers with Dual Boot XP and Vista.

When launching XP on the dual boot computers, i have two partitions that
appear 'File or Directory is corrupted or unreadable'. But i can see these
partitions fine in Vista.

I have a 160GB Seagate IDE hard drive in these 2 dual boot computer with
partitions as follows :

C:\ FAT32 40GB Windows XP
D:\ NTFS 40GB Vista
E:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps
F:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps2

I have just installed the Volume License release of Windows Vista Ultimate
on Drive D. I selected upgrade install and a fresh drive D:\ to Install to.
Boot Loader has now got XP and Vista. Booting into Vista i got an error when
the Taskbar was running, c:\$MFT (or C:\$MSFT) corrupt.

Booting into Vista is does a Chkdsk on drives E & F, but when in Vista these
drives can be seen and all the files are intact.

Boot into Windows XP it does Chkdsk as well, launch explorer, drives E & F
display as Local Disk and an error stating 'File or Directory is corrupted or
unreadable'

(1) How do do i rebuild the MFT ?
(2) Is their any way in XP to get the names of these partitions back. ( I
have used Acronis and the Names and files appear on the drive, its just XP
doesnt want to show them ).

Can anyone help ?

I believe this may be a side-effect of the way Acronis formats NTFS drives.
I am not aware of any other solution besides backing up the data on your
NTFS partitions, formatting the partitions using the official Microsoft
format utility, and then resotring the data from your backup.


--
- JB

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

"Coakeyoakey" <Coakeyoakey@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E898EE94-5249-4A3F-B3F0-EE25C293F346@microsoft.com...
> In my company, I have setup two computers with Volume release Vista RTM
> fresh
> on HD and then 2 other computers with Dual Boot XP and Vista.
>
> When launching XP on the dual boot computers, i have two partitions that
> appear 'File or Directory is corrupted or unreadable'. But i can see these
> partitions fine in Vista.
>
> I have a 160GB Seagate IDE hard drive in these 2 dual boot computer with
> partitions as follows :
>
> C:\ FAT32 40GB Windows XP
> D:\ NTFS 40GB Vista
> E:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps
> F:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps2
>
> I have just installed the Volume License release of Windows Vista Ultimate
> on Drive D. I selected upgrade install and a fresh drive D:\ to Install
> to.
> Boot Loader has now got XP and Vista. Booting into Vista i got an error
> when
> the Taskbar was running, c:\$MFT (or C:\$MSFT) corrupt.
>
> Booting into Vista is does a Chkdsk on drives E & F, but when in Vista
> these
> drives can be seen and all the files are intact.
>
> Boot into Windows XP it does Chkdsk as well, launch explorer, drives E & F
> display as Local Disk and an error stating 'File or Directory is corrupted
> or
> unreadable'
>
> (1) How do do i rebuild the MFT ?
> (2) Is their any way in XP to get the names of these partitions back. ( I
> have used Acronis and the Names and files appear on the drive, its just XP
> doesnt want to show them ).
>
> Can anyone help ?

Suggest you check that you have the most uptodate version of Acronis Disk
Director. Had a similar problem a few months back with Beta 2. In the end
followed Jimmy's (very good) advice to dump Acronis as far as Vista was
concern and used the built in (XP) utilities - no problems since.

Geoff

Im not using Acronis for Ghosting. I was using Acronis Disk Director Suite to
try and recover the partitions. In Disk Director suite the Drives appear
correctly, same as Vista, its just XP cannot recognise them.

The Drives E & F appear with 'Local disk' instead of their names Test Apps
and Test Apps2, and on each drive 'File or Directory is corrupted appears for
XP.

I was doing a test for customers as we ship Accessibility Software, and some
customers request this Dual boot of XP and Vista.

I have reformatted this drive and created the same partitions again and
installed XP and Vista dual boot, and i still get the corrupt c:\$Mft, when
launching Vista, annoying!.

Is their anyway to log bugs to Microsoft about this issue ?




"Geoff" wrote:

>
> "Coakeyoakey" <Coakeyoakey@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:E898EE94-5249-4A3F-B3F0-EE25C293F346@microsoft.com...
> > In my company, I have setup two computers with Volume release Vista RTM
> > fresh
> > on HD and then 2 other computers with Dual Boot XP and Vista.
> >
> > When launching XP on the dual boot computers, i have two partitions that
> > appear 'File or Directory is corrupted or unreadable'. But i can see these
> > partitions fine in Vista.
> >
> > I have a 160GB Seagate IDE hard drive in these 2 dual boot computer with
> > partitions as follows :
> >
> > C:\ FAT32 40GB Windows XP
> > D:\ NTFS 40GB Vista
> > E:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps
> > F:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps2
> >
> > I have just installed the Volume License release of Windows Vista Ultimate
> > on Drive D. I selected upgrade install and a fresh drive D:\ to Install
> > to.
> > Boot Loader has now got XP and Vista. Booting into Vista i got an error
> > when
> > the Taskbar was running, c:\$MFT (or C:\$MSFT) corrupt.
> >
> > Booting into Vista is does a Chkdsk on drives E & F, but when in Vista
> > these
> > drives can be seen and all the files are intact.
> >
> > Boot into Windows XP it does Chkdsk as well, launch explorer, drives E & F
> > display as Local Disk and an error stating 'File or Directory is corrupted
> > or
> > unreadable'
> >
> > (1) How do do i rebuild the MFT ?
> > (2) Is their any way in XP to get the names of these partitions back. ( I
> > have used Acronis and the Names and files appear on the drive, its just XP
> > doesnt want to show them ).
> >
> > Can anyone help ?
>
> Suggest you check that you have the most uptodate version of Acronis Disk
> Director. Had a similar problem a few months back with Beta 2. In the end
> followed Jimmy's (very good) advice to dump Acronis as far as Vista was
> concern and used the built in (XP) utilities - no problems since.
>
> Geoff
>
>
>

"Coakeyoakey" <Coakeyoakey@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A11F708A-54EA-4770-80EC-3F0A11760E2D@microsoft.com...
> Im not using Acronis for Ghosting. I was using Acronis Disk Director Suite
> to
> try and recover the partitions. In Disk Director suite the Drives appear
> correctly, same as Vista, its just XP cannot recognise them.
>
> The Drives E & F appear with 'Local disk' instead of their names Test Apps
> and Test Apps2, and on each drive 'File or Directory is corrupted appears
> for
> XP.
>
> I was doing a test for customers as we ship Accessibility Software, and
> some
> customers request this Dual boot of XP and Vista.
>
> I have reformatted this drive and created the same partitions again and
> installed XP and Vista dual boot, and i still get the corrupt c:\$Mft,
> when
> launching Vista, annoying!.
>
> Is their anyway to log bugs to Microsoft about this issue ?
>
>
>
>
> "Geoff" wrote:
>
>>
>> "Coakeyoakey" <Coakeyoakey@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:E898EE94-5249-4A3F-B3F0-EE25C293F346@microsoft.com...
>> > In my company, I have setup two computers with Volume release Vista RTM
>> > fresh
>> > on HD and then 2 other computers with Dual Boot XP and Vista.
>> >
>> > When launching XP on the dual boot computers, i have two partitions
>> > that
>> > appear 'File or Directory is corrupted or unreadable'. But i can see
>> > these
>> > partitions fine in Vista.
>> >
>> > I have a 160GB Seagate IDE hard drive in these 2 dual boot computer
>> > with
>> > partitions as follows :
>> >
>> > C:\ FAT32 40GB Windows XP
>> > D:\ NTFS 40GB Vista
>> > E:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps
>> > F:\ NTFS 40GB Test Apps2
>> >
>> > I have just installed the Volume License release of Windows Vista
>> > Ultimate
>> > on Drive D. I selected upgrade install and a fresh drive D:\ to Install
>> > to.
>> > Boot Loader has now got XP and Vista. Booting into Vista i got an error
>> > when
>> > the Taskbar was running, c:\$MFT (or C:\$MSFT) corrupt.
>> >
>> > Booting into Vista is does a Chkdsk on drives E & F, but when in Vista
>> > these
>> > drives can be seen and all the files are intact.
>> >
>> > Boot into Windows XP it does Chkdsk as well, launch explorer, drives E
>> > & F
>> > display as Local Disk and an error stating 'File or Directory is
>> > corrupted
>> > or
>> > unreadable'
>> >
>> > (1) How do do i rebuild the MFT ?
>> > (2) Is their any way in XP to get the names of these partitions back.
>> > ( I
>> > have used Acronis and the Names and files appear on the drive, its just
>> > XP
>> > doesnt want to show them ).
>> >
>> > Can anyone help ?
>>
>> Suggest you check that you have the most uptodate version of Acronis Disk
>> Director. Had a similar problem a few months back with Beta 2. In the end
>> followed Jimmy's (very good) advice to dump Acronis as far as Vista was
>> concern and used the built in (XP) utilities - no problems since.
>>
>> Geoff
>>
>>
>>

Been using Acronis (latest version I've got is 10 (build 2,117)) for disk
management (not Ghosting) for a while until I started 'playing' with Vista.
Then the 'corrupt disk' reports started to appear. Apparently there is
something 'different' in the way Acronis formats NTFS that Vista doesn't
like. I took it up with Acronis, who suggested the new build, but no real
improvement.

The bad news (for you) is, if I recollect correctly, I ended up having to
reinstal XP completely (re-partition, format) as the XP volume was so
corrupt, then set up the Vista partition from within XP.

Fortunately all my data was backed up so I just lost a little time. All I
can suggest is if you have any critical files, back them up from Vista then
if needs be re-instal XP.

I did submit several (lengthy) bug reports to MSFT but never had any
feedback.

Geoff