damaged and unreadable directory

Question

Hello,

My problem: I can no longer open my E drive where I store my videos and photos. When I try to open it, an error message appears saying, "E is not accessible. The drive is corrupted and unreadable."
The operating system is WINDOWS XP.

I’m not very knowledgeable about computers, please HELP ME to recover my data.
THANK YOU

Euquigam · Accepted Answer

There is a simple and effective method to fix the problem of damaged/unreadable directories/files: Use the Check-Disk utility provided with Windows.
Here is the procedure to follow:
Open the Command Prompt (Start/Run/cmd.exe).
Enter "chkdsk /f " in the window that opens.
If Windows prompts you: "CHKDSK cannot be run because the volume is in use by another process. Do you want this volume to be
checked on the next system restart? (Y/N)", respond with Y and restart.

sfeuh · Answer

Hello Iness
try to enter under the back okay
start/programs/accessories/command prompt
then type cd.. and click enter
do cd.. and enter again
now you're in c:
type e:
E:
then E:dir/w and press enter
if you type that it means it is not damaged
if you see what’s in E: okay.
now if it works contact me here wushu1980@hotmail.com

yassine007 · Answer

I have the same problem. I log in and I see the folders in DOS. But under XP, the PC freezes.

Jeremy_mec_007 · Answer

Good day everyone!
I have the same problem as Ines; when I try to open the E drive, the same message “E is not accessible, the directory is corrupted and unreadable” appears, and I have very important files stored there, which I need a lot...
I have the same operating system, WINDOWS XP Home...
I tried to repair it using the command prompt, but it doesn’t work!
I don't want to lose my data... please help me
Thank you

ideal · Answer

Hello,
I want to recover photos from an external hard drive. Many folders and subfolders have been retrieved without any issues, but now for some folders, I get the message in the window (not responding). I have tried several image editors, chkdsk, scan disk, the disk appears fine, copying via DOS, virus tests, the disk is okay, no viruses... I have gone through several recovery software that are not helpful here since the photos are present on the disk but damaged. No matter the method, as soon as I access one of these directories, the application crashes, and the only solution to prevent it from hanging for hours is to disconnect the external hard drive. Even the task manager with the cancel request does not stop.
In one of the recovery software, I was able to see that the photos appear as damaged, but in another application from a different manufacturer, when I physically disconnect the external drive via the USB connection, I see the photo I was pointing to on the screen. So the photos are indeed present, apparently visible, and yet I cannot recover them, nor can I copy, move, or even delete them. At first, I thought there might be extension issues in these directories and it was taking time, so I let it run, displaying semaphore timeout expired.

titi · Answer

Hello, I think that your folders or files won't open because they are either files that have been saved or sent to a partition or another storage device (USB drive, etc.) on another machine, so Windows can't find the access path.

In this case, I believe that in order to open the folders or files, they need to be migrated to a part of your hard drive so that Windows can access them.

anon1 · Answer

Hello,
I had this problem ("... unreadable and corrupted directory or file") on a folder and several files on one of my hard drives (connected to the PC via USB port - NTFS on Windows XP).
In fact, this issue occurred after I unplugged the hard drive from the PC a bit too quickly (disconnecting the USB plug) without first using the "Safely Remove Hardware" function.
Anyway, I used the "Turn up utilities 2009 - disk doctor" tool to check the disk.
It told me that it found no errors, but after running it, everything went back to normal, and I was able to re-access my files and the problematic directory...
So, I hope this tool might be useful to you...

anthony250 · Answer

Sure, thank you ten times for using this tune-up doctor and I didn't even know its purpose. At least here is one, thank you.

algerianno · Answer

really anon thank you so much ......... thanks

Brice · Answer

the chkdsk/f solution works like a charm!! after desperately trying to get my hard drives to work on Mac, there was some damage, and this solution fixed everything!!  kudos to Euquigam!!

jepatt · Answer

Thank you for the idea of Tune up doctor......a simple and brilliant idea! Jepatt

hero · Answer

thank you Euquigam your method works well :D

jc 33 · Answer

Impeccable Euquigam, in July 2016 my problem was resolved in half an hour, a big thank you.

Damaged and unreadable directory

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