While using Ubuntu's built-in backup tool, which uses Duplicity, I recently got the following error:
Backup failed
Error opening file '/media/yoshee/FreeAgent Drive/Backup/duplicity-full.20140514T064948Z.vol2132.difftar.gpg': Input/output error
After some research, I discovered that the best way to fix this on an NTFS drive is to boot into Windows - using either a Windows Live DVD or an actual machine you have with Windows installed - and run the following command in the command prompt:
chkdsk D: /R
Where D is the letter of the drive you want to check. /R asks check disk to fix and resolve any issues it finds.
Make sure you are running Command Prompt as an administrator.
The process took six hours for me on my external hard drive, but once it had run through, I was able to complete my backup from within Ubuntu with no issues.
