Fix “Unexpected clusters per mft record (-127)”

I encountered this error yesterday after trying to fix some Windows bootloader issues in Ubuntu with ms-sys. Needless to say, I just created more issues and eventually couldn’t even mount my Windows partition from Ubuntu, as this would happen:

# mount -t ntfs-3g -o force /dev/sda1 /mnt/win
Unexpected clusters per mft record (-127).
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.

I tried to recover it using a Windows XP disk, but that didn’t work because it wouldn’t recognize my C:\WINDOWS folder! At this point, I was getting pretty worried.

So, back in Ubuntu, I do a bit more reading and find out about the testdisk command (apt-get install testdisk) and a nice post about how to use it on the Ubuntu forums. To summarize, this is what I took out of that post to get mount to actually work after:

After starting testdisk, choose “No log”, choose the correct HDD and “Proceed”, choose “Intel”, choose “Advanced”, select the Windows partition, choose “Boot”, then choose “Rebuild BS”.

If testdisk gives you a warning that the “Extrapolated boot sector and current boot sector are different”, then choose “Write”.

Sure enough, something was messed and it was able to fix it after I selected “Write”.

After all this, mount worked, and when I rebooted, the Windows XP disk detected the installation and I was able to fix my MBR like I wanted.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Planet COSI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

12 Responses to “Fix “Unexpected clusters per mft record (-127)””

  1. braino
    April 24th, 2009 16:05
    1

    wow, thank you so much! I thought all my save games were lost :)

  2. Ryan Lewis
    April 25th, 2009 15:37
    2

    Haha, I’m glad I could help. =]

  3. ABE3K
    May 1st, 2009 05:26
    3

    Unbelievable!
    I’ve been messing around with testdisk for hours and finally decided to format the partition then I’ve stumbled on your post and you pointed out the right direction !
    and now I’m able to get the recovery consul thanks to you.

  4. MageSlayer
    July 2nd, 2009 16:27
    4

    Thanks, man

    Testdisk+your micro-howto do wonderful things!!!

  5. g-netix
    July 6th, 2009 15:03
    5

    Fantastic! Saved my ass right when I thought all my data was lost.

    THANKS MAN!

  6. dmed
    January 16th, 2010 17:24
    6

    fixed my problem of “Unexpected clusters per mft record (-127)” when i was trying to mount my vista under linux. I had previously messed up the partitioning with bootitNG. Thanks.

  7. Erwin
    April 4th, 2010 07:40
    7

    Thanks, Ryan — after installing a new SSD disk and some adventures in GRUB I managed to render my NTFS partition unmountable, probably by running “grub-install /dev/sda1″ rather than /dev/sda.

    Using testdisk as described above helped.

  8. Ken Ng
    September 6th, 2010 21:59
    8

    really thank for this helping tips!! it works and now my ntfs got mounted!!

  9. Kevin T.
    October 11th, 2011 22:33
    9

    I had a serious mishap after doing grub-install /dev/sda1. I thought I’d have to start from scratch. I’ve been using Testdisk to salvage a few things, but I never knew about what you wrote about…

    Thanks a lot! You really saved me.

  10. arka
    October 19th, 2011 20:10
    10

    Thank you a lot, you really helped me :)

  11. abz
    October 23rd, 2011 12:08
    11

    Thanks a lot dudee!
    you really save my windows and most important data in it, :)

  12. voss
    January 23rd, 2012 15:31
    12

    I was just about reinstall windows and crying because of losing data, and then…… You made my day! Thank you!

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