Author Topic: Corrupted and unreadable file  (Read 10793 times)

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Corrupted and unreadable file
« on: February 03, 2005, 05:46:42 AM »
HELP!!  I've been having problems with my USB disk.  I couldn't open my files anymore so I scanned them with avast...and the outcome :  Impossible to scan file:file corrupted and unreadable.  Does this mean that I will never have acces to these file...ever!!!!  These file represent two years of work!!  How could this hapen??  How can I avoid this in the futur? :-[

Offline Eddy

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2005, 09:29:30 AM »
Quote
How could this hapen?
Hard to say, there are all kinds of reasons that can cause this.

Quote
How can I avoid this in the futur?
You can't. (Can you prevent a car from breaking down? Can you prevent a tv from breaking down?)

Quote
Does this mean that I will never have acces to these file...ever!
Only way to tell is after you have tried all possible ways to recover them.

Have you already run a chkdsk on the thumbstick?
Have you already tried to restore the mbr on it?

Offline igor

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2005, 10:06:01 AM »
I'm afraid it's not a good idea to store valuable data on a USB disk only - they are not very reliable.
What kind of file is it and how many are they? Can you read some other files from the disk?
Maybe it would be possible to restore them partially at least...

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2005, 03:04:22 PM »
Hi igor,  thank you for your response.  My USB was my back-up disk (unfortunatly, the originale version that was on the computer was lost after a virus...therefor the computer crashed and the software had to be reinstalled from scratch).  The folders are Microsoft Word documents and some are PowerPoint presentations...and yes there are about one folders out of 6 that I can read(the ones from last semester).  Each folder have about 2 to 6 document files or power point presentations in them.  There are 2 files in particular that one open, only scares and 'Y's appear?!?

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2005, 03:20:22 PM »
Hi Eddy,
Thanks for your input.  Unfortunatly, I can't find the the tool or program to do a check disk and I have no clue what a mbr is.  I only found disck defragement witch did nothing cause of file corruption.

Offline Eddy

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2005, 04:13:50 PM »
What OS do you have?

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2005, 06:17:39 PM »
For Eddy,

Sorry, I'm not to good in computers language and my english is very rusty for that matter... but if this is not the info you need, I'm sorry. 

I hope OS means Système d'exploitation?!? If so, I have Window XP Pro.

Offline Eddy

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2005, 06:44:59 PM »
See the picture for the location of chkdsk

Offline igor

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2005, 08:40:18 PM »
Personally, I would use the disk check only to find out if any problems are detected - certainly not to repair them. If it really is a corrupted disk structure, I would rather let a specialized tools handle them.

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2005, 04:51:46 AM »
My oh my....incredible but true...after two hours of trying to find what Eignshappen voor means and trying to find the english version of it in my computer!!! ???, I finaly found how do to the checkdisk thing with the support trouble shooting thing a 'mamig'...the same window you showed me(WOW).

Anyway...it did nothing for my problem...still can retreive my files. :'(

Thanks anyway Eddy...I had to try something...

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2005, 04:57:12 AM »
Hi Igor,

I was wondering what you mean when you talk of specialized tools.

Offline igor

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #11 on: February 04, 2005, 09:56:14 AM »
Well, if a disk structure is corrupted (it means that e.g. the partition table, boot sector, allocation tables, etc. are somehow damaged - which may not be your case), it's a good idea not to try to repair the drive (as ScanDisk would do), but rather access the drive in "read-only" mode, try to understand the corrupted structure and let the user copy the files to another drive - to minimize the risk of additional damages caused by the "repair".
There's a number of recovery tools available (most of them are not free, however). A few examples coming to my mind... GetDataBack, R-Studio, EasyRecovery, and many others.

There are also tools to repair specific file formats (OfficeRecovery, for example).

Offline Eddy

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2005, 11:22:34 AM »
There still is a freeware version of EasyRecovery.
I got a link to it in THIS THREAD

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #13 on: February 04, 2005, 04:23:00 PM »
Hi guys,

Shit will hit the fan in a few seconds...I been grilling the person who reinstalled my Windows XP pro... to find out that the originale version was in NTFS??? and now its been formated in FAT32???.  Can this be the only reason why I can't acces my documents???  If so, can they be transformed into FAT32(how) or must he reinstalle de NTFS version on a different computer all together?

Hang in there guys...I will get through this...HA-HA!!!!
« Last Edit: February 04, 2005, 04:28:57 PM by Get on the go »

Offline igor

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Re: Corrupted and unreadable file
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2005, 10:38:26 PM »
Well, if something went wrong during the partition conversion, the filesystem might get corrupted, of course - but I don't think it's very likely.