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MFT Bitmap Corrupted - How to Fix?

Posted On : Apr-13-2010 | seen (1350) times | Article Word Count : 412 |

NTFS (New Technology File System) stores virtually all kinds of files and folders on the hard drive with the help of special system files, called metadata files. One important metadata file is $Bitmap,
NTFS (New Technology File System) stores virtually all kinds of files and folders on the hard drive with the help of special system files, called metadata files. One important metadata file is $Bitmap, which is also known as 'Cluster Allocation Bitmap'. This metadata structure is located at 6th record of MFT and contains a map depicting used and unused cluster information.

In other words, $Bitmap represents information of volume clusters, which have been used and which are available for use. Practically, there can be instances that might corrupt this $Bitmap and necessitate you to perform some hard drive recovery operations and fix the problem.

MFT Bitmap corruption is a common problem and can occur for several reasons. You can detect these problems by running chkdsk command Apparently, it can also be detected when you try to copy some files to a drive, which is infected with $Bitmap corruption. On trying to copy the files, this might prompt you with errors like:

“The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on
the volume partition_name.”

In other cases, you may find hard drive partition reporting incorrect information about available and used clusters.

How to Solve?

Not all, but most of such issues can be resolved by running chkdsk /f command on the hard drive partition in question. In its report, it will show that $Bitmap file needs to be adjusted, followed by error correcting statement and finally that Windows has corrected the file system problems.

Reportedly, there have been many situations, in which chkdsk has been unable to solve the $Bitmap corruption. Sometimes, it might report that file system repair has been successfully done, but when you repeat the same behavior, corruption exists. So, the best solution to get rid of $Bitmap corruption problems is to reformat the hard drive partition to NTFS file system and restore lost data from last available backup or by using a Hard Drive Data Recovery software.

Hard Drive Recovery software are efficient tools that can scan a corrupted or formatted drive and extract best possible data safely.

Stellar Phoenix windows data recovery is one of the safest Hard Drive Data Recovery applications. The software provides few-clicks data recovery plus a list of advanced features, such as disk imaging, disk cloning, and others. It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000.

Article Source : http://www.articleseen.com/Article_MFT Bitmap Corrupted - How to Fix?_16138.aspx

Author Resource :
The Author is a student of Mass Communication doing research on hard drive recovery software .

Keywords : hard drive recovery, hard drive recovery software, recover hard drive,

Category : Computers : Data Recovery

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