External Hard Drive Curruption Question/Help 1

[killswitch7]

Hi,

I tried searching the forums a bit before I signed up and posted this, but was unable to find what I was looking for.

I have an external NTFS formatted 500GB hard drive which I've loaded up to about half capacity so far. The problem I came across is that when I try to open a specific folder I get the error message:

"...\Folder_Name is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

Now using NTExplorer I was able to recover all the subdirectories (that contained files) with no problem. So all the data seems to be there, but just not linked up. When I view this unaccessible folder in NTExplorer, it is empty.

My question is:

Is there some way I can re-setup the "pointer" so that this unaccessible folder knows what data it should contain?

I've come to believe this might be a bad sector problem but I'm not 100% sure. Another note: I am able to view the different sector and cluster information in NTExplorer and believe I can edit it some how.

My main issue is to not have to re-transfer all the data onto the hard drive since it is still on there but not accessible, and to just set up the parent directory again.

If anyone needs anymore information, please let me know.

Thank you

 

[wolluf]

Have you run chkdsk on this drive?

 

[wahnula]

See thread751-1382280

and report back if that helps.

Tony

 

[killswitch7]

Thank you both for your quick replies.

I will try running chkdsk later today after work and report back with the result.

I will also try that free program mentioned in that 'External USB Hard Drive not recognized by Windows' thread if chkdsk does not work.

Thank you

 

[killswitch7]

I ended up using the graphical chkdsk option through the properties -> tools tab and enabled "Automatically fix file system errors" which I believe is the same as running chkdsk /f at the command prompt and it worked perfectly!

Surprisingly finished in what seemed like not more than 10 seconds!

Thanks for the helpful tip wolluf, I am very pleased

 

[killswitch7]

One other question....

How do I mark this thread as solved?

Thank you

 

[wahnula]

How do I mark this thread as solved?

No real way to mark "solved", what I do is post (like you have already done) that the problem has been solved, then award stars ("Thank XXX for this valuable post!") to whomever helped with the solution.

We always appreciate knowing that you have found the solution; many newcomers post an issue, get several replies, and are never heard from again. Quite rude. Stars are optional, but no matter what anyone says, we all like to get them...but only when earned.

Tony

 

[killswitch7]

wahnula,

Yes, I agree. I think it's also helpful for other readers to know what worked for the user. Well I'm turning off my e-mail notification for this thread. Thanks for the help and tips!