# [SOLVED] File or directory is corrupted or unreadable



## Mountainman1863

F:\ is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable

I see this in 'Manage / Disk Management'.

I am running XP Pro/1GB-RAM, and this is one of two ~~80Mb partitions on a 160GB Seagate PATA Barracuda, neither of which is my boot partition. The other partition mounts in WinExplorer and its status is 'Healthy'. I also have a large USB-connected drive for moving files into.

I d/l'ed testdisk_win but have not run it yet. A sticky suggests I need to ask for advice is a partition is hidden. I am not ignorant of drive problems but I'm not a fix expert either.

Fortunately I have another puter, networked with the afflicted one, where I can email and read instructions if I need to shut down the afflicted one.

This problem happened some time ago when the power went off. I had everything conected to an APC SurgeArrest at that time. But I don't know if the device had good MOVs. 

Wondering if I should run testdisk now or do something else first. I know you guys help, so I'll thank you in advance.


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## dai

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

run
chkdsk /r


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

chkdsk f: /r 

"The type of the file system is NTFS.
Unable to determine volume version and state. CHKDSK Aborted."

then doing chkdsk /r

"The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock the current drive.
..in use..."
Meaning, I assume, it cannot run all the partitions, particularly c:


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## dai

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

chkdsk should run when you reboot the computer


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

I'll try to do that and the reboot next. At the moment chkdsk g: /r is running on the other drive's partition, g: after it gave me the option to unmount it. (This takes awhile because both partitions are/were pretty full.)


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## Deleted090308

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

Yes, chkdsk should run at startup.

What's installed/placed on the F drive? 
Please post a screenshot of Disk management.

Run TestDisk again, but follow these steps:

*A.* At the first window, select “*No Log*” and press the <*Enter*> key. 
*B.* Select which drive to analyse, choose “*Proceed*” and <*Enter*>.
*C.* Select partition type – Intel if it’s a PC then <*Enter*>.
*D.* Choose *Advanced* > press <*Enter*>.
*E.* Choose *Boot* > press <*Enter*>.
*New screen - please post back with a screenshot.*

*How to post a screenshot.*


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

This is the screen shot of disk managemen showing C, F, G

F: is the one I need to restore.









I'll run testdisk in a while and upload that screenshot.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

Also the partition shows up in My Computer but I get that same alert...

F:\ is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable


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## dai

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

F is showing no file system is there supposed to be something on it
if not format it


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

Yes, there is supposed to be a lot of stuff on it, maybe 60GB out of the 75 formatted. 

I could not get it to do a chckdisk /r on the F: drive, even after I set it to do one on reboot and then rebooted; it did do one on C: 

Working on testdisk now, but I don't see a Boot option in the Advanced section.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

OK. I went thru the testdisk procedure down to :
D. Choose Advanced > press <Enter>.
E. Choose Boot > press <Enter>.

This is the screenshot of the resulting partitions. I wasnt sure what the 2nd one listed is, maybe the entire drive, but I found a Boot option on the 1st listed partition.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

And I found this o the first partition after I ran the Boot opton. It seems the program found the file table and its backup, but somehow the partition isnt bootable. I do see that the size is about right. I don't know if I should select either of the options.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

I went to www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced_NTFS_Boot_and_MFT_Repair and read a little bit. Looks like the Boot Sector and its backup are good. Looks like the Master File Table and/or its backup is bad. If so, looks like I need to select 'Repair MFT'. 

A confusing thing is the alerts I got don't match what is noted in the web site. I await your suggestions now before continuing.


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## Deleted090308

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

Yes, select "Repair MFT".

If that doesn't help:

*A.* At the first window, select “*No Log*” and press the <*Enter*> key. 
*B.* Select which drive to analyse, choose “*Proceed*” and <*Enter*>.
*C.* Select partition type – Intel if it’s a PC then <*Enter*>.
*D.* Select “*Advanced*” then <*Enter*>. The drive will be analysed.
*E.* Select the partition and choose "*Type*", then <*Enter*>.
*F.* Choose *07* (NTFS), press <Enter>.
*G.* Confirm by typing "*07*", press <Enter>.
*H.* Choose "*Boot*", <Enter>.
*I.* Select "*Rebuild BS*", <Enter>.
*J.* Choose "*List*". <Enter>.
*K.* Can you see your files? If so, choose "*Write*", <Enter>.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

Rapairing the MBR did not help, as it and its mirror were both found to be bad. The List option only poinited out that the error exists no files). So I did the Rebuild BS as described above. That did not fix anything either. After this I did the List again and it states, 'Can't open filesystem. Filesystem seems damaged.' 

The program shows an option to write a new MBR to the first sector (it says write the MBR signature to the MBr sector). Also there is an 'expert' mode and a Superblock search. Their website refers to 3 commercial products. <---Those are the only options I know about at this second.


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## Deleted090308

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

You can use TestDisk to write a new standard MBR, but I doubt that will help.

Try *GetDataBack*.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

OK. Not sure if writing a new MBR will lose any files on the good partition, so.... Next for me is a hardware step--set up my new USB external case with my 500GB drive, then I'll make a backup of the good partition and have space to recover anything from the bad one if I need to go to a commercial product. After the backup, I'll try to write the new MBR with testdisk before I spend money for software that may or may not work. Which is always a last resort for me.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

Well, I've exploited Testdisk as far as I can with no recovery of the missing first partition. I backd up what I could from the second (all except 4 folders) and did the new MBR write. 

I went further and downloaded the trial versions of GetDataBack and even DiskExplorer. GDB only found data on the second partiion, including the missing 4 folders I couldn't get with just windows tools. GDB seems to find nothing at all on the first partition. And I think that is odd. 

Going to explore more with the GDB series and with ZAR.


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## Deleted090308

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

If GDB doesn't find any data I doubt other (commercial) programs will find anything at all.

Some free programs:
*Recuva*
*Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier*
*File recovery and Smart recovery*


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

I tried ZAR on the 1st partition which seemed not to be usable, and I found a LOT (most of everything) on it. Using ZAR I also looked at the primary boot sector and found a couple of values that seem very wrong. I'm attaching this info in hopes of getting some sort of interpretation.

First is a view of the MFT (i think, ZAR0.jpg) then 

a view of the partition table (i think, ZAR1.jpg) where the last two values seem way off then 

a view of some first sector of the partition table 1 (i think, ZAR2.jpg)


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## Deleted090308

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

The file system and relative sectors are wrong on "partition table entry #2".
Should be 07 and 63. But, is that the faulty partition????









Is GDB doing its job?


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

Yes that does seem wrong. Partition #2 has a few errors, but Windows shows it as good with folders/files visible. Partition #1 cannot be brought up by windows or GDB, only so far by ZAR. The ZAR2.jpg in post 21 seems to have bad values in "Clusters per 
MFT entry" = 246 and in "Clusters per INDX block' = 1 .found_par_

GDB seems to work OK, but it does not help at all with partition 1, though it does with partition 2. I'm going to check it out again. (The scans take some time. I don't think my recovery partition is quite big enouh to hold the drive's disk image.)

In the meantime I'm going to go thru ZAR a little more thoroughly and try to see what those above values represent.


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## Deleted090308

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

That's beyond my knowledge, I'm afraid.
What are the numbers on the other partitions?

But - IMHO, it's not just the MFT being corrupt.
When you have recovered as much data as possible the HDD should be checked with SeaTools.

This should force Windows to run *chkdsk /f* on the F: drive after restart:

Click Start >> Run >> type cmd, click OK.
In the command prompt - type *fsutil dirty set F:* - press <Enter>.
Restart the computer.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

I went thru the ZAR processing again; I could not find (or duplicate?) one of the disk views. The MFT (or partition ) table came out the same using the Partition table view (and I noticed the Testdisk signature in the ASCII view). Of the other two views, one at sector 63 (partition 1) and the other at sector 156232061+63 (partition 2) came out the same as what I showed in ZAR1.jpg which is a Boot sector type view. I don't know what my ZAR2.jpg is not what type ofview itwas suposed to be displayed in. Nor does that tell me why partition 1 is corrupt. 

After recovery I plan on using SeaTools to reformat the whole drive, test, and then reload files. I'll do your chkdsk and fsutil commads too. I'll let you know the final results, assuming things go well from here on out.


THANKS for your help.


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## Mountainman1863

*Re: "File or directory is corrupted or unreadable"*

The drive partitioned and formatted well. I tested it and its OK again. Moving files in.

Case Solved.


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## Deleted090308

*Re: [SOLVED] &quot;File or directory is corrupted or unreadable&quot;*

I'm glad you got it fixed. :smile:


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