Corrupted Files?

[Hi Ho Silver]

Situation: Windows XP SP2 Home Edition
Problem: several files in (only) one folder have become unreadable on hard
drive.
- only one folder with 10 files; no other folders with problem at this time.
- A variety of file types: Word, Excel, JPEG, Acrobat.
- all 10 files have (incorrect and nearly identical) "Date Modified": only
the times vary slightly, within three seconds. I have no recollection or
record of actually modifying the files on the date/time listed.
- all 10 files have correct "Date Created" (bogus "Date Modified" is later
in time than all the "Date Created").
- all 10 files show correct name, size, and file type information.
- none of the files will open using their correct program; error messages
are 'invalid file type', etc.
- I am able to delete these files.
I had a similar problem with a different folder about a couple of months
ago. I resolved that one by copying back the relevant files from my CD
backup; unfortunately, there is no CD backup for these latest files.

Any tips on how to get these files to read properly?

Thanks.

 

[Jim Howes]

Situation: Windows XP SP2 Home Edition
Problem: several files in (only) one folder have become unreadable on hard
drive.

The question is 'Why are they corrupt?'

Check in the event log for 'Disk' messages, suggesting that your hardware may be
flaking out on you.

If your disk is generating errors, back up what you can (which you should be
doing anyway) and get ready to move or reinstall your system on a new disk.

If there is nothing in the System event log to that extent, it may be a problem
with the disk file system. Run CHKDSK /F from a command prompt, and when it
complains that it cannot lock the current drive, select 'Yes' and reboot. A
full boot-time chkdsk is, in my opinion, far more reliable than anything you can
run interactively (with lots of services and other processes moving stuff about
on the disk while something tries to check it (on that note, whoever moved
scandisk to where it runs during startup of windows ME should have been shot
repeatedly...))

Are the files what they suggest they are? Windows has historically decided that
a file is a particular type based on it's file name extension. Newer software
decides what a file is based on what it contains, using the extension as a hint,
but not as gospel. (For instance, rename a .PNG image to a .GIF and a .JPG and
Internet explorer will not display the latter two (but firefox will))

There are some utilities that will identify what a file is, based on it's
content, although I can't thing of any names bar the cygwin 'file' utility
(which uses the GNU /etc/magic file to work out file types)

 

[Hi Ho Silver]

The question is 'Why are they corrupt?'

Check in the event log for 'Disk' messages, suggesting that your hardware
may be
flaking out on you.

If your disk is generating errors, back up what you can (which you should
be
doing anyway) and get ready to move or reinstall your system on a new
disk.

If there is nothing in the System event log to that extent, it may be a
problem
with the disk file system. Run CHKDSK /F from a command prompt, and
when it
complains that it cannot lock the current drive, select 'Yes' and reboot.
A
full boot-time chkdsk is, in my opinion, far more reliable than anything
you can
run interactively (with lots of services and other processes moving stuff
about
on the disk while something tries to check it (on that note, whoever moved
scandisk to where it runs during startup of windows ME should have been
shot
repeatedly...))

Are the files what they suggest they are? Windows has historically
decided that
a file is a particular type based on it's file name extension. Newer
software
decides what a file is based on what it contains, using the extension as a
hint,
but not as gospel. (For instance, rename a .PNG image to a .GIF and a
.JPG and
Internet explorer will not display the latter two (but firefox will))

There are some utilities that will identify what a file is, based on it's
content, although I can't thing of any names bar the cygwin 'file' utility
(which uses the GNU /etc/magic file to work out file types)

I have run CHKDSK as suggested. There does not seem to be any problem with
my hard disc reported by CHKDSK as it showed “0 KB in bad sectors”? I
appended the Event Log information in case there are some hints in there
that I do not see. Am I justified in thinking I do not have hard disc
problems?

------------------------
Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date: 8/24/2006
Time: 2:26:59 PM
User: N/A
Computer: YOUR-W92P4BHLZG
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is HP_PAVILION.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 434 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 434 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 434 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

112326479 KB total disk space.
17206044 KB in 81930 files.
25252 KB in 4362 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
187371 KB in use by the system.
54528 KB occupied by the log file.
94907812 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
28081619 total allocation units on disk.
23726953 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
b0 d2 01 00 20 51 01 00 1d 9c 01 00 00 00 00 00 .... Q..........
72 12 00 00 00 00 00 00 c8 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 r...............
a8 5b e9 03 00 00 00 00 e0 78 21 30 00 00 00 00 .[.......x!0....
c0 1c 3d 09 00 00 00 00 2e eb ce 92 02 00 00 00 ..=.............
98 bf 56 05 06 00 00 00 c0 91 a3 de 08 00 00 00 ..V.............
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 88 38 07 00 0a 40 01 00 ..6......8...@..
00 00 00 00 00 70 2c 1a 04 00 00 00 0a 11 00 00 .....p,.........

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.