[SOLVED] Is it possible that some recovered files after chkdsk scan may be corrupted ?

[la chupacabra]

Hello, would like to ask if files recovered from faulty HDD, after chkdsk scan (before it was not possible to copy them) may have been corrupted, despite being possible to copy them all (again; after chkdsk scan).
I'm talking about

• Word documents - can they be corrupted after copying and for example impossible to open ?
• Audio and video files - impossible to open or that files will be interrupted while playing them ?
• Photo files - can some files may be impossible to open or have some defects ?

Or is it the case that if after the chkdsk all files were possible to copy onto another HDD (which before the chkdsk scan were not available to copy), then all of them are fine?

Is there a way to test them (like some sort of scan) other then open each individual file, which would take a very long time, because of the size of recovered files (over 100GB)?

 

[rgd1101]

chkdsk scan the disk, not files content.
so it possible you can recover the files or it might just be corrupted mess

 

[SkyNetRising]

• Word documents - can they be corrupted after copying and for example impossible to open
• Audio and video files - impossible to open or that files will be interrupted while playing them
• Photo files - can some files may be impossible to open or have some defects?

Yes - to all of those.
When chkdisk recovers corrupted file system, it recovers continuous file fragments.
Sometimes, if those files were heavilly fragmented, then chkdisk will recover those fragments as separate files.

 

[USAFRet]

file001.chk, file002.chk, file003.chk.....all tiny parts of a single original jpg, docx or mp3.
Absolutely unusable.

 

[la chupacabra]

But would corrupted file would look different than the original (like changed file name or something) or could it look exactly the same and still be corrupted? Because it seems that the file names looks all good (and the size seems OK as well)

 

[CountMike]

But would corrupted file would look different than the original (like changed file name or something) or could it look exactly the same and still be corrupted? Because it seems that the file names looks all good (and the size seems OK as well)

Resulting files 001.chk, file002.chk, file003.chk. are not full recovered files but data from blocks on disk and may belong to many actual files. Files are not always stored in adjacent blocks but a single file can be on different parts of disk as free space for them is found.

 

[USAFRet]

But would corrupted file would look different than the original (like changed file name or something) or could it look exactly the same and still be corrupted? Because it seems that the file names looks all good (and the size seems OK as well)

Those would all be individual pieces of a file. Fragments.

Like with a book.
Having page 8, page 124, and page 356...with no page number on them...is pretty useless.
If that were from a .txt file, you could probably read some/all of that fragment. And still not have ALL of the file.

A fragment of a .jpg or .avi....absolutely unrecognizeable and useless.

 

[la chupacabra]

Those would all be individual pieces of a file. Fragments.

Like with a book.
Having page 8, page 124, and page 356...with no page number on them...is pretty useless.
If that were from a .txt file, you could probably read some/all of that fragment. And still not have ALL of the file.

A fragment of a .jpg or .avi....absolutely unrecognizeable and useless.

But a partially corrupted file copied to another drive - would it has a changed name, compared to the original one or could it look the same as the original file and still be corrupted?

If the files are copied as normal from a failing HDD to another HDD (brand new) and they look fine (file's name and size is the same), is it possible that some files may still be corrupted? I'm mainly concerned about photos, which I was copying from the failing HDD, but it looks like everything was copied as normal, and it would take a very long time to test each of them, by opening one by one, as we're talking about thousands of photos from many years.
Or if a large movie file was copied from the failing HDD to the new HDD as normal (the size and the name are the same), is it possible that the movie file may be corrupted and for example the movie will be cutting of in the middle while playing it, etc?

 

[USAFRet]

A file that was fully copied from one drive to another is fine.
A file that was corrupted at the source...it is probably borked.

I'm mainly concerned about photos, which I was copying from the failing HDD, but it looks like everything was copied as normal, and it would take a very long time to test each of them, by opening one by one, as we're talking about thousands of photos from many years.

You're doing it wrong.
If you wait until a drive is physically failing before trying to copy the data elsewhere, you've waited too long.

Backups are what we do before the drive starts failing.

My house systems get a backup at least weekly.
My main system, nightly.

Any or all of the drives in my systems could die right now, and all data would be fully recoverable.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

In my experience, .chk files produced by running a disk check have always been unusable garbage.
As already mentioned, you should keep your data backed up (at least twice) to avoid being in that predicament.

 

[la chupacabra]

All of my important data I have is backed up, but it hasn't been organized in years. I was in the middle of process of organizing all of it, when one of the drives started to malfunction.
The copying process was occasionally interrupted by an error message saying "Can't read from the source file or disk.", but after pressing "Skip" button it was going back to copying the rest of the files.
And after scanning the failing HDD with chkdsk - majority of the previously impossible to copy files, were copied like normal.

So my main question is;
is it possible that those files after running chkdsk have been corrupted and copied like normal (without any error messages, files' names are fine, size seems to be right), may be still corrupted?

I'm asking because I have some old backups of the most important files (like photos), but it would take a very long time to organize it properly, so it would save literally dozens of hours if I could stick to the copied data from that jinx HDD

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

If the files have retained their original names (ie they are not .chk files) then they might be okay, only way to know for sure is to try opening them.

 

[mdd1963]

When a drive starts acting up, some can have very limited time of useful life remaining... (often, a chkdsk simply hastens a drive's demise)...

 

[fzabkar]

Can you show us the CHKDSK entries in the Event Viewer?

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/find-chkdsk-results-in-event-viewer-logs