How to Fix and Open Corrupt Folder and Files in Windows 10

I can imagine your amazement when you click on a folder or file and it doesn’t open on your Windows 10 PC. Instead, you display a pop-up window telling you that the file or folder is corrupt. Most users receive a version of the message “The file or directory is corrupt or unreadable”. It is strange and disturbing. This is why we will help you to resolve this issue and open corrupted files and folders on your Windows 10 PC.

In the case of external hard drives or USB drives, you will see the error “X: is not accessible” (where X is the respective drive letter) followed by the same message of corrupted file. The system will then display another pop-up window that will ask you to format the drive saying, “You must format the drive in drive X: before you can use it.” You don’t want to format it because you will lose all files and folders on the drive.

Here are some ways to fix corrupted folders and files in Windows 10. Follow them and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Let’s start.

How the file or folder that got corrupted

You must understand the main causes of this unfortunate event. It will help you better troubleshoot it.

• The MFT or FAT partition containing the file or folder is corrupt
• Virus or malware problem
• The USB stick or any other external drive has been physically damaged
• Remove the external hard drive without first safely removing it

Solutions must work for internal and external readers. I will share more details if necessary.

Note: External drives damaged by water, fire, or physical falls cannot be recovered. You will need to bring the drive to a data recovery expert, and data recovery will depend on the condition of the drive.

1. Check for viruses and other threats

You can run your favorite antivirus application or use the built-in Windows Defender (now Microsoft Defender) which comes preinstalled on all Windows 10 computers. Windows Defender has come a long way and is currently one of the most effective antivirus applications in the world.

Download, install and run Malwarebytes now. Malware is not the same as a virus. You need both on your computer to protect your files and folders from corruption. Finally, you need to download and run the Microsoft Safety Scanner application. Always download the latest version before running it. The portable application is not updated automatically.

Obtain malware bytes

5. Format and recover data

This solution applies to those who use external hard drives or flash drives and get the error “The file or directory is corrupt or unreadable” with an option to format it. As previously stated, formatting the disk will delete all data from the disk.

The first thing you should do is make a backup of the data on another drive. There are a number of data recovery applications available in the market. We covered Recuva and EaseUS, two of the most popular.

Check if it works and you can open the file / folder. If not, go ahead and format the drive. You will also find the formatting option when you right click on the drive letter. However, do your best to recover the files before formatting your drive.

6. How to avoid data loss

No matter where your data is located, internal or external hard drive, there is always the potential for loss for various reasons. One of the best ways to protect your data is to make automatic backups locally or to cloud storage. You can use OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. You can still use an external drive to make backups, but even that will be subject to errors and physical damage. Still, a backup option is always better than none.

Prevention is better than cure

The best way is to make a backup in the cloud, so that you never face this problem again. If you are already faced with it, you can either try to fix it or use file recovery software like EaseUS or Recuva to recover lost data. However, recovery depends on several factors, for example if the written data has been irreparably corrupted, etc. For now, learn from this error so that you don’t end up in the same fix.