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Corrupt MFT on Steam HDD

rtwjunkie

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So, a couple months ago I decided to get a larger HDD for my Steam games (I prefer to keep Steam separate from my other games, just to be tidy). I used the Acronis WD edition to clone the drive to the larger one, because I was lazy.

Since then, I've had 50% of my shutdowns result in the Win 8.1 "frown face" bluescreen with 0xc000021a. Basically didn't care too much, nor did I put two and two together until this weekend. I decided to track it down. Since I know the majority of those errors relate to the need for updated drivers, I decided to check all of them, with the only needing update being the LAN drivers. Got updates for those, but the issue persisted. Decided to see if I had a bad HDD (although SMART status for ALL drives is top-notch) and ran CHKDSK on all HDD. All were fine except the Steam drive.

On that one, CHKDSK reported it was aborting, because the MFT was corrupted. Knowing that there is a mirrir of the MFT also, I tried out program Test Disk, just to see if it could b repaired. What do you know, the mirror was also corrupted and the issue could not be resolved. I checked the Event Logs, and Windows was reporting on every sign on and logoff that that the Steam drive was corrupted (but not detailing it as MFT corruption). That by the way, is the only issue, so I suspect that is the cause of the shutdown bluescreens.

As a result of me running CHKDSK on a drive that had a corrupt MFT, I can no longer run defrag on that HDD, due to CHKDSK being scheduled. That now tries to run, but cannot on startup, due to the corruption of the MFT.

Funny thing is, I can play all my Steam games, and access each and every folder on hat drive in Windows Explorer, which normally you cannot do if the MFT is corrupt. So, decided to get a 1TB drive and just expand for the future, even though I don't believe that drive itself is bad. I think it is purely software-related, and probably is a result of me cloning that drive out of laziness.

EDIT: I did think about changing SATA cables, but because all games are there in their completeness, including games installed since then that is probably not likely the issue. The only real manifestation other than the logs, CHKDSK warning, and shutdown bluescreen, is that Steam client keeps trying to update the same date, which is the November 14th update. This is just about the time I cloned the drive, highly coincidentally.

After I do that I will attempt to re-format the current Steam HDD, and it should be as good as new, since there are no SMART problems reported, and WD Diagnostics also ran a full test and found no errors with the drive.

Any thoughts? Is my assessment of the situation correct?
 
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As a result of me running CHKDSK on a drive that had a corrupt MFT, I can no longer run defrag on that HDD, due to CHKDSK being scheduled. That now tries to run, but cannot on startup, due to the corruption of the MFT.

It's called a "Dirty Bit". There is software to remove the dirty bit, but it's not fullproof, and rather dangerous, because the dirty bit isn't meant to be removed other than by successfully running a chkdsk.

After I do that I will attempt to re-format the current Steam HDD, and it should be as good as new

That's the preferred option. I had a similar issue when using Acronis last week. Turns out wiping things fresh and starting again is much much easier.
 

rtwjunkie

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@RCoon: yeah, I discovered the whole dirty bit, and decided any dangerous effort on my part would likely have disastrous results for the OS itself, even though it is on a separate SSD, and will go ahead the long route of re-installing.

Also added an EDIT on my OP.
 

rtwjunkie

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UPDATE: So, I put Steam on a different drive and removed the corrupt MFT drive, and problem seems to have gone away. I had reformatted the drive while both were attached but PC had still trouble shutting down without a blue screen. Now that it's completely removed and using the replacement Steam drive, CHKDSK works, and it restarted once and shut down once without error. I'll have to do it a few more times to call the problem solved, but it looks good.

Now the only errors I get in Event Log are yellow warnings about the drivers failing to load for my USB3.0 (hooked to internal 3.0 connector) AFT card reader. Probably there is an updated driver on their website.

Just figured I would update this in case anyone has a similar issue in the future and can then see a solution instead of just a problem.
 
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Glad to see things were resolved. Amazing at how a possible failing hard drive can cause some odd issues huh?
 

rtwjunkie

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Mouse Coolermaster Sentinel III (large palm grip!)
Keyboard Logitech G610 Orion mechanical (Cherry Brown switches)
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Start10 & Fences 3.0 installed)
Glad to see things were resolved. Amazing at how a possible failing hard drive can cause some odd issues huh?

Thanks! Yes. As you can tell, it took a while to narrow down the issue, but it showed one thing: When a problem appears, try to think of the last thing changed, whther hardware or software, as a starting point.
 
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