I have a Western Digital 2TB External Hard Drive, USB. Never a problem with it until the other day! Copied files to it successfully. Rebooted PC to verify files on WD Drive. Shutdown and restarted with Acronis to perform PC Backup as usual. WD Drive plugged in USB after Acronis loaded (in DOS mode). Drive listed correct in Acronis. Then errored when trying to update last backup, said “cannot read file”. Shut down system and tried again, same error. Read directories just fine, then Acronis locked up, had to force power off after pulling USB on WD External Drive. Now cannot read files folders on WD External Drive. Windows popup says “format drive”? Disk Mgt shows drive as unformatted. Can see files but not restore due to corrupt WD External Drive corrupted Master Boot Record. Searched everywhere how to rebuild Master Boot Record only so I don’t loose all important files on WD Drive. Anyone know how to rebuild the Master Boot Record without formatting so I can save my files and backups? WD Utilities shows drive is ok when those tests are run. Does not test the Master Boot Record!! Please help
Hello,
I recommend you try to recover your files using a data recovery software and then format the drive in order to use it again.
If Acronis cannot read the original backup it’s because there is an error on the disk, like a bad sector or multiple bad sectors.
Please note: before running backup utilities like Acronis you should run chkdsk first.
You could try running chkdsk :x /f where x = drive letter of external drive. If there are bad sectors it will indicate them or tell you it cannot read them.
A better solution is to use a dedicated disk utility like the Western Digital diagnostic utilities. They just tell you the drive is bad. I have seen WD diags certify the drive to be good and on subsequent runs label it bad. That’s not the fault of the diags it’s the nature of bad electronics or surface faults on the drive.
To get a visual of the bad sectors, try a free hard drive utility like Victoria or MHDD. Be very careful when using either, you need to understand what you are doing and never press keys to see what they do. Either one will tell you whether surface defects are unreadable or hard to read.
chkdsk :x /r is a bit more drastic. It forces chkdsk to scan the entire surface and do automatic repairs. That can either solve the problem or ruin your disk. chkdsk :x /f is safer and it will often get a system running which is not working.
Once you get multiple bad sector errors, you’d better salvage whatever data you can real fast.
Thank you for your email. I attempted chkdsk /f + the WD Diagnostic Utilities. The WD software ran its scans and reported the drive as ok! The checkdisk reported files ok. Cannot remember the program but it reported “MFT + MFT Mirror are bad”. I assume that to be the Master File Table as the reason Windows loads the drive, then pops up with the “need to format” window. Used a file recovery program which listed all the existing files and folders correctly but could not restore them. How do I rebuild the Master File Table & Mirror without formatting and loosing 2 TB of backup files and images? Thanks RaySent: Friday, January 20, 2017 at 10:22 AM
From: gordo999 <wd@discoursemail.com>
Subject: [WD Community] [WD External Drives/External Drives for PC] Acronis True Image corrupted WD Book Master Boot Record. Help! 
gordo999
January 20
If Acronis cannot read the original backup it's because there is an error on the disk, like a bad sector or multiple bad sectors.
Please note: before running backup utilities like Acronis you should run chkdsk first.
You could try running chkdsk :x /f where x = drive letter of external drive. If there are bad sectors it will indicate them or tell you it cannot read them.
A better solution is to use a dedicated disk utility like the Western Digital diagnostic utilities. They just tell you the drive is bad. I have seen WD diags certify the drive to be good and on subsequent runs label it bad. That's not the fault of the diags it's the nature of bad electronics or surface faults on the drive.
To get a visual of the bad sectors, try a free hard drive utility like Victoria or MHDD. Be very careful when using either, you need to understand what you are doing and never press keys to see what they do. Either one will tell you whether surface defects are unreadable or hard to read.
chkdsk :x /r is a bit more drastic. It forces chkdsk to scan the entire surface and do automatic repairs. That can either solve the problem or ruin your disk. chkdsk :x /f is safer and it will often get a system running which is not working.
Once you get multiple bad sector errors, you'd better salvage whatever data you can real fast.
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There’s no way to automatically rebuild an MFT. It is the Master File Table and if it’s messed up I’m afraid you’re out of luck.
However, if chkdsk reported the disk was OK the MFT must be OK. chkdsk could not run if the MFT was bad. Neither could WD diags. I would suspect the program reporting it bad is bad itself or malware.
The ‘need to format’ error is a sign of a bad partition. That could be the sign of bad sectors. To find bad sectors you’d have to run chkdsk :x /r where x is the drive letter you’re checking.
If there are many bad sectors chkdsk could take all night, or even a couple of days, to finish using the /r parameter.
The MFT is a highly complex database which references all files and file attributes on the disk. The MFT itself is regarded as a file. It’s so complex that even an expert would have trouble repairing it.
You need to step back from the problem and do some research. There are different kinds of file recovery programs.
Your problem may not be as bad as it appears, or it could be worse. A simple error in a partition table can make the entire drive seem unrecoverable.
Try the forum at hddguru:
