file or directory is corrupted and unreadable - Fixed - Should I w

[Lee Beck]

I have a 500GB WD external drive that I have been using for about 6 months.
This morning I got an error message "The file or directory is corrupted and
unreadable" and Explorer wouldn't recognize the name of the HDD. I opened
the Disk Management utility and it said the device is "healthy" but did not
show the name and claimed that 100% of the space was unused. Actually only
about half is unused.

I ran the chkdsk /f utility and got the HDD back. Chkdsk reported no KB in
bad sectors, but did delete several index entries and a half dozen or so
orphaned files and recovered them. It also corrected errors in the MFT.
Some other messages and the last line “Windows has made corrections to the
file system.†Now everything appears to be going okay, but I’m wondering if
the errors that were corrected are indicative of a HDD beginning to go bad,
or if it is just a hiccup that has been corrected. Is there another test or
something else that will increase my confidence in the disk? I know that
part of the answer is “be sure to back up your data†and I’ll take that under
advisement. Mainly, I’m wondering if I should worry more about my HDD than I
did before the errors and corrections.

 

[neil]

Strangely I had something similar with my 250Gb western digital drive. It
disappeared from explorer though and I had to recover all the folders using
winhex. It is back up and running now, you might want to try WD website for
"life guard diag" and check the drive with their utility.

best of luck
Neil

 

[Lee Beck]

Good idea on the WD diagnostics. I'll so that. Glad that you got your files
back, but did the WD diagnostics indicate a problem, or did you not run it?
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm wondering if there may be an intermittant problem
that won't be picked up by the diagnostics. I was hoping for a reply that
frequently the message appears, the problem gets fixed by chkdsk, and never
returns. But if the HDD is failing, then I need to replace it. It may still
be under warranty.

 

[neil]

Hi,
I did run the diagnostic program, no errors recorded on the extended test.
So at the moment I'm hoping it's ok. I think if the drive was failing the
manufacturers software would flag it up. It's been back online for a week &
still ok.
Neil

 

[Lee Beck]

Thanks,

I ran the quick test since the program advised that the full test might take
hours for a large drive. It passed the quick test. I'll run the full test
overnight.

Your results are encouraging. I'm going to back up some important files
(but not the entire drive) and hope for the best unless I get advice to the
contrary.

 

[neil]

Mine took about 1hr 15 mins roughly, so I would guess yours would be about
2.5hrs.
Neil