What is a corrupted file?

The corrupted files are computer files that suddenly become inoperable or unusable.

In fact, every file on your system has certain structure and content. Thus, if the right information is in the right part of the files, it will work well. But if the wrong information is written to a file, or the right information is written in the wrong place, the data will be garbled and scrambled, leaving you with a corrupted file.

In general, a corrupted file will not open at all or show an error message when you try to open it. But it does not affect the original program. That’s to say, even if you have a corrupted word file, you still can open other word files and use Word as normal.

Why is the file corrupted?

No matter what wrong, there is a reason for it. See below and get the reasons for a corrupted file.

1. Your files corrupted during saving. For example, your computer loses power or crash as you save files, the files may be corrupted.

2. Bad sectors on hard drive or other storage devices.

3. Virus and malware on a hard drive or other storage devices.

4. Bad update on your computer

How to fix corrupted system files in Windows 7/8/10?

Method 1: Repair corrupted files using Windows built-in tool

This method is used to check bad sectors and repair it with Windows built-in tool. The detailed steps will be a little difference owing to different operating system, so I’ll show you in 2 parts.

Part 1: For Windows 7 users

Step 1. Go to the hard drive Properties window. You can open Computer, right-click the hard drive you want to check bad sectors and select Properties.

Step 2. Click Tools in Properties window.

Step 3. Click Check now in the Error-checking section.

Step 4. Tick Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors and hit Start.

Step 5. Review the check disk report

Part 2: For Windows 8/10 users

Step 1. Navigate to the hard drive Properties window. You can open This PC, right-click the system drive and select Properties.

Step 2. Click the Tools tab in this window

Step 3. Click the Check option under the Error-checking.

Step 4. Review the scan result and click Scan and repair drive.

Step 5. Choose When to repair the file system and wait for the final result.

Method 2: Fix corrupted system files in Windows 7 using system file checker

The SFC command is included in Windows 8/10, which is used to repair corrupted boot files in Windows 7/8/10. You can try it with the detailed steps in the following.

Step 1. Type cmd in the search box, right-click it and select Run as administrator.

Step 2. In the command prompt, type the following command and hit Enter. Then, just wait for the final result.

sfc/scannow

Note: After scanning, you will receive one of the following messages, which will tell you if the corrupted boot files are repaired.

  • Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations. This message indicates that there are no missing or corrupted system files.
  • Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation. This message means that you need to run SFC command in the safe mode and make sure that the PendingDeletes and PendingRenames folders exist under %WinDir%\WinSxS\Temp.
  • Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
  • Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. This message means that you need to find the corrupted files and manually replace it with the right one. To view the details, you can go to CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log.

Method 3: Repair corrupted boot files with DISM command in Windows 7/8/10

How to fix corrupt files found in SFC Scannow but cannot fix for Windows 7/8/10? you could use DISM command line. It’s a replacement for SFC command line, especially when SFC scannow not working. Detailed steps are below.

Step 1. Run SFC command in Windows 8/10. If there is no problem, you can close cmd. But If you receive an error message like Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them, you should run DISM command.

Step 2. Run DISM command. You can type the following command in the command prompt and hit Enter.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Step 3. Wait and restart your computer to make the change available.

What to do after repairing corrupted system files?

To prevent your files from damaged again, you need to create a backup after repairing the corrupted files. For the common files, like music files, video files, word, excel, you could consider creating a file backup. For the system or boot files, like dll file, cbs.log files, you’d better perform system image backup, because manually selecting system file may omit some of these files.

To create a backup, you need a reliable backup and restore software like AOMEI Backupper Standard, which could help you backup all kinds of files, including the system files. And it provides you various schedule backup, including, daily, weekly, monthly, event-trigger, etc. Beside, it allows you to backup to external drives, USB drives, NAS, network share.

Here, I’ll take file backup as an example and show you the detailed steps.

Step 1. Download AOMEI Backupper Standard, install and launch it.

Step 2. Click Backup and File Backup. To backup system files, click System Back

Step 3. To select files or folders to backup, you can click Add File or Add Folder.

Step 4. Set up a destination path for your backup and click Start Backup.

These features mentioned above is only available on the paid version. If needed, you could consider upgrading to the Professional or Server edition. It depends on your operating system.

Summary

Up to now, how to fix corrupted files in Windows 7/8/10 is still an outstanding issue. No one dares to say that there is a way to fix all the corrupted files.To keep your files safe and intact, you need to create a file backup or system backup. It’s an exact copy of your files, which can protect against file corruption.