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I have an NTFS-formatted USB stick. When I connect it to a Windows system, it works fine. However, I receive this error output when I try and mount the USB stick on my Linux machine:

Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /media/: Command-line `mount -t "ntfs" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=1000" "/dev/sdb1" "/media/sorin/LICENTA"' exited with non-zero exit status 13: $MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 0).
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.

What can I do to fix this issue and make my USB stick usable on Linux again?

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15

The error you are seeing indicates the filesystem is not clean and needs checked by Windows chkdsk. There are components to NTFS filesystem ($MFT and $MFTMirr respectively in this case) which say what is where on the disk. These files no longer match each other, which suggests there may be some type of filesystem corruption.

But because it is NTFS, the only way to truly repair NTFS is Windows' chkdsk utility. (There is a ntfsfix command, but it is NOT going to be of the same quality of fix as Windows' utilities to check NTFS disks).

When you next have your drive connected to the Windows system, if it asks you to scan and fix the drive, allow Windows to scan and fix the drive. It will try and fix the errors in the filesystem that prevent you from mounting in Linux safely.

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6
  • Thomas: thank you very much! so what do i have to do if windows dosen”t ask me to scan and fix the driver? (i am a new linux user) – Daniel Jan 29 '16 at 16:11
  • @Daniel If that "Scan and repair" window doesn't pop up in Windows when you connect the USB stick, then you can right click the drive in the "Computer" window, go to Properties, and under one of the tabs there should be a 'Check disk for errors' box that you can click to run the checks. You may need admin privileges to run the checks, but when you run the checks you should also check the box that says to fix and repair errors on the disk. (I am unsure if this applies to Windows 10, but it should work for Windows 7 and Windows 8) – Thomas Ward♦ Jan 29 '16 at 16:13
  • @Daniel glad to hear it! Since my answer and comments helped you, please click the grey check mark on my answer, to mark this question as resolved, and to mark that my answer solved your issue! :) – Thomas Ward♦ Jan 29 '16 at 16:53
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    ...and what if I don't own a windows machine? – user447607 Mar 31 '17 at 15:34
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    For what it's worth, I just tried ntfsfix on a flash drive which was giving me the same error, and it fixed it. – Jon Bentley May 29 '17 at 19:45
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Linux users need to use ntfsprogs utility. On recent Linux releases, you need to install ntfs-3g utilities, so: sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g or download from ntfs-3g-download

ntfsprogs is a suite of NTFS utilities based around a shared library.
The tools are available for free and come with full source code.

  • mkntfs: Create an NTFS volume on a partition
  • ntfscat: Print a file on the standard output
  • ntfsclone: Efficiently backup/restore a volume at the sector level
  • ntfscluster: Given a cluster, or sector, find the file
  • ntfsfix: Forces Windows to check NTFS at boot time
  • ntfsinfo: Dump a file’s attributes, completely
  • ntfslabel: Display or set a volume’s label
  • ntfslib: Move all the common code into a shared library
  • ntfsls: List directory contents
  • ntfsresize: Resize an NTFS volume
  • ntfsundelete: Find files that have been deleted and recover them
  • ntfswipe: Write zeros over the unused parts of the disk
  • ntfsdefrag: Defragment files, directories and the MFT
  • ntfsck: Perform consistancy checks on a volume
  • nttools: Command-line tools to view/change an offline NTFS volume, e.g. ntfscp, ntfsgrep, ntfstouch, ntfsrm, ntfsrmdir, ntfsmkdir
  • ntfsdiskedit: Walk the tree of NTFS ondisk structures (and alter them)

Be careful with these utilities, they might damage the filesystem, or your hard disk !

With ntfsprogs installed (sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs),
Execute the following commands in a terminal:

$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/partitionName

After this command you should expect the following output:

~$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb3 Mounting volume... FAILED Attempting to correct errors... Processing $MFT and $MFTMirr... Reading $MFT... OK Reading $MFTMirr... OK Comparing $MFTMirr to $MFT... FAILED Correcting differences in $MFTMirr record 0...OK Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully. Setting required flags on partition... OK Going to empty the journal ($LogFile)... OK NTFS volume version is 3.1. NTFS partition /dev/sdb3 was processed successfully.

After this step you should be able to access your external drive partition as usual, mount or use nautilus to access your files.

Source: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/ntfsprogs.htm

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    Thanks Works on debian 10. sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb1 , on a 32GB USB. – EsmaeelE May 20 '20 at 21:51
  • Despite running NTFS check on Windows thrice only the linux tool fixed the problem. – cmoetzing Nov 24 '20 at 9:00

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