Folders and file names corrupted

[chaser_22]

I have a problem with a file server which at random times hangs, only way to get it working again is to reboot.

It looked like the files on the D: drive were causing the hang ups, what we did was restore the files from bkup tape and then placed the data on a different drive, all seems well, no hang ups.

The files that we restored from tape, look like they were already backing up damaged data.

I've found numerous files and folders with weird characters, I'm also not able to delete certain folders, it gives an error message that the file could not be found.

Some files (mostly autcad .dwg files) don't have their file extension anymore.

Going to look for damaged files and folders manually will take me a long time, does anyone know of a tool that can look for files and folders with illegal characters?

I looked on the internet, but all I could find were some tools which do the job, but only for Apple macintosh computers.

[Steve R Jones]

I'd be pretty nervous relying on some application to decide if my files were corrupt or not.

Some files (mostly autcad .dwg files) don't have their file extension anymore.

If you add the extension back to the files, are they good to go?

[Sterling_Aug]

Sounds like you will be losing a good bit of company data. Who will be losing their job because the backups are corrupt? Didn't anyone test them?

[chaser_22]

Steve, I'd like to have a search tool to find files and folders of which the names have illegal characters so to find out to what extend the data corruption has spread.

Maybe we can fix some files just by entering the correct file extension, I haven't tried it myself, there were alot of files of which I wasn't sure which extension it should have, have to look at it with a few users who might know.

Sterling, I just got this job, I was hired to replace the previous administrator who left because he was relocating more to the south of the netherlands, distance was to far to travel.

The third day I worked here I encountered the file server crash, he told me that it happened a few times and they didn't know wat caused it, but a restore of the data would solve the file server crash.

I was thinking ok, this doesn't look good, him not knowing what was causing it made me worry even more, but what am I gonna do, the damage is already done the only thing I can do know is to see if and how much data is lost or if some of it can be recovered.

I've advised the company to invest in a new file server because they're running out of disk space, NAS or DAS using the old file server, but I'd do a clean install of w2k3, because it used to be a DC and I'm not sure whether that went ok, so at least then I'll have a good base to start from, just need to make sure most of the data can be put back.

[Sterling_Aug]

This may or may not help you:

http://www.mydatabasesupport.com/for...rectories.html

[chaser_22]

A script like that might be a last resort, I'm going to try and go search manually, or just try copying the data to the new fileserver, see where it stops copying.

Thanks for the help.

[Rocketmech]

Since the corruption occurred at some point in time, it may help to search by date . Its a trick in searching for malware and may help here as well.

[Steve R Jones]

FileCheckMD5 is a simple but effective tool to verify the integrity of files in a specified folder. You can first select the folder to be validated and create a MD5 checklist, which is automatically placed within the folder after the content has been scanned. Later, you can verify all files in the folder by simply loading the check file. Useful to make sure that files have not been change or to track down corrupt files on CDs or other media.
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/fil...echeckmd5.html


ICE ECC is a file verification and repair tool that enables you to protect your important files against digital corruption using Reed-Solomon codes. The program is not intended as a main backup solution, but rather as a backup for your backup - it can be included on CDs or DVDs before you store your data, allowing you to recover data that has become corrupt due to age of the media or scratches. You can protect selected files or entire folders by simply selecting them and having the program generate an ECC file. If you ever need to verify whether the data has been modified or corrupted, just select the appropriate .ECC file and load it into ICE ECC, which will then analyze the files and can recover any corrupted data.
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/ICE_ECC/iceecc.html

CheckFolder is a simple tool, that allows you to check if all files in a folder or drive can be read. It can be used to find corrupted files or to verify files on a CD or DVD.
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Che...eckfolder.html

[chaser_22]

Thank you Rocketmech and Steve for your tips, I'll try out your suggestions and post back.

[chaser_22]

Looks like the problem is solved, asked a colleague to have a look, the files that didn't have an extension were Macintosh files and there were folders which had some weird character in the name, we managed to delete those characters.