HOWTO: Fix an NTFS partition in Ubuntu

20Sep11

My HowTo on fixing an EXT partition in Ubuntu is by far my most popular post, pulling in new visitors everyday. The only reason I wrote it is because it was something that happened to me now and again.

But what about dual boots? What happens when your NTFS drive goes beserk, and you only have access to your Ubuntu install? Well, finally, I’ve come across a solution.

Now, before we begin, this HowTo assumes that your Ubuntu install is working as normal, and that the NTFS partition isn’t essential to Ubuntu. It’s also possible (though I’ve not yet tried) to follow this HowTo using Parted  Magic.

First, we need to find out what partition we are dealing with. To do this, open a terminal and type;

sudo fdisk -l

That’ll give you something like this;

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2709a320

 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 19457 156288321 7 HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sd1 is in this case the NTFS drive we’ll be working with. Obviously change this to whatever yours is. If your partition isn’t listed here, or appears to be the wrong size, you’ll need to use TestDisk.

Next, you need to install some software called “ntfsprogs”. You can do this through Synaptic or on the command line using;

sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs

There’s just one last step.

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb1

With any luck, you should see the following;


Mounting volume... OK
Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully.
NTFS volume version is 3.1.
NTFS partition /dev/sdb1 was processed successfully.

And that’s it! Go try to mount you NTFS partition, and it should work again as normal. If not, feel free to leave a comment below.



4 Responses to “HOWTO: Fix an NTFS partition in Ubuntu”

  1. 1 Ron Bell

    I have followed your instructions faithfully in this article as well as the previous posting: HOWTO: Repair a broken Ext4 Superblock in Ubuntu

    No luck. The superblock numbers did not work.

    The Ubuntu 10.10 Disk Utility shows the MAXTOR partitition as Partition Type – Empty (0×00), Type – FAT (32 bit version), Device – dev/sdb1, and Mount Point – unmounted.

    Note: No RAID, no Windows on system. The second HD was originally created as ext4 drive and easily interchanged files with Win Vista PC.

    The Mount Volume returns “File system driver is not installed” and Check Filesystem says “The file system is NOT clean.”

    ron@Maverick:~$ sudo fdisk -l

    Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x0003795d

    Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
    /dev/sdb1 1 29912 240267116 0 Empty
    /dev/sdb2 29913 30401 3927892+ 0 Empty

    ron@Maverick:~$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb1
    Mounting volume… Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument.
    FAILED
    Attempting to correct errors… FAILED
    Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument.
    Volume is corrupt. You should run chkdsk.
    ron@Maverick:~$ sudo chkdsk /dev/sdb1
    sudo: chkdsk: command not found

    THANKS for your helpful articles.

    • 2 evidex

      Hmmm, ok. For a start, you mentioned that the drive is in ext4 format, however, the result from the disk utility says that it’s FAT32. The fact that you can access it through Windows also shows this (ext4 is incompatible with windows). So this HOWTO won’t be of much help to you. You’ll need to use some sort of fsck that works with fat32 type partitions. A bit of googling on “Repairing fat32 partitions” might shed some light on the situation

  2. 3 Peter

    Worked like a charm with my 2TB data disk in Ubuntu 11.04!
    Thanks! :-)


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