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Is there a way to fsck/chkdsk an NTFS drive from Linux?

vivin
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6 Answers6

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Yes. This was handled by fsck on some releases. If the partition is not listed in /etc/fstab, then you will likely need to tell it the partition type. I've used this from a Linux CD to recover a partition Windows wouldn't boot from.

Based on the comments below, the actual fixing is done by the ntfsfix program. It should be available, even if there is no program to run a fsck on an NTFS file system.

BillThor
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    Although as noted in the man page for ntfsfix/fsck.ntfs, it is not a Linux version of chkdsk and only checks for certain kinds of obvious problems on the disk. – SabreWolfy Dec 19 '11 at 10:03
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    I assume from the above comment that `fsck.ntfs` was at some point handled by `ntfsfix`. Comments on a lower post indicate this may not be workable now as their arguments are not compatible. Anyway, in Debian 8.2, `fsck.ntfs` does not exist - but `ntfsfix` does and was able to fix a corrupted MFT I encountered. Thanks @SabreWolfy for the hint. – underscore_d Nov 05 '15 at 23:24
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Unfortunately the ntfsfix tool is very limited compared to Microsoft's chkdsk. Try to get a Windows install going - preferably with the newest version of Windows as Microsoft is presumably constantly improving chkdsk (I hope..) New versions of Windows are often available for free as trials. If the problem is in a USB disk you can try installing Windows in something like VirtualBox and give the VM control of the USB device.

eug
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    Or use Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. It's a live Windows XP CD with lots of recovery tools. That's how I solved my problem (corrupted NTFS partition). I tried using the `ntfsck` program included in the Parted Magic live USB, but I got an error saying `Boot sector: bad NTFS magic. Segmentation fault`. – dario_ramos Apr 30 '12 at 23:23
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    maybe limited for some people, but it fixed my corrupted MFT just fine :-) [until the next time, perhaps! i'm not sure about this drive...] – underscore_d Nov 05 '15 at 23:22
  • UBCD has many qualities but I should not describe it as a Windows XP CD. – Graham Perrin Jul 16 '16 at 14:33
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    Hyper-V Server is a completely free (beer) but heavily cut-down version of Windows that's designed for running VMs. The installer should contain all the usual utilities like `chkdsk`/`diskpart`, etc. – mwfearnley Dec 04 '19 at 13:22
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    Take care using Windows 'chkdsk /f' on an NTFS used by Linux. I just followed this advice to fix errors on my external 2TB backup drive. It deleted the names of 268 files and directories (incl. all my incr. backups) due to invalid characters (from NTFS viewpoint - most often ':' used in timestamps). I reverted it all using the log file, but it took half a day of coding. Some but not all Linux system-calls block writing such invalid names on an NTFS. I use rsync for backups, which silently copies such invalid filenames - normally useful, until you need to fix other problems on the disk... – Bob Briscoe Jun 15 '20 at 11:30
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In my case, none of fsck & ntfsfix could fix the issue of my external NTFS mobile disk.

I end up to boot into windows os, and use follow steps to fix the disk issue.

Steps:

  • Check the identifier of the bad disk. e.g g
  • Open the "cmd" terminal of windows.
  • Input chkdsk <disk>: /f to fix it.
    Where <disk> is the identifier, e.g chkdsk d: /f
  • Then it would be fixed within seconds (For a disk of size 1Tb).

After years, finally I found something that windows can do easily, but linux can't ;)

@Update - vm solution

You can also create a windows vm (e.g win 7), then mount the mobile disk to windows vm, then you can also use chkdsk to fix the disk, it's similar as boot into a windows machine.

Eric
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    I'd recommend using flag `/x` (unmount) for enforcing preventing access to the drive. Help manual says using `/x` implies also `/f`, so it helps for doing fixes the same way Linux does (`fsck` requires drives being unmounted). – SonicARG Jun 24 '18 at 01:34
  • +1 for the idea of the VM. Thanks! – loved.by.Jesus Apr 15 '22 at 20:54
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ln -s /bin/ntfsfix /sbin/fsck.ntfs

fsck /dev/sdg1
fsck from util-linux 2.21.2
Mounting volume... OK
Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully.
Checking the alternate boot sector... FIXED
NTFS volume version is 3.1.
NTFS partition /dev/sdg1 was processed successfully.

On fedora 22, there is another binary :

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 13 May 22 22:13 /usr/sbin/fsck.ntfs -> ../bin/ntfsck
Tanguy
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5

If you have NTFSProgs installed, you should be able to run fsck.ntfs or fsck -t ntfs to fsck an NTFS drive.

squircle
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    Running Debian 6.0.3, just installed ntfsprogs, no fsck.ntfs installed, and when running fsck with -t ntfs, get "fsck.ntfs not found". So don't think the two are related. – Zayne S Halsall Dec 17 '11 at 15:00
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    @ZayneSHalsall In Debian, it happens to be a symlink to `ntfsfix` which is in `ntfsprogs`. I guarantee you that you will be able to run `ntfsfix` if `ntfsprogs` installed properly. – squircle Dec 27 '11 at 05:51
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    Newer versions of Debian and Ubuntu don't have this symlink. You can make it yourself, but the problem is that `ntfsfix` has a completely different set of arguments to the standard `fsck` ones. It's better to make `fsck.ntfs` (and `fsck.ntfs-3`) a script containing `exec ntfsfix ${@:$#}` (with a shebang of `#!/bin/bash`). – Neil Mayhew Mar 19 '15 at 22:31
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    @squircle thank you man `sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda1` fixed my issue. `fsck.ntfs -f /dev/sda1` and `fsck -t ntfs -f /dev/sda1` exited early with `fsck from util-linux 2.31.1` – Edward Oct 30 '20 at 13:22
  • ntfsfix is there, but ntfsprogs is not available. maybe in ntfs-3g. – alex Jul 27 '22 at 07:37
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Using a fsck.ntfs solved my similar problem in a Windows ntfs partition + Ubuntu 20.XX LTS partition (can't remember exact version):

Running lsblk -f returns:

NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL       UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                 
├─sda1                                                                              
├─sda2 vfat   FAT32             1950-4B8D                             505,9M     1% /boot/efi
└─sda3 ext4   1.0               29ee8e5b-457e-4610-a503-c8142cc40d68                
sdb                                                                                 
└─sdb1 ntfs         HDD         42AEC908AEC8F607                                    
sdc                                                                                 
├─sdc1 ntfs         Recuperação 04C0478BC0478242                                    
└─sdc2 ext4   1.0               8be461e1-7470-45f6-844c-7559ed2769e9  380,6G     8% /

As you can see, I need to fix my HDD labeled driver (42AEC908AEC8F607), so ln -s /bin/ntfsfix /sbin/fsck.ntfs and after an fsck /dev/sdb1 solved for me, even loggin windows 'refuse to mount' FAILED:

root@bruno-andrade:/home/bruno# fsck /dev/sdb1
fsck from util-linux 2.37.2
Mounting volume... The disk contains an unclean file system (0, 0).
Metadata kept in Windows cache, refused to mount.
FAILED
Attempting to correct errors... 
Processing $MFT and $MFTMirr...
Reading $MFT... OK
Reading $MFTMirr... OK
Comparing $MFTMirr to $MFT... OK
Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully.
Setting required flags on partition... OK
Going to empty the journal ($LogFile)... OK
Checking the alternate boot sector... FIXED
NTFS volume version is 3.1.
NTFS partition /dev/sdb1 was processed successfully.

Thanks to @tanguy in his answer: fsck an ntfs drive in Linux

Bruno Andrade
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  • I would be *EXTREMELY* cautious about using non-native tools on a Windows NTFS partition. The Ubuntu 20 version of ntfsfix should be OK under most circumstances ... but lots of folks (myself included!) have distros dating back 10 years or more. It could be *catastophic* to apply some arbitrary Linux tool on some NTFS filesystems... Two better alternatives: 1) Boot to Windows, or 2) use a Windows VM. – paulsm4 Apr 21 '23 at 17:03
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