Invalid dir structure

New hard drive, no data but formatted ntfs.
Boot from USB recovery disk, with Back-up on external Firewire drive, also connected.
Enter recovery and select back-up to restore to only partition.
System restore runs for about an hour, apparently without problem, but at completion I get this error - "Invalid dir structure"
It prompts me to use CHKDSK /f to fix. Tried this but it doesn't fix anything.

Ideas?

 

Try deleting the partition and restore the backup to Unallocated space.

Hope it helps

 

So, keep the drive unformatted before trying the restore?

 

Yes .

 

Thanks. I'll give it a shot.

 

Didn't work.
And I mistyped the error previously. It actually reads:
Incorrect dir structure - Errors in dir tree

 

Oh dear - it sounds like corruption in the contents of the image.

I don't know if the Paragon team will suggest a way of fixing that.

Suggest you wait for a response from them.

 

Are they normally good about responding quickly? Other than here, I've also submitted the issue directly to support and have not yet received any reply.

 

They just come on this site as and when they can

You should get a quick response if you contacted support directly.

 

Hi olrac,

I apologize for the delayed response.

Since the destination drive is new, you most likely have a problem with the source partition causing this error. Have you run CHKDSK on the source? If not, I recommend a full CHKDSK /R if you can spare the time (chkdsk /f if not) and then retry a backup or copy.

To test your backup you can either run the 'Check Archive Integrity' option, or for a quick check use one of the methods in the document linked below. You don't necessarily need to extract anything, just make sure you can enter the archive without an error. https://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=212989&d=1255648104

Are you restoring to a smaller partition size on the destination disk? I have occasionally encountered some issues with this in the past. If this is the case, restoring the same or a larger partition size may work fine.

 

Thanks.
Which is the SOURCE partition? I ran CHKDSK /R on the new drive after attempting the restore, but this didn't fix anything.
After reading other threads elsewhere on the net, I've decided that the new drive may have been damaged before I received it (Newegg didn't pack it very securely). I'll be receiving a replacement soon. Before attempting the restore again, I'll try the "Check Archive Integrity" option. Is this available in the Free version?
The partition that I backed up was around 90GB, and the new drive is 750GB.

 

Hi Olrac,

Source is the original drive from which you made the image. If there were problems with the file structure , or bad sectors there - it is not a good start.

From what you say - it does seem possible the new drive is the problem.

I believe the "Check Archive Integrity" fuction is in the free version ( I don't have the free version installed , but I imagine it is). For that to work - you need to have made the image with the "Control Archive Integrity" option selected.

I don't know if you can select that with the free version, perhaps it is enabled by default.

Can you find" Check Archive Integrity" in the free version?

 

I'll check for the Integrity option when I can.

I ran CHKDSK on the source months ago, but after it had already failed. I never did figure out what the problem with that drive was.
I backed up the drive, and then about a month later XP began acting strange (pre-2005 MCE, SP2 - I can't remember which off the top of my head). So after several other attempts to fix things, I decided to start from scratch and re-install XP.
But XP would not install correctly and restoring from the back-up also would not work.
However, I was able to install both Vista and Ubuntu to the drive with no apparent problems.
That's when I decided to run CHKDSK, and it did state that there were irreparable errors in the disk. Someone suggested it may be a problem with the Dell partition, but I was unable to find a fix. So I gave up on that hard drive and bought the new one.

 

Hi Olrac,

If there was a problem with the source - it may only affect one of the source partitions.

Are you able to image and restore the partitions separately ( or at least all except one) ?

If it is only one partition that has damage - depending which it is - you may be able to get a working o/s on the new drive that way.

 

The source drive had only one partition (plus the Dell partition - about 32 MB), so the back-up was only a single partition.

 

Does DB allow you do modify the content of a partition in the archive mounted as a volume.

If so, try mounting the partition as writable virtual volume and try to fix the volume with chkdsk, etc.

CompareDrives
has 2 programs:

One will traverse the directory tree and compare file attributes with the corresponding hard drive partition. If there's a problem, with directory structures, the program should detect it.

The other program will try to read EVERY byte in every file.

Note that the programs use error handling techniques that are not used by Windows Explorer, and, I expect, are not used by Paragon. So the programs might get further than you have seen before.

Depending on the errors reported by my program, the files might be fixable.