There are many reasons that could result in file corruption like system or application crashes, viruses and bad sectors on the drive, improper file handling, and many more.
Irrespective of the drive you use, hard disk, SSD, USB, SD card, or any other storage drive, any file on the drive is prone to corruption. It may be your Word document, Excel, PDF, or any other Windows program file. When your files become corrupt, your important files become inaccessible.
What to do when a file is corrupted?
When your files get corrupted, you could see similar error messages stating the file is corrupt and unreadable Word files cannot be opened, etc.
When you encounter such error messages, it clearly states that your files cannot be accessed. If you wonder, if there is a way to fix corrupted files? How do I get corrupted files back?
It’s always recommended to have a backup of your important files. If you have missed taking a backup of the file, recover your corrupt file using a safe and trusted file recovery tool before losing access to your important data. Because repairing the corrupt files may lead to data loss sometimes or it might cause severe damage to the file.
With SFWare Hard drive recovery tool you can restore all your corrupted Word, Excel, PSD, PowerPoint, Zip files, and others without any hassle. The software supports the recovery of more than 300 types of file formats and recovers corrupt files from internal and external storage devices. You can easily restore your files back as the tool is available for both Windows and Mac OS.
How To Recover Corrupt Files?
To recover corrupt files, download and install the SFWare hard drive recovery software on your computer. Launch the software.
- From the main screen, select Partition Recovery. Next, select the drive from which you want to recover data.
- It initializes the scanning process, and after the completion of the scanning process, recovered corrupt files are listed.
- You can view the file either in File type view or Data type. Also, preview the file by double-clicking on the recovered file, if you are satisfied with the result, Save your recovered file.
With the help of SFWare Recovery tool, you can recover deleted/lost data from SATA hard drives. Also supports recovery from all type of file systems including NTFS, HFS, HFS+, etc.
Now when you have recovered your file, you can try repairing the corrupt file and verify if the error messages still appear or not.
How To Fix Corrupted Files?
Try the below-mentioned methods to fix the corrupt files. After trying each method, open your file and verify if the problem persists. If you still encounter the issue go to the next method explained.
Method 1: Use the Error Checking Tool
Step 1: Right-click on the Start button → Select File Explorer
Step 2: Go to This PC → Click on the drive where the file exists → select Properties.
Step 3: Click on the option Tools present on top of the window → Click on Check button.
Step 4: Now, Click on Scan Drive.
This process will scan for the errors in the drive and try to recover data from bad sectors. After the completion of the process , reopen your file and see if the corruption still exists.
Method 2: Use CHKDSK command
Step 1: Right-click on the Start button → Run Command Prompt as administrator.
Step 2: Next, type ‘CHKDSK’, then enter a drive letter you would want to scan.
Command: CHKDSK C: /f
Where C stands for the drive letter and /f is chkdsk command option will fix any errors found on the disk.
If your drive is inaccessible and unable to bring back your data, know how to fix the inaccessible drive and get back data from the same.
Method 3: Use SFC or System File Checker
Step 1: Right-click on the Start button → Run Command Prompt as administrator.
Step 2: Type SFC /Scannow to run the SFC scan.
System File Checker will now verify all the operating system files on your computer. It might take a while to finish.
After the completion of the scanning process, restart your computer even if SFC doesn’t prompt you and reopen your file to verify the file is free from corruption.
