"The file or directory is corrupted..."

I have photos backed up on a laptop hard drive in a USB enclosure,and when I tried to access the drive today, got the message "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable". Any suggestions on recovery?

 

Hi peter.

When exactly do you get this message?

[are you able to get to the folder where the files are stored, then get this error when trying to open it or do you get it as soon as you try to go into the drive?]

What OS are you using?

When was the last time you successfully accessed the data?

Have you tried connecting the drive to anther computer?


Q

 

I get the message when I try to access the drive at all. OS is XP Home, SP3. Was able to access yesterday. On hibernating laptop yesterday, did notice a "delayed write failed" message just before laptop shut down. Get the same message with drive plugged into desktop.

 

Go to device manager and check the drivers [if ther is a fault ther will be a yellow exclamation mark]
Either way try updating the drivers for it [right click the item]

Assuming that ther are no driver faults or no updates available, lets try a Linux live CD, like Ubuntu first of all --> www.ubuntu.com
[you have to download and burn it as an ISO image file, NOT just like a normal data disc.]

Once you have it burned put it in the CD drive and restart to boot from it.

It should boot up to a normal(ish) orange looking desktop with an option at the top called "places" expand that and go to the drive and see if it can read the drive/files, if it can transfer them to somewhere else, preferably onto a USB or another HDD.


If that is not successfull then run http://majorgeeks.com/DiskDigger_d5976.html and see if that digs anything up.

Let us know if that doesn't work as ther is more steps to be taken if needed

Q

 

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you -- my internet connection took 18+ hours to download Ubuntu. No luck. Ubuntu gave an error message "unable to mount the volume 'local disk'. DiskDigger message "error while getting information about the drive \\.\F:": 1392 The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."
In Windows, properties of the drive show as : USED 0 bytes, FREE 0 bytes, CAPACITY 0 bytes.

 

It doesn't sound very promising but what does Windows Disk Management show about this drive? Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc <OK>

 

Hi - Disk management shows nothing under "file system". It believe it was formatted NTFS. Status shows as "healthy(active)" . %Free shows as 100%.

 

Does it appear in My Computer with a drive letter? If not, are you able allocate a drive letter in Disk Managemt? (Right click it)

 

It shows up properly as drive F in My Computer. Clicking on it gives the "Drive is inaccessible. Corrupted or unreadable" message.

 

We're running out of options here. Do you have a boot disk with a file manager on it, BartPE perhaps? Bit of a long shot I know, because it looks like a head crash atm

 

Have you tried chkdsk yet? CHKDSK F: /R

 

Actually, I think what caused the problem is the USB hard drive enclosure. It had a habit of occasionally losing its connection, and I think it happened at just the moment when important info was being written to the drive. Does trying to reformat the drive in NTFS, and then trying some of the recovery software for deleted files in MG's downloads sound like an option for at least a partial recovery?

 

I'd leave any reformatting right out at present. If you haven't run chkdsk that just has to be the way to go. If the drive was formatted NTFS you stand a good chance. If FAT32 not so good.

 

Hi peter, DO NOT FORMAT THE DEVICE! that will make things worse for recovery!

Try DL'ing and running this....

http://www.z-a-recovery.com/download.htm

It is a shareware trial version but it will recover a few files at a time without being paid for

NOTE: i have ust DL'd this myself and i got a false positive on it from my AV, so dont worry if you get the same. i have checked it out and it is safe

It also gave me the option of disabling my AV.... DO NOT DISABLE YOUR AV!

Q

 

Earthling -- Thanks. Running checkkdisk with the repair feature worked. I had tried to run checkdisk previously without the /r, and got the same corrupted/unreadable error message. Looks like it's time to throw out the USB hard drive enclosure and get a more reliable one. Thanks again. and thanks to everyone else who offered assistance.

 

It's good when it works - you are lucky it wasn't a FAT32 format or you would have been out of luck.

I've had similar problems with enclosures - they are often a bit cheap and nasty. It's a risk not worth taking imo.

 

Glad your sorted peter, you have had a very lucky break ther!

You want to get that data off to another place ASAP!

Q

*note to self: rec' chkdsk for similar prob's in future.