How to repair an NTFS hard drive directory on a Mac?

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I have an external 4TB NTFS Seagate backup plus drive connected to my 2011 i7 iMac. I recently tried to move a file from one folder/directory to another on the same NTFS disk, and the whole folder disappeared. Neither Drive Genius nor OS X Disk utility can fix an NTFS directory (I've tried), and they say to reformat the drive. My parallels Windows XP VM only sees the virtual c/ drive when I run chkdsk, and the same goes for Windows Norton disk doctor.

The disk still mounts on my mac (thanks to the special seagate mac NTFS drivers, I could probably still write to it if I weren't worried about overwriting the vanished folder), and every folder (along with its contents) is still accessible except for the one that vanished.

Seagate's utility says the hard drive has no hardware problems. This has to be some stupid problem with the NTFS directory, and I'm sure I could fix it if only I could get an NTFS repair utility to work in OS X (apparently there aren't any robust apps here) or get my windows XP VM to see the disk while running an appropriate PC program. Any suggestions? (The folder has HD video that I've recorded and edited, and it won't fit on any of my other drives unless delete a lot of files, so data recovery and file transfer would be a last resort).
 

Slydude

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M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
I'm going to tell you the steps I would try in Fusion since that's the VM software I'm most familiar with. The steps in other VM software should bed similar. This may allow the Windows XP VM to "see" the drive. It assumes the drive is external.

1. If the drive is mounted in OS X eject it so that it is no longer in use by OS X and disconnect it from the computer.
2. Launch your VM and let XP load.
3. Re-connect the drive to the computer. You will likely be asked whether to connect it to Mac or Windows. Choose Windows. XP should now be able to mount the drive letting utilities see it.

If that does not work let us know what software was used to create the VM.
 
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Slydude

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You're welcome. Glad that sorted things out.
 

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