"$mft is corrupt and unreadable" The recommeded action is to use Chkdsk with /f possibly with other parameters. I have gone through this numerous times, without success. I have looked at the mft files with Testdisk and used Repair MFT option. The response is "MFT and MFT mirror matches perfectly" I also used GetDataback which shows on both files a last access date of over two years ago! I don't understand this. Neither am I clear how to use Getdataback to repair MFT if indeed it does need repair. Concurrent issues. The last main thing I did before this occurred was to remove indexing on my C drive. From what i understand this should not impact at all of MFT. I have also been having intermittent isssues with Windows Explorer which regularly reports that it has to shut down. BTW, I have also uninstalled IE7. Any ideas out there as what to do next?? Options I have considered are: Do a full defrag? Use my Acronis backup to restore from a day before this issue first occurred. (Windows Restore is not an option, it lets me go so far then nothing happens, even though I can select a restore point etc. ) Reformat C and rebuild! (I have a D drive which mostly has my documents, downloads etc.