corruption - txt file became unreadable
2014-04
intips
I used Notepad++ to write some text, I created txt file in Windows 8.1, I wrote a lot of text, I saved the file and turned off my computer (the file was encoded in utf-8). Now when I open the file all I can see is this: NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL ... (a very long row of NULs).
I tried changing the encoding, the character sets, etc. I also tried running chkdsk, using recovery software like recuva and PhotoRec, but without success.
Does anybody know how can I make it readable again?
ravi
I have a portable 500 GB HDD. For the last few days, all files of some folders are getting kind of corrupted. I can't access/delete them. Here is an example.
If I try to access these files/folders, I get the following error.
This thing is kind of spreading in my HDD. Until now it has affected two folders worth 70 GB in which one folder is a backup folder where all my important data resides. So I am really lost if I lose this data.
How can I retrieve this data?
sleske
First of all, make an image of the drive! That way, you can avoid stressing the dying drive further, which may cause it to stop working altogether. I would recommend using GNU ddrescue for this: It will first skip the faulty parts of the drive to get a quick copy of the good parts, then automatically retry the bad parts to salvage something. Of course there are many other imaging solutions.
Once that is done, you can use any recovery software (starting with fdisk/chkdsk) on the image and try to recover what you can.
ta.speot.is
Restore from a backup.
Alternatively, if it's not a virus that has hosed your data I would try a chkdsk /x /r and then get a copy of R-STUDIO and GetDataBack and let them attempt to recover the data. You should be using a second PC for this recovery, stop using your current computer now so you don't make data corruption worse.