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The "ntfs-ng used blocks count mismatch "problem

2021-09-26
2021-11-06
  • John Pezzano

    John Pezzano - 2021-09-26

    I tried running the latest version 8/17) and the previous version (June '21) on two computers that sit side by side. Both systems have internal SSD. I connected another standard disk drive configured as one big NTFS disk to another SATA port on each computer (not the same drive). It's recognized by Windows. No problem.

    I boot Clonezilla and try both a full disk to image and a partition to image backup from the SSD to the second drive. On both machines I get the "ntfs-ng used blocks count mismatch " error using either partition or disk clone. All the partitions (boot, C:, Recovery) have the error.

    Some history:

    Both these computers are located at the non-profit where I volunteer my time.

    I've used clonezilla many times but intermittently for many years and have extensive experience with Unix.

    When I upgraded the systems from Win 7 to Win 10, those hard disks were in use as we had no SSDs and I successfully cloned each before the upgrade using the slow external USB. Then I upgraded those systems with those disks. That was last year.

    Early this year, I donated sufficient money to purchase two SSD drives. I then cloned the hard drives to the new SSDs internal - internal SATA. The SSD SATA drives were smaller so I used the proportional shrink option. Both SSDs came up fine and Windows 10 has been running successfully on the SSD drives for many months. I kept the original drives intact just in case.

    Using internal SATA to SATA is a LOT faster than going to external USB for cloning even given the time that it takes to open the computer, attach both cables to the computer and drive, then undoing everything when completed.

    I connected the drive on one computer in Windows to the SATA again and noticed that Win10 had disabled the drive because it recognized that the ID was the same as the SSD so I switched the drives so Computer A had Computer B's drive and vice versa. Windows saw the drives as different so it had no issue. I then removed all the partitions under windows and formatted the drive and did the same on the other computer. Windows now saw the formatted drive as just one big empty drive. I'm not sure this is related to the problem but I wanted to mention it anyway.

    After failing, I tried running "chkdsk C: /f" on each system which it had to do on reboot. No errors were found.

    I have not tried doing it to an external drive because I spent so much time debugging today, I got tired and went home (I'm too old for long hours any more), having retired 19 years ago. I can go back another day but have to do the work when the museum is closed because the computers are used all day.

    My feeling it is a drive issue that may have been caused by going from a larger hard drive to a smaller SSD. I don't think the partitions are the problem but possibly the overall disk size is incorrect.

    Any suggestions?

     
  • Steven Shiau

    Steven Shiau - 2021-10-01

    Thanks for your feedback.
    So it looks like the ntfs-3g you are using from Clonezilla live has some issues about mounting your NTFS on the SSD.
    Recently we included newer ntfs-3g, i.e., 2021.8.22-2 in Clonezilla live 2.8.0-9. The ntfs-3g version you used I believe was 2017.3.23AR.3-4.
    Therefore, maybe you can give Clonezilla live >= 2.8.0-9 a try?
    https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

    Steven

     
    • John Pezzano

      John Pezzano - 2021-11-04

      I tried the new version and got the same result.

       
  • Steven Shiau

    Steven Shiau - 2021-11-06

    Linux kernel 5.15 will come with good support for NTFS, and I believe in the future there will be more excellent tools about NTFS. Hence someday we can fully support NTFS well in GNU/Linux.
    For the moment, I have no idea how to fix the issue you have. Sorry.

    Steven

     

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