Corruption in HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3 - how to fix it?

Just to avoid any bad surprises... I would backup any important data. You could have a bad hard drive....
After backup....Boot from your Windows 7 OS disc and select the option to repair. Go into the console and run chkdsk /R again.
Did you install this Windows 7 system or did it come configured from the manufacturer?

There used to be a problem similar to this one with SBS and Microsoft eventually had to come up with a hotfix...... this is why I am asking if you installed it or if it came preinstalled by the manufacturer of your system... It could be a problem with the Raid configuration or even the drivers...... Take a look at this link where they talk about the same problem with SBS:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/23706640/The-file-system-structure-on-the-disk-is-corrupt-device-harddiskvolumeshadowcopy.html
 

Hi BitsBytesandMore,
I installed this system about two weeks ago.
Just cloned the Raid to a single drive and will boot from there.
That should also take care of the Raid config, or?

If it is working properly and you are not getting any other HDD errors ... Yes!!!! Perfect!!!

Im not sure what you were asking me... sorry: "...That should also take care of the Raid config, or?..."

What I meant above by perfect is that you cloned and now how a working copy of your system (with all the data and configuration and everything). It does not take care of the RAID.....

Correction: "cloned and now have a working copy....

"...That should also take care of the Raid config, or?..."
means that the Raid drivers will not have any influence on a single disk configuration and produce errors?

No.... Drivers will not influence if you are using a single disk....The drivers are there.... whether you use RAID today or not ... the drivers are still there in case you decide to use it in the future.... it will not affect you if you disabled the RAID from the BIOS or RAID card (whichever is your case)..
In a worst case scenario...lets say you only put 1 HDD inside without disabling the RAID. The computer would be expecting that at some point you will replace the missing drive so it can do its thing....

Sorry for letting you wait, I'll have access to that related machine by tomorrow again.

Back to life...
Ran chkdsk /R as you described, still the error
The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume \Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3.\
shows.

Ok .... bad news. You might be looking at a hard drive that is about to fail.
It is important that you backup anything important and test it before it stops loading completely (if it is something small you may be able to fix it before it fails)
Hard Drive Testing Software:
I was looking up for a list of hard drive tests you can get depending on the manufacturer of your hard drive (these are usually very good):

Fujitsu http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/download/hard-drives/#diagnostic 
IBM and Hitachi http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT 
Maxtor/Quantum http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/products/index.htm 
Samsung http://www.samsungelectronics.com/hdd/support/utilities/utilities_index.html 
Seagate http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/index.html 
Western Digital http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&swid=1 
 
Spinrite is not brand specific but it is also very good.... http://grc.com/spinrite.htm 
Here is a more extensive list of the top 7 Free Hard Drive Testing Tools: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/tophddiag.htm   
If it can't be fixed, you might want to "Image" your hard drive while you still can. You can download a free 30 day trial of fully functional imaging software from www.acronis.com.
Bits...

I have run chkdsk /R on BOTH the configurations -- Raid0 without the single drive present and Single drive without Raid0 present. Same error message after that, cloning was a week ago.
Will try these tools

Interesting ... you might want to convert to RAID 1 after backing up the data. This would actually be the fastest way to make sure nothing bad happens.
If the drive is bad, it could fail on the diagnostic tests and never come back. If you move to RAID 1 - Mirroring, if the drive does die all you would need to do would be to replace it since the other drive would keep your system running in the meantime.
Bits ...

I have now even cleaned up old restore points.
The Volume Shadow error is gone.
The MsiCofire.dll error remains.

Any suggestions?

Cleaning up the restore points usually corrects the Volume Shadow errors. It fixes them because once you remove the restore points there is nothing there to create the error.
The problem is your hard drive. Once you create new restore points, the error will come back.
The MsiCofire.dll error remains because it probably is in a sector of the hard drive that is developing bad clusters.
My advise on this is that, as I mentioned above, backup your data and remove the RAID. Once you remove it, check each drive individually to determine which one is bad. Once you know which one is bad, you will need to image its contents elsewhere and re-partition and re-format the drive (since chkdsk did not work for you).
Hopefully this will correct the error, but in my experience once a drive starts coming up with errors that chkdsk cannot fix, even if you do fix it by following the above advise, they will most likely come back and you will eventually need to replace the drive.
 
Bits...
 

Let me get this - if I image this onto a single drive, run the Hard Drive Testing Software you mentioned above and this error does not show anymore, then it is clear that one of the Raid drives is bad. Correct?

If I take out the Raid0 drives one by one and run the software, and DON'T find any error - will the Raid be still intact afterwards?

Let me put it this way: It would be highly unlikely that "Both" of your drive were bad....Correct? So based on this:
For you to have RAID 0 you need to have 2 hard drives. So part of your data is on one drive and the other part on the other drive.
If you break the RAID, all your data would be moved to one of the drives (you need to backup in case something goes bad).
Make an image of the one that is booting onto the other one. This means that now we have 2 identical drives with the exception that one of them is going to have an error.
Determine which one has the error and try to fix it.....run chkdsk...if it can't fix it, re-partition, re-format. Check it again and verify that the error is gone......

As per Wikipedia:
"...A RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) splits data evenly across two or more disks (striped) with no parity information for redundancy. It is important to note that RAID 0 was not one of the original RAID levels and provides no data redundancy. RAID 0 is normally used to increase performance, although it can also be used as a way to create a small number of large virtual disks out of a large number of small physical ones...."

150px-RAID-0-svg.png

Thanks, Bytes.
I am familiar with RAID0, was just concerned about what happens when I take out one drive of the RAID, hook it up to another machine and run the HDD repair software  via  the other machine.

RAID 0 has no redundancy.... so if you take one drive out, it is damaged.
So your best bet would be either to break the RAID or convert it to RAID 1. This would give you mirroring (2 identical drives)...
You know that one of them is giving you problems so it becomes a matter of scanning the 2 drives to find out if it is fixable...
I know you understand but I'm posting for you and the future asker. Sorry if I made you feel as if you were not understanding... It was not my intention...

No problem, but still my above questions remain open (you notice I am hesitant to break my RAID0 apart and convert to a RAID1)

what happens when I take out one drive of the RAID, hook it up to another machine and run the HDD repair software via  the other machine on this HDD?
I have transferred RAID0s to other machines with identical MOBOs and that worked!


If I clone this RAID0 onto a single drive, run the Hard Drive Testing Software you mentioned above, and this error does not show anymore on this single, then it is clear that one of the Raid drives is bad. Correct?

When you converted before to single drive...... One of the drives was no being used....right?

The above gives you the opportunity to check each drive individually..... are you with me?
By checking each drive individually (this is way before converting to RAID1) you will be able to weed out the bad one (you can't convert, or, should not convert if one of the drives is bad)
Once you know which one of the drives is bad and "Clone" it using cloning software such as www.acronis.com (free fully functional 30 day trial)....you can make the GOOD drive function as a single/only drive and try to repair the BAD drive..... If you are able to repair the bad drive then you can enable RAID1 or go back to RAID0.
The point here is, if you go back to RAID0, you will not have any redundancy, so if the drive fails again.... You're toast!!!
This is why I am advising you, once you've made sure that both drives are GOOD and you can semi-trust them, to convert to RAID1. Observe the drive for a time, and if it continues to behave, then you can consider going back to RAID0 if this is what you want.
In my experience, unless you have a real good reason to use RAID0, you should not. The performance benefit, with only one drive controller card is really negligable... You would be better off with RAID1 where if one drive fails, to other would take over until you have replaced the BAD drive and reestablish the RAID1.....
 
Bits...

I am now going to clone the RAID to a single drive and after that convert the RAID0 into 1.
Any hint how to do that ona Dell Precision?
(I increase your points)

Sumukha.... I would assist you even if you did not increase the points. It is not about the points.....
What model of Dell precision....?

390

I am attaching a pdf with all the documentation on how to modify and use RAID on your Dell Precision 390 Workstation.... it has all the information I have about this model. Just read it carefully starting on page 15.....
Bits....

Precision-390-RAID-Documentation.pdf

Couple thoughts. Is pc compatible with win 7? Does it need a bios update.
Are you using win7 Home, not compatible with raid drivers unless using hardware card.

Hi Centerv, it was all recognized and installed like a charm.

Bytes: I have cloned the RAID0 to a single drive, and the error does not show. So you are right about the bad sectors.
Next step I will test the RAID0 drives one by one.

Since I really need this machine, it'll take some days.

.....installed like a charm.

Understood, but please check if there is a bios update available from dell.
Good luck

Glad to hear this Sumukha.
You seem to be not using the correct "wording" for cloning and I have been following along to avoid confusing you but at some point it could become dangerous because it could lead to a misunderstanding and this to executing a wrong command or procedure because of my  "Assuming"...
You mention above "..I have cloned the RAID0 to a single drive..." Did you mean "...I have disabled RAID0.." ? As soon as you disable RAID, your system defaults to using a single drive as any normal system would, so one of 2 drives in your scenario becomes drive C as a single drive.
The other you mention: ".....installed like a charm" Did you mean: "... it disabled RAID0 like a charm..."? ... I'm just trying to make sure we are on the same page here and that I am not misunderstanding you by assuming something.
The BIOS update centerv is recommending above, it is a needed step in some brands, for example IBM/Lenovo, where the BIOS of their computers need extensive updates to be able to support Windows 7.
In Dell, this is a double-edged sword. I have a Dell Precision m6300 laptop and have learned the hard way that you need to be careful with what Dell calls a BIOS update. The computer shipped originally with version A01. It was having all kinds of problems with the fingerprint scanner.
They came up with A02 which solved some of the fingerprint scanner problems but then messed up the memory handling. So they skipped A03 for no reason or explanation and came up with A04.....
They fixed some of the issues with the fingerprint scanner but created other ones and the problems with the memory became worse....
This kept happening over a period of 30-60 days where they would come up with a BIOS version and then remove it from the site, then put it back in, then come up with a previous version fixed....... It was a MESS.... literally overwhelming.
They disregarded completely the established procedures of versioning and updates where you would normally start somewhere, lets say to keep it simple on V.1 and minor updates would be v.1.01 .... v.1.02 and mayor updates would  be v.2 .... v.3 and so forth.
So a word of caution on BIOS updates from Dell for the precision models. My advise, don't download the BIOS updates from their support page but rather from their FTP site and only apply them if you need to fix something specific that you know is being addressed in the new BIOS.... Before updating, make sure you have a copy of the current BIOS you are using in case you need to go back... This is just in my experience with Dell and the Precision line in particular.... I have not seen this happen in other models of Dell I repair or update on a daily basis...
Bits....

I have the latest BIOS A 2.6, which is pre-Win 7 (2008).
No trouble installing the RAID drivers on W7 (had Vista before)
My Raid0 is partitioned to a C and E drive.

Cloning: with Acronis I clone (tools and utilities> cloning) the RAID (C and E partition) to a single WDRaptor. When I boot from the WDRaptor, the RAID appears as F and G drives, the Raptor as C and D.
So I do not disable the Raid, or take it apart (YET).
The error disappears.

Got you.... we are on the same page!! Great... I will be waiting to hear from you just to know if you were able to fix or had to remove the hard drive that is giving you problems.
If I may, once this gets solved and the hard drive gets either fixed or replaced, my advise is that unless you are a gamer or use your system to do some hard core, processor intensive and hard drive intensive calculations.... you will not notice or need the small performance gain offered by RAID0 .... especially if you are using only one controller card.
A more practicall use would be to use RAID1 where mirroring is used.  If anything happens to one of the mirrored drives, to other one takes over until you replace the bad drive. This makes your system "Redundant" and is the true intention of RAID....
I know you understand this, but, just for the future asker who might need more information to understand this, as per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_1):
".... A RAID 1 creates an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on two or more disks. This is useful when read performance or reliability are more important than data storage capacity. Such an array can only be as big as the smallest member disk. A classic RAID 1 mirrored pair contains two disks (see diagram), which increases reliability geometrically over a single disk. Since each member contains a complete copy of the data, and can be addressed independently, ordinary wear-and-tear reliability is raised by the power of the number of self-contained copies. [edit] RAID 1 failure rate
As a trivial example, consider a RAID 1 with two identical models of a disk drive with a 5% probability that the disk would fail within three years. Provided that the failures are statistically independent, then the probability of both disks failing during the three year lifetime is .
Thus, the probability of losing all data is 0.25% if the first failed disk is never replaced. If only one of the disks fails, no data would be lost, assuming the failed disk is replaced before the second disk fails.
However, since two identical disks are used and since their usage patterns are also identical, their failures cannot be assumed to be independent. Thus, the probability of losing all data, if the first failed disk is not replaced, is considerably higher than 0.25% but still below 5%.
As a practical matter, in a well managed system the above is irrelevant because the failed hard drive will not be ignored. It will be replaced. The reliability of the overall system is determined by the probability the remaining drive will continue to operate through the repair period, that is the total time it takes to detect a failure, replace the failed hard drive, and for that drive to be rebuilt. If, for example, it takes one hour to replace the failed drive, the overall system reliability is defined by the probability the remaining drive will operate for one hour without failure...."
Bits ...

150px-RAID-1-svg.png

I disagree with you on that point.
I am always gaining around 20 - 25% speed (measured w benchmark software) when using RAID0.
This matches my experience while working on the machine.
My RAID0  w two  SATA drives is even faster than a WDRaptor at 10.000rpm.  (I am not a gamer).

I agree .... there is a benchmark gain without any doubt.... this is what RAID 0 was created for in the first place....
What I mean is "noticeable" performance gain. In other words, your Excel, Word or most non-hardrive intensive applications will see a "noticeable" difference.
This said, if you don't have lots of memory and you do lots of hard drive caching .... then you will see a hugh improvement.

Correction: "...Excel, Word or most non-hardrive intensive applications will NOT see..."

hugh .... was typing huge.... my fingers are slipping all over the place today...

Tried last night to do the transfer RAID 0 into 1 trick, but I don't have the tool installed in Windows.
It doesn't work in the RAID set up either.
So I really have to take out the HDDs, reformat and check for bad sectors.
Then rebuild the RAID and clone back from the Raptor.
Bummer.

And now another trouble:
I noticed after cloning the RAID0 to the Raptor, I noticed a message that my copy of Windows is not Genuine. How's that possible?

These things happen.... After we finish this thread, it will give you an option to ask a related question..... Do it since this background is important to consider.
 
Bits....

Going crazy here...
Since the RAID0 could not be converted into a 1, I had to delete the 0.
After taking out the drives, the Raptor crashes with a 0x000000c.
Will reconfigure the RAID after the drives are checked and hope that this will be ok.

I though that was what we were doing? We were waiting for you to check the drives individually before recreating the RAID.....
Bits ...

We are still waiting. 20% to go. Hope the raptor is fine after seeing his buddies again.

Even worse now: The intel boot agent, which lets me access and set up the RAID is not available.

Got it running again. Raptor is happy, Next will clone Raptor to Raid0

Here we go again:

Activation context generation failed for "c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-m..corruptedfilerepair_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_00b64a0b7c8801d0\MsiCofire.dll".Error in manifest or policy file "c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-m..corruptedfilerepair_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_00b64a0b7c8801d0\MsiCofire.dll" on line 2. Invalid Xml syntax.
(in the application event log)

and

The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume \Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy1. (in the system event log)

Last resort would be to replace the MsiCofire.dll, right? Any idea how?

Defer to Bits... on this but I can't help putting in my 2 cents.
Not familiar with your workstation, but the raid specs are very specific as to what the unit is capable of, types of drives etc.  Have you read it closely?

As to the drive, they're cheap enough, especially refurbs. Easy enough to grab one and solve that issue.

Are you conflicting with win7 soft raid?
Check this link for info.   Cheers Bits...  

http://www.softwaresecretweapons.com/jspwiki/windows-7-software-raid-disk-partition-and-volume-context-menus 

centerv: These HDDs are not refurbs or even standard Seagates, they are the pricey ES version.

Hi Bits,

each of the drives was taken out of the RAID (disabled RAID), reformatted, and error checked individually with the appropriate tools from Microsoft, Dell and Seagate.
No errors were indicated. All tests were passed flawlessly.
Then the RAID was rebuilt.

I don't see any shortcuts here.

But one thing I noticed yesterday after cloning back to the Raptor (yeah, I'm cloning  lot these days) that the MsiCofire.dll error also appeared at least once in the Error log when only the Raptor was running -- and it was NOT an a log with a timestamp that was cloned from the RAID.

And one more thing I noticed is that the error always shows during defragmentation.

Sorry about that. Since you never gave me the results I was under the impresion that you didn't check the HD drives. Well ... If we stick to the facts we have gathered:
1. "..The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable..." .
2. You are getting corrupt files when you defrag.
3. You checked the HDD individually and you are sure they have no errors.
4. When you clone the 2 RAID0 drives to a single volume, the problem dissapears so we know that the problem is not with your software installation.
It does seem to be a problem with the RAID controller. I would very carefully go over the instructions on the RAID of page 15 of the user's manual I posted above. We know the problem comes up as soon as you enable the RAID so without any doubts this is where we have to dig in.
I use Dell Precision Workstations (they are the best for business as far as I'm concerned). Dell uses a very good hard drive diagnostic utility that picks up on errors other software misses. You can access it when you boot the computer by pressing F12 and after it runs the Quick Tests it will give you the option of running in depth tests on the hard drives.
I do have another question for you: How long has this RAID0 configuration been working before it started giving you problems?
I hope this helps....
Bits...

(they are the best for business as far as I'm concerned).  Glad you qualified that Bits... :-)

ES Drives    All firmware updates current?
Intel raid drivers and win7 have been known to have difficulties. Checked into it?
If you have corrupted win7 files then run sfc /scannow

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

Hi Bits and centerv,

centerv: ES firmware updates and Raid drivers have been looked into, sfc has been run countless times, thanks for the reminder.

The Raid 0 was working fine on Vista for about a year and did not show any errors when installing W7.

Here is the good news:
The corrupted Volume shadow error has not shown in the last five days!!!!.

The
Activation context generation failed for "c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-m..corruptedfilerepair_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_00b64a0b7c8801d0\MsiCofire.dll".Error in manifest or policy file "c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-m..corruptedfilerepair_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_00b64a0b7c8801d0\MsiCofire.dll" on line 2. Invalid Xml syntax.

persists, no matter if on a RAID or a single drive.

This really makes me think that it is either a corrupted file or driver, not a HDD issue.

Hello Sumukha,
I agree with the above. When your HDD had errors it could have easily have corrupted this file. It seems as if the MsiCofire.dll found something corrupt and keeps reporting on it.
The MsiCofire.dll is the dynamic library module that handles Corrupted MSI File Recovery Diagnostic (whatever that means)....

Unfortunately windows is very good at sending false messages.
I think at this point I would strip the unit and do a repair install without raid.
Image it when working well and then go for raid again.

centerv,
I agree with you that windows is very good at sending false messages,
but stripping the unit for a possibly false message wouldn't be my choice.
Also, how do you repair install W7? I understood that this wasn't even possible anymore in Vista

Bits..
Whatever I am reading about MsiCofire.dll is not leading anywhere. I am wondering how to replace it?

>>> I understood that this wasn't even possible anymore in Vista.....
More confusion??? It IS win7?

Not as bad as you might think,. the repair install.
I don't know how long you're going to chase this before I don't know where you are any longer.
At some point I cut my losses and start over  double checking everything IMHO

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

Sumukha, we are missing something here.... I'm not sure where. You might have omitted some important detail. The procedures we've done should have solved the problem long ago. I could be the result of the upgrade from Vista.
I, at this point, will agree with Centerv (partially).... I would do a clean install and get this over with.... (of course, as usual, make sure to backup your data).
The reason I mention a clean install rather than a repair install is because you've run the SFC and none of your critical system files report as damaged. I'm not sure that a repair install will overwrite existing error logs generated by MsiCofire.dll...
On the other hand, we (both centerv and me) are dealing with another question on a user that wants to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 and the discussion has brought up a lot of disagreement about the pros and cons of an upgrade (which is basically your scenario), so, you could be suffering from one of these cons from the upgrade.
Bits...

No question a clean install is the most desirable.

This particular machine was running Vista before with this RAID0, but it was not upgraded to W7.
W7 was installed under the advanced options, and files were migrated via Wizard.

>I'm not sure that a repair install will overwrite existing error logs generated by MsiCofire.dll...<
I hope so...

I will do the repair-install next weekend on the cloned single drive and see where that leads me (thanks centerv for pointing at this- I thought that repair install was no longer possible post- XP.
Until then I guess I have taken so much time from both of you, that I better close this tread, and assign points to both of you.
If anything else comes up, I'll post it here.