This has worked for me when needed......

Go to "Command Prompt" and run it is as Administrator...
Enter...chkdsk C:[space]/f[space]/r
[obviously leaving a space between C: and /f and /r The "f" stands for "find...and the "r" stands for "repair".]

and see if this does the trick. It will [sometimes] do a better job than scannow but it takes much longer. Plan to lose use of your system for a matter of hours depending on how much you have on your system.

Last comment...I, too, have a WD EHD [My Passport] and just recently had to replace mine. They are not infallible. It gave me a massive headache until I finally gave up and replaced it. At the time it was a couple of years old. Whether that's part of your problem...I don't know...but it's not an impossibility. My system [and I] are much happier now with the new My Passport Ultra.

Hi mxyplux,

Do as anne_ct say and run Command Prompt as administrator.

To do this you must right click on the Command Prompt and choose "Run as administrator" in the right click context menu.

Type (or copy and paste) the following into thew command prompt box to the right of the blinking arrow:

chkdsk c: /r

This will check only the C: drive. The /f command fixes, not finds and using the /r command implies both commands so need for the both of them. See the link below:

https://askleo.com/chkdsk_what_is_it_and_how_do_i_run_it/

Scroll down to where it says > The special case of C:

The instructions and explanation are there. Ignore the content discussed concerning D: in the article. It does not apply to what you need.

Thank you both:

chkdsk C: /f /r didn't fixit. Only C:/ was checked. Took maybe an hour whan I returned the comp was restarted and no mssg. So I ran sfc and got same old mssg as above. I did get the CBS.Log file open, took one good look and said, "Ahah!" Musta been a mile long. I then ventured into Event Viewer and perused the info put forth in the Winnit file and found this sentence, "Windows has made corrections to the file system." Ahah #2! This must be a clue of some sort.

Presumably there is something neither sfc nor chkdsk can fix or the sfc mssg is a false negative. That's hard to believe. Maybe it's just some oddball file(s) lying there loose serving no purpose. That seems a stretch.

==================

I see the WD Element must have problems. People are removing the HDD from it to hook it to something else to recover their data.

==========

I use 2 separate kind of HDD's plus drag N drop some limited stuff to a Thumb drvie for quick retrieval.

May I ask.... Why were you attempting a system restore in the first place?

System Restore is commonly used to undo system changes that you or an
application (including malware and corrupt windows updates) made to your computer without affecting your data files. Many times it will fail if you choose a restore point that is corrupt.

I had tried to change the size of my calander, Rainlendar, on the desktop. Coming out of the options there was no calendar - just the events list. Tried this and that finally tried restore. Why not? it was only 1 week. Well the restore failed (due to corrupt files it said) but the calendar reappeared. So I tried the sfc as described above to fixup the corrupt files. That's it. :-)

I spose I should try to restore to several points with both HHD's to be thorough. See if they all are corrupt etc. What a drag that would be. Both ways - all corrupt and all that trying.

Got it fixt at least for now. I uninstalled KB3022345 and KB3068708. The latter supersedes the former and both were installed. So. No corrupt files and the sfc /scannow function is saved. Whew.

Windows SFC is a good tool, but in itself not the answer to everything.

I recently had a concern with Windows Update. It would not connect. SFC failed to repair identified corrupt files and the WU Troubleshooter reported the service was repaired when it was not.

However, what SFC did do was it provided a log for my review. The log identified the corrupt files and pointed me in a direction. I ended up removing two Windows .NET updates from April and reinstalled them via a stand-alone installer. I then ran the troubleshooter. Everything is fine now. I even received the W10 offer for this W8.1 system.

It took a month, but I finally figured the cause out. The SFC log was an important factor.

DA

Well at 4:00 am MS Auto Update reinstalled KB3068708.

I followed up with the more info link provided for KB3068708 and read it all the way through (this time) and found this:

"When an advanced user runs the System File Checker Tool (sfc.exe), the files are unintentionally flagged as corrupted. There is no impact or actual corruption on a device that is running this update, and this issue will be fixed in a later service update."

This eases the terrible load under which I have been laboring. :-) and probly explains why the sfc log did not show me anything.

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I think, but am not sure, this update or similar is MS's push to promote W10 from within. It mentions "customer experience" and some other high falluting language that is beyond my comprehension. "This update introduces the Diagnostics and Telemetry tracking service to in-market devices." Must be Microsoft Speak. They didn't teach that when I was in school.

Bar Code to me used to mean the air hockey loser buys the winner a beer. Amazing how a words meaning can change with advances in technology. Some guy probably drawing win/lose hash lines on his beer coaster.

I had the same sfc error in win7, and found a site that suggested uninstalling several updates (including the Win10 upgrade notice & related updates). That stopped the sfc error. Later I reinstalled most of those hidden updates to receive the W10 notices, and then sfc /scannow didn't have any errors. So it may indeed be that the "problem" was subsequently fixed. One uninstalled update that I did NOT reinstall was the "Skypes" update, which for me is not needed.