Ubuntu/Arch Linux : USB Error Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault

It can be quite common to use a USB drive on your Linux box and then have to copy file to a Windows computer. When you reconnect the USB drive to your Linux box you may get a similar Error to the following :

Failed to mount '/dev/sdd1?: Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's softRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot into Windows twice.

This can seem a bit daunting but thankfully the solution is quick by installing 'ntfsprogs'. ntfsprogs is a suite of NTFS utilities based around a shared library.

Arch

$ pacman -S ntfsprogs

Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs

Then run the command (note : change the drive to match the same as you get with the error) :

$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdd1

See the man file for full details.

$ man ntfsprogs