Knowledge Base

Error Message: The File or Directory Is Corrupt...

Article ID: 176646

Article Last Modified on 2/24/2007

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5
Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition

This article was previously published under Q176646

SYMPTOMS

When you attempt to open, delete or rename a file or folder using Windows NT Explorer, File Manager or a command prompt, you may receive one of the following error messages:

<drive>:\<folder> is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupt and non-readable.The file or directory is corrupt and non-readable. The file or directory \<folder> is corrupt and unreadable.
Please Run the Chkdsk utility.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur if the file, folder or file system index (Master File Table [MFT] or File Allocation Table [FAT]) is damaged.

RESOLUTION

WARNING: When Chkdsk detects problems with the file system and attempts to repair the damage, data loss can occur. Microsoft does not recommend running Chkdsk with the /f command-line switch unless you have a full backup of your hard disk.

Attempt to repair the damaged file, folder or file system index using Chkdsk. To do so, follow these steps:

Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type chkdsk /f <drive>:, where <drive> is the letter of the drive on which the damaged file, folder or file system index exists.
Click OK.

NOTE: If the hard disk is large, Chkdsk may take several minutes to several hours to complete.

MORE INFORMATION

Chkdsk saves each repaired file in the root folder as a File<nnnn>.chk file, and each repaired folder in the root folder as a Found.<nnn> folder, where <n> is a number.

For information about how to use Chkdsk, click Start, click Help, click the Index tab, type "chkdsk" (without quotation marks), and then double- click the "Chkdsk Command" topic.

For more information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: 156571
TITLE : How to Perform Scandisk in Windows NT 4.0

ARTICLE-ID: ID: 160963
TITLE : CHKNTFS.EXE: What You Can Use It For

ARTICLE-ID: 161801
TITLE : Chkdsk reports an erroneous Event ID 41

Additional query words: corruption autochk

Keywords: kberrmsg kbprb kbsetup KB176646