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so i got an external hard drive because our almost 4 year old laptop will randomly give us the blue screen of death, which, i assume means that there are hard drive issues.

i have been attempting to drag and drop files into the external hard drive "e" drive and i am constantly getting the message "cannot copy the file _______ because it is corrupted or unreadable"

so am i just up shit creek with all of these files? or is there some way to move them on to the external hard drive? it's lots of files, like gigs of pics, etc.

Kramer wrote:so i got an external hard drive because our almost 4 year old laptop will randomly give us the blue screen of death, which, i assume means that there are hard drive issues.

i have been attempting to drag and drop files into the external hard drive "e" drive and i am constantly getting the message "cannot copy the file _______ because it is corrupted or unreadable"

so am i just up shit creek with all of these files? or is there some way to move them on to the external hard drive? it's lots of files, like gigs of pics, etc.

Run a chkdsk on it.

k, gonna do that rght now. thncx

"Cannot Copy Desktop: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

it's giving me this on everything i try to move onto the external hard drive

so can this be true if my computer runs all of these files fine, without any problems?

Kramer wrote:"Cannot Copy Desktop: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

it's giving me this on everything i try to move onto the external hard drive

so can this be true if my computer runs all of these files fine, without any problems?

Sounds like you need some disk tools. chdsk /f will fix many problems but something else might be needed.

Try booting to a CD or something else that will give you a shell and see if you can move files around.

i ran the chkdsk and it ran, i am not sure if i understand what you mean by the following

Try booting to a CD or something else that will give you a shell and see if you can move files around.

btw, i really appreciate your help, luckily the really important stuff is on my ipod so i could, once we get a new comp rip them off there if i needed, though i would lose quite a bit of stuff i would just like to have if possible, like grad school work, etc.

i had hoped it would be simple, just drag and drop.

so everytime i hook up the drive, it gives me this message

The file or directory E:\$secure is corrupt or unreadable PLease runt he Chkdsk utility.

i run chkdsk, i have run it at least 3 times since yesterday and nothing has changed.

anyone got any ideas?

Kramer wrote:so everytime i hook up the drive, it gives me this message

The file or directory E:\$secure is corrupt or unreadable PLease runt he Chkdsk utility.

i run chkdsk, i have run it at least 3 times since yesterday and nothing has changed.

anyone got any ideas?

Did you do chkdsk /f ?

You need the /f to make it fix the problems. Does chkdsk say there are any problems with the disk?

DOH! i have not run it with the "/f"

when it runs it just runs through and vanishes

i will run it with the "/f" and see what happens

dude if you just want your data off, get to a command prompt and do this

cd\
xcopy *.* f: /s /e /c /h

"f:" needs to be the drive letter of your USB

The filemangler / explorer it not the tool to use to copy data in the way you're looking to copy it.

Anything that can't be read your probably fucked on anyway /shrug

Sounds like he needs to fix the file system before he can copy.

that's what i was thinking.

no you don't, just copy what you can read and worry about the broke shit after the fact.

You doing a chkdsk /f can fix the trouble with the disk, that is true, it can also fuck up the data on the disk in such a way that more file corruption actually takes place. Not saying it happens in every case but I have had it happen first hand. No harm should be done with what I suggesting, it will should not cause further corruption as only "reads" are taking place. If the disk is fucked and on a downward spiral, chkdsk can in fact fuck it up further.

Point being, copy what you can, then fix, then copy the stuff you missed.

The command I gave you will bypass errors and continue to copy. If there are only specific areas of concern then specify them further

example:
xcopy c:\documents and settings\username\my documents\*.* /e /s /c /h f:

are you trying to copy your desktop profile?

ClakarEQ wrote:no you don't, just copy what you can read and worry about the broke shit after the fact.

You doing a chkdsk /f can fix the trouble with the disk, that is true, it can also fuck up the data on the disk in such a way that more file corruption actually takes place. Not saying it happens in every case but I have had it happen first hand. No harm should be done with what I suggesting, it will should not cause further corruption as only "reads" are taking place. If the disk is fucked and on a downward spiral, chkdsk can in fact fuck it up further.

Point being, copy what you can, then fix, then copy the stuff you missed.

The command I gave you will bypass errors and continue to copy. If there are only specific areas of concern then specify them further

example:
xcopy c:\documents and settings\username\my documents\*.* /e /s /c /h f:

He can't copy anything because it sounds like the fat is fucked up or some other kind of indexing problem.

the problem is that i open the "E" drive, which is the external hard drive, attempt to drag and drop files into the "E" drive and i get the error messages listed in earlier posts.

"Explorer" and "drag / drop" while easy for folks is not the best tool to use when you have the problem you have. The first failure "explorer" hits causes a failure that it will not recover from and the copy process will stop EVEN IF 10000000 files behind the one that failed are "good".

The command and instruction I gave you will be your best effort to extract the data outside of using 3rd party tools. It is "simple" and I don't understand why you can at least try it.

Do you expect the system to explode? j/k

You have nothing to lose and only to gain, I don't get why you want try it.

If the system is "bootable" then it probably isn't all that fucked up. If what I've suggested doesn't work, my next respones is "your fucked" as you implied in your thread starting post.

well, i am not worried for now, took the drive back and will figure something out once we get our new comp sooner than later, thanks for the help though guys.

Word of warning, get the important stuff off of there while you can.

Your file system isn't going to magically get better, but only slowly deteriorate until one day it will just fail completely.

I lost a considerable chunk of data last year because of a file system failure & some of those files I'll never recover.

-Adam

10sun wrote:Word of warning, get the important stuff off of there while you can.

Your file system isn't going to magically get better, but only slowly deteriorate until one day it will just fail completely.

I lost a considerable chunk of data last year because of a file system failure & some of those files I'll never recover.

-Adam

And that is exactly my point , for this type issue, time is against you and is measured in seconds not hours and days.

got it, thanks guys. i will b-up on some cd's tonight.