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"The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

Anonymous
2023-12-10T13:03:00+00:00

I'm currently facing an issue with my external hard drive. There's a specific folder that I can't delete, and whenever I attempt to open it, an error message pops up saying "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.". I noticed this problem after my game crashed when i try to open it, and when I verified the game files on Steam, it reported a "Corrupted Disk" issue, which I later discovered was due to a bad sector on the drive after i tried uninstall the game and there's a folder that cannot be deleted. Tried to delete or shift-delete the folder, nothing happens. I'm able to move or rename it, but accessing or deleting it doesn't work. Checking the folder properties reveals it as empty with a size of 0kb.

After moving the SteamLibrary to another folder, I encountered a similar issue with the same game a few weeks later, but with a different folder that can't be deleted. I suspect this might have occurred because I didn't eject the external drive manually, potentially leading to the bad sector.

Is it okay to run the command line with "chkdsk d: /f" ?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. DaveM121 871K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2023-12-10T13:37:53+00:00

    Hi, I am Dave, I will help you with this.

    Running this command is the best method to solve this, if the folder is corrupt, that command will delete it from the drive and resolve any other errors on that drive.

    chkdsk d: /r

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