How can I recover a disk drive that has a corrupted Master File Table

You can try using TestDisk to recover your MFT:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced_NTFS_Boot_and_MFT_Repair

-saige-

This is just an addon to noxcho's comment. You can use the trial version to scan the disk and see if the files you need are there. If they are, you need to buy the tool so you can actually recover any data.

Anyway, I'd recommend you just recover your data from your backups. There really is never any need for disk recovery tools...

MBR and MFT are two entirely different items.  One has nothing to do with the other.. the Master Boot Record can exist on any drive format since it is always the very first disk sector on the drive. MFT is specific to NTFS formatted volumes.  There are two copies of it  on the drive if chkdsk can't recover the data then it is rather a long tedious process and your chances of success are limited.  NTFS is fairly resilient but you probably have a failing hard drive.

if you do not need the data, i suggest to run the disk manufacturer's disk diagnostic to ensure the drive operates OK - then you can (if needed) - zero out the drive
personally, i run on such drives als the HDDRegenerator - it often fixes these problems :
http://www.dposoft.net/hdd.html

I would like to thank everyone that replied to my question. I was able to recover my data using GetDataBack. I did have a backup of the disk but some directories were missing, my bad.

Thanks for feedback.

before re-using the drive, i would run a diag on it, to be sure the drive is still ok
i use the ubcd for this a lot :
Hardware diagnostic CD    UBCD

go to the download page, scroll down to the mirror section, and  click on a mirror to start the download
Download the UBCD and make the cd   <<==on a WORKING PC, and boot the problem PC from it
Here 2 links, one to the general site, and a direct link to the download

since the downloaded file is an ISO file, eg ubcd527.iso - so you need to use an ISO burning tool
if you don't have that software, install cdburnerXP : http://cdburnerxp.se/

If you want also the Ram tested - run memtest86+ at least 1 full pass,  - you should have NO errors!
 
For disk Diagnostics run the disk diag for your disk brand (eg seagate diag for seagate drive)  from the HDD section -  long or advanced diag !  (runs at least for30 minutes)

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/                        ultimate boot cd
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html             download page

I've requested that this question be deleted for the following reason:

Not enough information to confirm an answer.

Since noxcho's comment worked for the Asker, that should also be accepted as answer here.

#a40342667