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I was trying to copy a bunch of files from my father's 1TB SDD NTFS external hard drive to my Linux desktop. The computer froze and I couldn't do anything but move the mouse pointer. It wasn't something too unusual for me though, so I just plugged my PC off. I didn't think much of it and I turned the PC back on. When I tried mounting the hard drive, I got this pop-up:

screenshot

I searched for solutions and here's everything I tried:

fdisk -l - /dev/sdb is the external hard disk

Disk /dev/sdb: 931.48 GiB, 1000170586112 bytes, 1953458176 sectors
Disk model: Elements 25A2   
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: C46C72EC-9300-4BC7-8B26-120E0312BFE7

Device     Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1   2048 1953456127 1953454080 931.5G Microsoft basic data

dmesg - I can't use chdsk at the moment. also, I'm afraid that it might delete some files.

[ 2197.800226] ntfs3: sdb1: It is recommened to use chkdsk.
[ 2198.168774] ntfs3: sdb1: volume is dirty and "force" flag is not set!

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb -n - I looked for a chdsk alternative and found ntfsfix. I used -n because I can't take any risk

Mounting volume... NTFS signature is missing.
FAILED
Attempting to correct errors... NTFS signature is missing.
FAILED
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
NTFS signature is missing.
Trying the alternate boot sector
Unrecoverable error
Volume is corrupt. You should run chkdsk.
No change made

Unrecoverable error

I really can't lose any data on this computer.

karel
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almor
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1 Answers1

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I had what looks the be exactly this problem in Ubunbtu 24.04LTS with a Seagate 1tb U.S.B. external drive. My solution was to open the 'Disks' program and select the "faulty" drive. I then left clicked on the gear wheel and from the menu presented I selected the "Edit Mount Options" entry. This gave me a pop up screen entitled "Mount Options". First on this popup I turned off the user session defaults and at the bottom of the page I deleted the File System type "auto" and inserted "ntfs". after clicking on "OK" I clicked on the mount triangle and the disk then mounted. To test this I disconnected the disk and unplugged it then reconnected and it mounted immediately by itself.

Xprofian
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