Fix MFT with Vista or XP?

[DavidJ726]

My slave drive (D has become unaccesable and the error message I receive
is Corrupt Master File Table.

I have a Dual boot System with XP on the C: drive and Vista Beta on the D:
drive. I know I can boot from the XP CD and from the recovery console, run
the fxmbr and chkdsk/f commands, but what I don't know is if the Master File
Table was modified when I installed Vista on the D: drive, so I don't know
if I should use XP's tools or Vista's (MRE?) tools. If I use XP tools and
the file was modified by Vista, shoudn't I use Vista's tools?

Also, during my searches it seems that the Master Boot Record and Master
File Table have been discussed as if they're one in the same, are they? Can
fxmbr repair a Master File Table?

Thanks,
David

 

[Dave]

My slave drive (D has become unaccesable and the error message I receive
is Corrupt Master File Table.

I have a Dual boot System with XP on the C: drive and Vista Beta on the D:
drive. I know I can boot from the XP CD and from the recovery console,
run the fxmbr and chkdsk/f commands, but what I don't know is if the
Master File Table was modified when I installed Vista on the D: drive, so
I don't know if I should use XP's tools or Vista's (MRE?) tools. If I use
XP tools and the file was modified by Vista, shoudn't I use Vista's tools?

Also, during my searches it seems that the Master Boot Record and Master
File Table have been discussed as if they're one in the same, are they?
Can fxmbr repair a Master File Table?

Thanks,
David

The MBR and the MFT are entirely different. fixmbr is irrelevent to your
problem. If the mirror MFT is uncorrupted chkdsk should be able to fix
things. If the mirror is also corrupt and chkdsk aborts, then things are
very messed up and you should reformat the partition and restore any data
from back-up. If the partition contains data that is not backed up you may
need to use a third-party tool or service to try and recover it - however
given that you are running a beta operating system on the partition I guess
it doesn't contain much of value. It shouldn't matter which version of
chkdsk you use.

Dave

 

[John Barnes]

Would only add that the MFT is created when you format a volume as NTFS.
Since Vista has a newer version of NTFS, if you have to reformat it, unless
you plan to use older partitioning products, I would suggest formatting it
with Vista.

 

[DavidJ726]

Thanks Dave & John, the answers certainly helped in guiding me to what I
need to do next. I'll boot from the XP cd and start the recovery console,
and if the chkdsk /f doesn't work I'll end up using Spinrite to retrieve
data that isn't backed up. Not what I want to do, but might be what I need
to do... <sigh>

 

[John Barnes]

From the recovery console the option is chkdsk /r
in recovery console you have /p or /r and /r is the same as /f except more
exhaustive. You can verify as usual by using /? to see your options.