exFAT volume often gets corrupted

I really think it's shocking how there still isn't a way to have a reliable file system that can be read and written to on both windows and OSX. (with files over 4GB in size)

I've tried various 3rd party solutions to no avail, exfat is so unreliable it should be dropped.

All solutions lead to corruption eventually.

Apple should pony up and pay for an NTFS license. It's not like they can't afford it and it isn't doing them any favours by not doing it!

It's like when you import your photos from your iphone to windows and they are all upside down!

I'm sure microsoft are just as bad, but it's just petty and isn't helping any customers no matter which side of the fence they are on (windows or OSX)

Currently looking for a windows program to organise my 250GB iphoto library.

It's been corrupted for the last time and I'm not having 2x250GB backups just incase.

Microsoft and OSX need to hook up and standardise a format that works for both.

How hard can it be?

Ironically I'm back here again.... (and no doubt will be back again) OMG! NEO_AMiGA you are amazing!

Stress now gone! My exFat partition in diskutil would not repair my exfat, nor ntfs drives. This happens about once a quarter... and the fix is soooo simple!

Why can't apple just implement this as part of 'repair' button functionality. After all their crappy file code did the dirty in the first place! (grrrr dodgey apple drivers)

I have a mac HFS+ partition, exFat + win8 ntfs partition and all but the HFS partition disappeared.

I got a bad file descriptor error the second time I ran "fsck_exfat -d disk0s3" twice and woo hoo, then used diskutility and whammo it remounted the drive and away we went.

Happy times! Bookmarking and blogging for future reference!

GibsonRed wrote:

I really think it's shocking how there still isn't a way to have a reliable file system that can be read and written to on both windows and OSX. (with files over 4GB in size)

I've tried various 3rd party solutions to no avail, exfat is so unreliable it should be dropped.

All solutions lead to corruption eventually.

Apple should pony up and pay for an NTFS license. It's not like they can't afford it and it isn't doing them any favours by not doing it!

It's like when you import your photos from your iphone to windows and they are all upside down!

I'm sure microsoft are just as bad, but it's just petty and isn't helping any customers no matter which side of the fence they are on (windows or OSX)

Currently looking for a windows program to organise my 250GB iphoto library.

It's been corrupted for the last time and I'm not having 2x250GB backups just incase.

Microsoft and OSX need to hook up and standardise a format that works for both.

How hard can it be?

OSX does have this functionality, but it is disabled as their implementation is buggy, really buggy. (You can google ways to turn it on if you dare) They should get Microsoft to write their drivers for exFat and NTFS!

Sounds like you didn't type 'sudo' infront of the command. And from the looks of it I didn't write that in the original solution, sorry.

So, with your disk and partition try this:

sudo fsck_exfat -d disk0s4

Not sure why i left sudo out in the original post, apologies.

For some reason when I run that in terminal I get:

Eths-MacBook-Pro-2013:~ ethanaylett$ fsck_exfat -d disk0s4

fsck_exfat: Can't open /dev/rdisk0s4: Opening /dev/rdisk0s4

No such file or directory

Am I plugging in the wrong device name?

I may have done it. I now get this:

Eths-MacBook-Pro-2013:~ ethanaylett$ fsck_exfat -d disk2

Opening /dev/rdisk2

fsck_exfat: Can't open /dev/rdisk2: Permission denied

Eths-MacBook-Pro-2013:~ ethanaylett$ sudo fsck_exfat -d disk2

Opening /dev/rdisk2

fsck_exfat: Opened /dev/rdisk2 read-only

** Checking volume.

** Checking main boot region.

fsck_exfat: Invalid jump or signature

Main boot region is invalid. Trying alternate boot region.

** Checking alternate boot region.

fsck_exfat: Invalid jump or signature

Alternate boot region is invalid.

** The volume could not be verified completely.

NEO_AMiGA, you definitely saved me as well. I thought using a LaCie Rugged external drive would keep corruption from physical damage to a minimum only to be handicapped by exFat and boy did I exhaust all of my expertise (including extensive work on Ubuntu and CentOS). As an additional word, for some reason running 'sudo fsck -d /dev/disk###' did not work. I had to run it as 'sudo fsck -d disk###' Curious syntax... Thanks A Million!!!

Perfect! For a while there I thought I would never be able to joint the NEO_AMiGA praise wagon, but I can now say it with everyone else, "YOU ROCK!"

"diskutil list" got me my partition identifier and I used "sudo fsck_exfat -d disk6s2" and it asked for my password and it was done. It's amazing. Thank you!

Its been a while since anyone checked this thread but I was super excited to see this workaround now that my once every few months boot up in Windows and a Recuva session to copy the files on the exFAT with hierarchy intact won't work because my boot camp partition (which shares space with the exFAT partition) is no longer listed as a start up disk.

When I tried the wonder trick above posted by NEO-AMIGA I get this:

$ fsck_exfat -d disk1s2

Opening /dev/rdisk1s2

fsck_exfat: Can't open /dev/rdisk1s2: Permission denied

Anyone got a way to get around tho new layer of denial? I'm not a seasoned terminal operator so I may be doing something wrong.

Unfortunately, I have the same issue.

Macbook Pro (2014) with 240 gig Mac Partition, 240 gig Windows 8.1 partition, Rest Exfat partition.

Sometimes when I boot from Mac to Windows (Startup disk and select Bootcamp, then restart) the exFAT Data partition shows as RAW.

The chkdsk Drive: /R fixed it twice now, but I'd rather avoid that happening at all.

Does anyone know a valid way to avoid the drive corruption? I'm worried crazy about my data =/

Can you help me?

My hard drive detect by Disk Utility

Mount Point : Not mounted
Capacity : 2 TB (2,000,395,698,176 Bytes)

Format : ExFAT
Available : -

Owners Enabled : -
Used : -

Number of Folders : -
Number of Files : -

But after I do diskutil list

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk2

1: Windows_NTFS Job 5 2.0 TB disk2s1

And after I do diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s1, it show

Started file system verification on disk2s1 Job 5

Verifying file system

File system check exit code is 1

Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed

Underlying error: 1: POSIX reports: Operation not permitted

Can anyone help? >,<

It says "operation not permitted". It should mean that you need to call it with sudo

sudo diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s1

I can confirm that if you get

fsck_exfat: Could not update main boot region: Bad file descriptor

after running sudo fsck_exfat -d disk#s# you'll be able to fix the disk using Disk Utility

Like Jack above, I verified the disk name and when then typing sudo fsck_exfat -d disk1

I end up with

[XXXXX:~] XXX% sudo fsck_exfat -d disk1

Opening /dev/rdisk1

fsck_exfat: Opened /dev/rdisk1 read-only

** Checking volume.

** Checking main boot region.

fsck_exfat: Invalid jump or signature

Main boot region is invalid. Trying alternate boot region.

** Checking alternate boot region.

fsck_exfat: Invalid jump or signature

Alternate boot region is invalid.

** The volume could not be verified completely.

and nothing can be done

any ideas? I have both my backup disks corrupted at the same time...

I'm also having the 'resource busy' issue. My situation *****...I just backed up my data to my exfat drive so I could restore/backup to/from both mac and boot camp. Now I've erased my internal HD and installed El Capitan cleanly...and the partition with my backup data won't mount...great.

Try running (where disk0s4 is your exfat) a few times...

sudo fsck_exfat -d disk0s4

Then if this doesn't work go to windows and use:

chkdsk d: /F

(change d: to your drive letter on windows)

Then return to osx and see if it's up and repeat... sometimes I need to repeat both.