Unable to open files after chkdsk

[Chris]

We have a windows 2000 PC running in our office where all our common files
are stored. Basically all our word documents, spreadsheets and our databases.

The system reported a problem on the one hard drive where all the files are
stored and requested that chkdsk be run on reboot. This was done and windows
went ahead and repaired a number of files.

All the files are still there, and even the correct file sizes are
displayed, however we are unable to access 50% of them. When you try open a
file in word, word tries to import the file saying it doesn't recognise the
file type. The same with excel, PDF's, and JPG's.

As Murphy’s law would have it, it seems its most of the critical files that
we currently need that can't open. Our backup system is automated as well,
and as luck would have it, we only picked up the problem after the backups
where over written.

Is there anyway to repair these files?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

We have a windows 2000 PC running in our office where all our common files
are stored. Basically all our word documents, spreadsheets and our
databases.

The system reported a problem on the one hard drive where all the files
are
stored and requested that chkdsk be run on reboot. This was done and
windows
went ahead and repaired a number of files.

All the files are still there, and even the correct file sizes are
displayed, however we are unable to access 50% of them. When you try open
a
file in word, word tries to import the file saying it doesn't recognise
the
file type. The same with excel, PDF's, and JPG's.

As Murphy's law would have it, it seems its most of the critical files
that
we currently need that can't open. Our backup system is automated as well,
and as luck would have it, we only picked up the problem after the backups
where over written.

Is there anyway to repair these files?

No, there isn't. You will have to review your backup scheme. If you
have important files then you must maintain at least two independent
backup copies so that if you back up a corrupted file, you have an
opportunity to go to the version before.

 

[Chris]

We usually keep backups weekly, monthly and every 3 months, I've been away on
vacation for 3 weeks, returned last week and discovered this today. Which of
course means our backups have all been over written for the last month.
Nobody else in the office noticed since all our databases all work correctly.
The Data from files that we need now though has happened in the last month
and is what is urgently required so going back to the previous 3 month backup
is pointless

Is there any reason why this happens and how to stop it from happening again
(thats if I dont get fired today).

 

[DL]

If they are simply doc files, they *may* be repairable with a disc sector
editing tool, I once recovered a large Health & Safety doc that had become
corrupted - it was many years ago & I used some version of Norton
If you are planning any recovery attempts you should immediately make
copies, several, of these files, probably via xcopy

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You should be able to retrieve your files from the backups
that were created prior to you running chkdsk.exe.

 

[Chris]

The backups for the last month all contain the corrupted files. It is the
files from the last month that I am trying to retrieve so they are all pretty
useless.

Is there any reason to why this is caused and how to prevent it?

Will also try look into a disc sector editor (not sure where to start though)

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I don't understand. You wrote that your databases worked correctly
during your absence. If they did then the files that got backed up must
be useable, regardless of the corruption reported and subsequently
"fixed" by chkdsk.exe.

 

[Colon Terminus]

We have a windows 2000 PC running in our office where all our common files
are stored. Basically all our word documents, spreadsheets and our databases.

The system reported a problem on the one hard drive where all the files are
stored and requested that chkdsk be run on reboot. This was done and windows
went ahead and repaired a number of files.

All the files are still there, and even the correct file sizes are
displayed, however we are unable to access 50% of them. When you try open a
file in word, word tries to import the file saying it doesn't recognise the
file type. The same with excel, PDF's, and JPG's.

As Murphy's law would have it, it seems its most of the critical files that
we currently need that can't open. Our backup system is automated as well,
and as luck would have it, we only picked up the problem after the backups
where over written.

Is there anyway to repair these files?

As has been said, there's no way to repair/recover these corrupted files.

It is possible that the corruption occurred during chkdsk because you have a
large hard disk in a PC without the BigLBA registry hack applied. I've seen
this several times.

 

[zeke7]

As has been said, there's no way to repair/recover these corrupted files.

It is possible that the corruption occurred during chkdsk because you have a
large hard disk in a PC without the BigLBA registry hack applied. I've seen
this several times.

If your disk has (had?) a corrupted partition due to not having Enable
BigLBA installed as above, the following might work on a backup set
(but not on post-chkdsk-repaired files): first enable bigLBA, then fix
the partition using http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk , and your
files might be restored to working order.

 

[Chris]

I don't understand. You wrote that your databases worked correctly
during your absence. If they did then the files that got backed up must
be useable, regardless of the corruption reported and subsequently
"fixed" by chkdsk.exe.

The Databases work, but most of the other files dont. I work for a
manufacturing company and the critical date like our spread sheets, all our
typed up quotations, our design calculcation, and all our drawings done over
the last month are corrupted. For some reason, the Databases were un effected
by chkdsk.

@ Colon and Zeke7, we haven't done the bigLBA hack, I'll search up on it now
and see if what you have suggested works.. Thanks.

 

[Chris]

Thanks guys, though seems bigLBA was enabled.

its got me completly confused, All the files are there, and the sizes all
show correct, yet I cant seem to open any of them

 

[John John]

I think that it's time to call a data recovery firm and explain the
situation to them and see if they can recover your files. These files
appear to be quite important and with all due respect neither you or
hardly any of the contributors here have sufficient data recovery
experience to be able to walk through this by newsgroup exchange and
discussions. From here on, if the files are recoverable, any thing that
you do may seriously or completely reduce any chances of successful
recovery by data recovery professionals.

If you wish to keep on working on this by yourself (and with the help of
the contributors here) I urge you to clone or image the corrupt disk and
work on it instead of the original disk. With the use of data recovery
software you may be able to salvage the files. Another thing that I
might try if I were in your position is mounting the disk to a Linux
installation and see if Linux can read them. On occasion I have seen or
heard of files that were unreadable by Windows yet Linux for some reason
or other could read them. At times it seems that minor MFT or NTFS
corruption that completely prevents Windows from reading the files has
less effect on Linux and it can read them, worth a try I think.

As for your questions of "why did this happen" and "how can I prevent
this in the future" there really isn't much that we can tell you. Disk
or file corruption happens and I would say that in 99% of the cases we
don't know why it happened, we run the disk checking utilities or we
restore from backups and we move on. I think that in your case you had
some bad luck thrown in with the disk corruption. Your backup strategy
appears sound but as luck would have it you were backing up what turned
out to be corrupt files and no one knew. In a perfect world the backups
should have been tested, but if you did that a few times already and
were satisfied that the backup method was sound and that it provided
usable backups then it is understandable that you may not have done
frequent regular tests on the backups.

One thing that isn't mentioned often enough is that there is *always* a
risk of data loss when chkdsk is run on a drive. Sometimes it can be
minor data loss and at other times it can be nearly complete data loss!
The more important the data the more precautions one should take
before running chkdsk, in your case perhaps doing a clone or image of
the disk before running chkdsk might have allowed you to recover the
files from the clone. But then who would have thought or bothered with
that? I would have said, "I have a backup so why bother with that" and
done exactly what you did. In hindsight it may have been wise to clone
or image the disk before running chkdsk, but hindsight is always 20/20,
isn't it?

Good luck!

John

 

[Alan]

We have a windows 2000 PC running in our office where all our common files
are stored. Basically all our word documents, spreadsheets and our databases.

The system reported a problem on the one hard drive where all the files are
stored and requested that chkdsk be run on reboot. This was done and windows
went ahead and repaired a number of files.

All the files are still there, and even the correct file sizes are
displayed, however we are unable to access 50% of them. When you try open a
file in word, word tries to import the file saying it doesn't recognise the
file type. The same with excel, PDF's, and JPG's.

As Murphy's law would have it, it seems its most of the critical files that
we currently need that can't open. Our backup system is automated as well,
and as luck would have it, we only picked up the problem after the backups
where over written.

Is there anyway to repair these files?

You may try some try some recovery tools. I have no idea about other
tools, but one program called Advanced Excel Repair is useful to me to
when I tried to repair your Excel file. It is a powerful tool to
repair corrupt or damaged Excel files.

Detailed information about Advanced Excel Repair can be found at
http://www.datanumen.com/aer/

And you can also download a free demo version at http://www.datanumen.com/aer/aer.exe

Hope this will help.

Alan