Bad MFT. Can we restore using the MFT Mirror?

[jeyk]

In DE, can we write the MFT Mirror to the drive so it can create a file map? How do we do this?

[rdallasb]

Hello jeyk, can you explain the situation and what you hope to accomplish?

[jeyk]

I have a drive that is having trouble reading the MFT. I know I have seen people restore the MFT by using the mirror, and was hoping there was a quick way to do it in DE, without looking manually for the MFT mirror, and editing it manually.

[AJ2008]

Pull MFT mirror location from boot sector properties, copy this MFT record and then write it to the position where primary MFT Record should reside, then save and refresh explorer view. You should now at least have option to scan MFT, though you will need to have majority of other file records accessible for any positive results.

[DataMedics]

I don't think there's ever a good reason to write any data on the drive you are working on, EVER! Just run the "Scan MFT & Index" option and work from the results. Unless you're really trying to make a bootable system for some sort of machine I guess, but even then should only try it on the clone drive, not the original.

[AJ2008]

Source of the post I don't think there's ever a good reason to write any data on the drive you are working on, EVER! Just run the "Scan MFT & Index" option and work from the results.

Scan MFT option is available only if MFT Record is intact and readable. Writing to source disk is never a good idea, you misunderstand my message; any changes made to the map in the DE task would be made upon destination media / image from within the task so source is never modified, only output media/image file.

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Source of the post

Source of the post I don't think there's ever a good reason to write any data on the drive you are working on, EVER! Just run the "Scan MFT & Index" option and work from the results.

Scan MFT option is available only if MFT Record is intact and readable. Writing to source disk is never a good idea, you misunderstand my message; any changes made to the map in the DE task would be made upon destination media / image from within the task so source is never modified, only output media/image file.

Well,
The Idea Seems To Be Pretty Nice ,But There is a trick to this .If you do not follow the trick it will not work .The Trick is to copy to destination drive then change properties to work with copy only do what aj said then dump the mirror to the location he is saying then scan mft then change back to source drive and enjoy

[AJ2008]

When working in DE with a Data copy enabled, any changes to the map are never made to the source so there is no need to switch to copy only mode. Modified sectors will show as blue in the map and reflect changes to the destination only.