Dealing With a Corrupt Or Damaged file? Here’s What You Need To Do

Ever gotten a notification from your computer system saying, “the file is corrupted and cannot be opened”?

Then, this article is for you.

If you use a computer device frequently, I am certain, you have come across these words countless times.

• The file is corrupt and cannot be opened.
• The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
• There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged.

A computer file or document is like an organized set of data arranged in a way that programs can be seen and read. And if this is scattered and some parts get missing, it becomes unreadable and when that happens we say files have been corrected or damaged. 

However, fixing a damaged or corrupt file is difficult because the choice of success lies in how flexible the document format is, the number of files missing or damaged, and how effective the recovery software is. So if you have some corrupted or damaged files, here are some tools that could help sort them out.

1. Contents

   PDF Bear 

Pdf Bear is one of the trusted tools that can easily be used to repair pdf that was damaged or corrupted. This can be done in a matter of minutes in just 4 easy steps. First, you have to select and upload the corrupted file, then click on repair and wait for the task to be completed. You should however note that some of the files cannot be recovered.

1. The Repair Tool Box

Repair Toolbox is about 22 utilities or repair tools that can be used to fix a damaged file in a computer system. It is not an App. Though each of these 22 has different files. It works like  a double-edged sword: doesn’t work if you want to install all the repair files, only works if you wish to install a certain one

The utilities all operate in the same basic way: you point the app to the broken file like a PDF, provide a name for the resulting repaired file, and click Repair. Supported formats include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, PDF, ZIP, RAR, Illustrator, Photoshop, and many more.

However, the Repair Toolbox is not entirely free. The demo versions of each of them come with some restrictions. For example, the PDF utility demo only saves the first page of a document, while the ZIP utility demo only shows if it’s repairable and doesn’t actually save.

1. Hetman File Repair

Regardless of its name, Hetman File Repair is not a general file repairer. Rather, it focuses only on broken image files. Do well to note that it is not the same thing as retrieving deleted photos or recovering photos from a corrupted device. 

If you have a photo that can’t be opened but you need to access it, then you can use this tool. Hetman File Repair can repair both corrupted JPEGs and TIFFs without changing the quality of the image. in TIFFs, it works on both compressed and uncompressed. It can also be used on BMPS, PNGS. It even has Wizard that can take you through the steps thus making it easy for anyone to use.

Though you scan files for free, it requires a license to repair and save your photos. It comes in different editions such as $60, which is for personal computers, and $140 which is for business use.

1. Digital Video Repair

Digital Video Repair is a free tool that fixes damaged MP4, AVI videos, and MOV as far as they have been encoded in 3ivx, DivX, MPEGA. It comes with a bundleware that can be used for online market research known as Relevantknowledge. You don’t need to worry about malware as the organization is a trustworthy one. But regardless, it’s important to be security-sensitive. 

While using this video repairer, bear in mind that if your video file is missing frames, it cannot generate them automatically rather, it fixes the file in such a way that the video player will not lock up. It allows them to also seek through a damaged video.

1. Stellar Microsoft Office Repair Toolkit

Stellar Microsoft Office Repair Toolkit is made up of three utilities- Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, and PowerPoint. It specializes in repairing these files. It is the best repairer for office workers to use in repairing broken files.

However, when running the app, you can either specify the file you want to repair or scan the entire system. It repairs corrupted files regardless of if they are locked with passwords with just a single click. Nevertheless, it is sold at a price. While downloads is free, it can only scan and preview broken except it is bought at the premium price which is about .$60

1. System File Checker

When corruption or damage occurs to a system-level file, you can only use the utility that comes with the windows to repair it. It is not really as common now as it used to be some years back, but it can still occur and when it does, the system file checker is your best bet. Luckily, System File Checker is very easy to run. Simply launch an elevated Command Prompt (press Win + X, then select Command Prompt (Admin) in the menu), then type  following  the command:

This is just all you have to do. It may take about 60 minutes to run the full scan depending on your computer hardware, so sit tight and allow it to do its thing. System File Checker is only one of the most important commands every window should know. By fixing corrupted and missing system files, it can fix other issues such as including windows 10 errors. 

They can only repair simple and minor issues. And if you lose a bigger chunk of your files, there is really no way those gaps can be filled. Don’t be deceived into believing that a more expensive app will help. It has nothing to do with price.

Conclusion

when a file or document is either damaged or corrupted, we often consider it gone. However, with any of these tools, you can be rest assured that you will get almost any file back.