With your computer on, put your hand on the mouse and double-click to open the file for work or study. The prompt of “This file is corrupted” on the monitor is like a last-minute “gift” to you. You can’t open it, let alone access the content inside and continue your work.
For sure, nobody wants that gift from your computer. The key is how to return the gift back. Of course, we can recover the corrupted file. It’s not a tough row to how. With the right tool, let’s follow the correct steps to get your corrupted files fixed in minutes!
Repair Corrupted Files:
Method 1: Download A New File To Replace the Corrupted
How did you get the file, saved from an email attachment, received on a FB, WhatsApp, or Skype chat, or downloaded on a website?
Anyway, if the file is corrupted, download the file again and replace the corrupted one with the newly-downloaded file.
This method is such an easy walkaround when you can still find the source of the file. Note that if you’ve started your editing or revision on the file before it’s corrupted, this method might not work for you. You will have to redo all the changes.
Method 2: Change the Current Format of the File
Confirm one thing: have you changed the format of the file? If you have, that’s probably the reason why the file gets corrupted especially when you didn’t convert it with the proper steps.
So, this is the case, change the current format back to the previous one.
Tip: Convert the corrupted document to a text file
When the corrupted file is filled with words only like a Word or Excel file, you can try to change the file format to TXT or PDF. After all, all you need is the text inside, as long as you can get the words back, I think this could be a perfect way out.
Method 3: Recover Corrupted Microsoft Office Files from Autosave
For a corrupted Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or PDF file, we can use Microsoft’s Autosave function to get the file back to its normal status.
This is a very convenient feature for users who have Microsoft 365 and later versions installed on the computer. The Autosave will keep records of the file you’re editing every few minutes. You may never see this feature and don’t know how it works. But it’ll be activated once you’ve signed in to your Microsoft account on the Office apps.
So, if you have edited the broken file on Word, Excel, or PowerPoint before, let’s start to find an intact “backup” with Autosave now.
On your computer, launch This PC, and follow this path to find the Autosave folder:
- C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\
There, you will find several folders, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Open the one that you used to edit your corrupted file.
Method 4: Recover Corrupted Files with Data Recovery Software
Windows and Microsoft built-in tools are never handy. Worse still, there’re so many restrictions on using them. To get them to work, you will have to fulfill every condition they ask for.
In this case, third-party software can be of good help. A lot of third-party programs are so robust that they don’t really need you to do any preparations before recovering your corrupted file.
To bring your corrupted file back to normal with the least restriction, try echoshare Data Recovery, a handy and fast data recovery tool for both Windows and Mac.
Designed to be a secret safe for data, echoshare Data Recovery can turn your corrupted file back to normal in minutes with no condition at all. As long as the corrupted file is still there on your computer hard drive, you can have it perfectly fixed and saved on your computer with this program.
Supporting hundreds of file formats, you should never worry about echoshare being unable to fix your file. Not at all. Be it video, audio, picture, document, database, archive, or other types, the program helps you get them uncorrupted and available. You can open, edit, transfer, and copy them entirely at your will.
Download it and let’s start to get your corrupted file back to normal soon!
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Method 5: Fix Corrupted File on Command Prompt
On the Windows system, there’s this built-in tool called Command Prompt, AKA CMD. It’s a program with a command-line interface where you can enter specific commands to execute some actions on your Windows operating system. In this case, the CMD can help us recover the corrupted files on our Windows computer.
Follow these:
Step 1
On your keyboard, press Windows Logo and R keys together to activate the Run window.
Launch Command Prompt by typing CMD on the Run box and clicking OK.
Step 2:
With Command Prompt, you’re available to use the CHKDSK code to fix your corrupted file.
The CHKDSK is actually the abbreviation of the CheckDisk command which is designed for Windows users to initiate a disk diagnosis for error and a repair.
On the CMD interface, press the Enter key on your keyboard. On the new line, type it:
- chkdsk e: /f /r /x
Press Enter to start this command. Now, wait for everything to be complete.
Other than the CHKDSK command, there’re other commands on the Windows system that you can enter on CMD to initiate a file repair.
- DISM: AKA Deployment Image Servicing and Management, the built-in tool on Windows 10 OS to modify and repair system images. (Command Line: DISM/Online/Cleanup-Image/RestoreHealth)
- SFC: System File Checker, the tool that helps detect and repair any corrupted, bugged files on a Windows computer. (Command Line: sfc/scannow)
When the CHKDSK command is not helpful and your file is still corrupted, you can try these two commands as well. Simply replace the code with the relative line.