I appeared on 4 TAs about a month ago, because I was asked to help "shore them up" by some high-up people dissatisfied with the lack of support for hardware, disk storage and windows. In the last 4-5 weeks I rocketed from zero up toward the top of this "point scale" EE loves to promote, by putting in a lot of time and effort seeing questions through to conclusions. So I've done what I was asked to do. For up and coming experts, persistence is the key -- be dedicated to helping people solve problems -- don't dump 'em.
One major issue stands out above all others on these TAs, so I am devoting my departing comments to it -- the lack of good solutions for fixing supposedly "corrupt" NTFS disks correctly. I've found people proposing "data recovery", when in reality, the problems stem from NTFS itself. To suggest "GetDataBack" and the like, when we should be proposing solutions to correct the file system -- that is NOT a real "fix", it is just a cop out. No end user should be told use "data recovery", when an EXPERT'S job is to show them how to fix the underlying windows problem.
I am posting this Q. in the 3 different TAs where most of these NTFS problems come in -- Hardware, Storage, and OS. Please attach to just ONE of them, learn from the references, and come back with a solution. EVERYONE who posts a working solution will get 500 points each (up to any EE limit). The solution is THAT important to all of you giving the right help to questioners in the future.
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Here are the 3 typical scenarios where people have lost an entire drive full of data because NTFS has supposedly made their data unreadable, or made their entire hard disk inaccessible --
1. A person has a removable drive formatted NTFS, he writes important backups at one site, goes to another, writes more, then writes more at a third location. Now, trying to RECOVER these backups at another site, he can't get to any of the data -- it has simply vanished from the drive. As far as the user is concerned, his NTFS drive has "trashed" itself, when in reality, NTFS is the problem. How do you fix this, without using "data recovery"?
**If you want to answer this question, attach to this thread only in the "Storage" Topic area.**
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2. A person has a complete backup of his data from a previous OS, like W2000, on a D drive, and he upgrades his OS to Windows XP on his main drive. Now, on trying to get all the data from the D drive back, Windows says the disk is "unreadable", and he cannot see anything on the drive at all. He goes into Disk Management, and it won't let him do anything with it. All his data is lost. As far as the user is concerned, his NTFS drive has "trashed" itself, when in reality, NTFS is the problem. How do you fix this, without using "data recovery"? Note, his drive might have been dynamic (not basic), that is another possibility, points will go to dynamic fixes additionally.
**If you want to answer this question, attach to this thread only in the "OS" topic area.**
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3. In scenarios similar to 1 and 2 above, the person finds he cannot access his drive at all, so he tries to resize, recover or fix the partition or drive with something like "partition magic" or other utilities -- even Disk Management itself -- but they "fail" and never complete the operation. Assuming they only messed up some small part of the disk, and did not delete the data on the disk -- How do you fix this, without using "data recovery"? Also the disk might have been dynamic and he tried to get it back to a usable state. Extra points for an answer to the "dynamic" dilemma.
**If you want to answer this question, attach to this thread only in the "Hardware" topic area.**
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THIS NTFS DILEMMA IS SINGULARLY THE GREATEST CAUSE OF NEEDLESS USER HARASSMENT I'VE SEEN ON EE -- so many people with the same problems, all stemming from the NTFS file system, and the conundrum that Microsoft puts people in, because of inadequate warnings about NTFS's pitfalls, caveats, and cautions -- UTTERLY FAILING to give people adequate support. Therefore the onus is on all experts here to find proper fixes, so people don't have to endure arduous, protracted, "data-recovery" ordeals -- just because of Microsoft's hyping-up of NTFS, and failing to explain its problems.
Now, we are not here to debate the pros and cons of NTFS vs. FAT32. I've already tried to promote FAT32 on EE, and it doesn't work. Microsoft is the supreme promoter of NTFS, look at the Windows XP installation choices. So we are not going to waste our time debating pros and cons here. We want SOLUTIONS ONLY, USING THE OS, UNDER NTFS ITSELF. No outside utilities, no data recovery, no conversion programs -- just an NTFS fix, as MS should have done.
This is my honest effort to bring EVERYONE on these TAs up to speed about the real issues with NTFS, what the limits and caveats of the file system are, where are the pitfalls, and how to help people THROUGH these problems with a TRUE FIX that is not a cop out -- i.e. an NTFS OS fix.
So take your time -- no quickie "first points" -- this is all about learning, thinking and using your skills to find a solution. Read the links below, consider the articles -- and those who come back with working fixes will get 500 points each. By "working fix", I mean you must actually test it on an NTFS drive. NO theory -- if you are going to propose solutions that might risk ALL data that is absolutely crucial to your questioners, you owe it to them to test your "fix" on a messed up, supposedly unreadable NTFS drive. When you post a fix, give details of how you tested it.
If you are unprepared to read the references below, and try for a good fix, you shouldn't propose bad ones to EE questioners, who come to us devastated at "losing" everything, just victims of the unstated pitfalls of NTFS. No matter how much you think you know, you owe it to those people to go through this entire post, all references, and come up with a real fix -- the way it should be done.
So research the topical list of MS articles on NTFS that I've assembled, below, notice how MS won't admit to NTFS's limits, pitfalls and problems -- you have to piece it together yourself. The more people to respond to my three posts with positive solutions, the quicker I will be gone. So that is even more motivation to get into this, research it, and learn for yourself.
(P.S. If you can't keep to the topic of posting a fix, without making snide remarks, don't post at all, but also don't start arguments on other threads when people try to point out that NTFS is the problem in these kinds of cases -- all such comments will be removed).
Remember, this post is for ALL experts, to have the chance to show their talent at coming up with their own innovative solutions, which Microsoft is apparently incapable of doing, or admitting. It is for EE's history too, be the one to contribute the best solution to the greatest problem on EE.
DO NOT POST ANY LINKS ON THIS THREAD. USE THE MS LINKS I'VE ASSEMBLED BELOW.
Good Luck, may the best win ....
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TOPICAL LIST MS ARTICLES ABOUT NTFS "ISSUES"
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Dynamic disks
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"When you view your system disk or boot disk in the Disk Management tool, it may be listed as "dynamic unreadable", and you may be unable to use the Disk Management tool to manage this disk. Note that this behavior may occur even though the operating system is currently running from your system disk or boot disk. Your original dynamic system disk or boot disk may now be listed as "Missing" - "Offline", and all volumes contained on the missing disk are noted as "failed" and are not accessible. If you then try to reactivate the missing disk, you may receive the following error message:"
"The specified disk could not be located."
"This problem can occur if Windows 2000 was re-installed and during Setup a volume on the dynamic disk was deleted and recreated"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;236086(NOTE: This also applies to basic disks too, but MS won't admit it; it is not a dynamic-only problem.
Cannot revert to basic
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320283"WARNING: Upgrading a disk to dynamic storage will render the entire disk unreadable to operating systems other than Windows 2000. This is a one-way process. In order to change back to basic disk format, the drive must be repartitioned."
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;175761Dynamic Disk Problems
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;317587http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;175761http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;225551http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;237853NTFS incompatibilities between versions
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;198904Files become inaccessible - call MS for support
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;262320http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315688(numerous file access problems are discussed in the above article,
the only "solution" is to call microsoft and pay them for support).
Checkdisk can render NTFS volumes inaccessible
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;187941NOTE: - Checkdisk is always run during installation of a new OS
So these problems can happen on NTFS when 2000 is upgraded to XP.
NTFS corrupts the boot sector, need diskedit to fix it
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;121517http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;153973Inaccessible Disk with NTFS on removable drive
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;228792NTFS Permissions Problems
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823116http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810142http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;250466http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304621Restore Default Permissions in 2000
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http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=266118NTFS Problems reporting disk space correctly
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315688http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814594Boot failures due to early NTFS Permissions Problems
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;109076http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;130016http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;137155http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;137400NTFS Volume-security problems
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;150101--------------------------
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DO NOT POST ANY MORE LINKS ON THIS THREAD. I ONLY WANT INDIVIDUAL'S SOLUTIONS. THANK YOU.
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