How to Repair Corrupted Files in Windows 10?

Saleh Solutions

A corrupted file is a damaged file that does not load the contents correctly. This can apply to any file type, not necessarily only system files.

Every file on your computer has some data stored in a structured manner. For example, the data within an XML file is stored in multiple nodes, sub-nodes. Your operating system or the programs installed on it, extract information from each node, to read that file.

A file is said to be corrupt when the information is stored in a non-structured manner, which causes problems retrieving the data from it. The operating system or application might fail to open a corrupted file at all, or it may only load partial data. File corruption is one of the most common factors that lead to data loss.

What Causes A File to Become Corrupted?

A file may become corrupted due to many reasons. Some of the prominent reasons are:

  • System Glitches & Operating System Crashes: If your operating system crashes, or brings up the Blue Screen of Death (or STOP Error).
  • Power Outage & power surge: Sudden power outage and power surge can damage your computer’s motherboard and other components such as a hard drive.
  • System Reboots: Unexpected system reboots can corrupt your files
  • Hard drive failures: A hard drive may fail at any moment due to physical damage or accumulation of bad sectors. Hard drive failures can cause corruption of the files stored on it.
  • Incomplete Save Operation: When a sudden, unexpected problem arises while data is being written to a file, it causes the file to become corrupted.

How Corrupted Files Can Affect You?

Corrupted system files can make your operating system unresponsive, unbootable or bring it to a halt. When your operating system fails to load the resources required to boot itself, it may not load and be stuck on the Windows boot interval, or throw up an error message. If this occurs, you may have to restore the original versions of the Windows boot files.

File corruption is not only limited to system issues, but also loss of personal data. For example, if you’re working on a Word Document and your computer crashes, you may lose any unsaved changes made to the Word Document. Thankfully, Word has an inbuilt feature that automatically attempts to recover your document although there is no guarantee of any kind.

Repairing Corrupted Files in Windows 10

System File Checker is an in-house tool in Windows that scans your operating system files for corruption and attempts to fix them itself. Run SFC to identify if any system files are corrupted and repair them, if required.

  1. Click on Start.
  2. Type Command Prompt.
  3. Right-click Command Prompt from the search results.
  4. Select Run as Administrator.
  5. Click Yes in the User Account Control (UAC) prompt.
  6. Type the command given below and press Enter:
    • sfc /scannow
  7. System File Checker will start checking the integrity of your files. Wait for a while, and follow the instructions on your screen.

Repair Corrupted Documents and Personal Files

There are different ways to repair corrupted documents and personal files. The actual process may depend upon the application you use.

Method 1: Use Office Recovery

If you cannot open your Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel files normally, you may want to use Office Recovery. To do so, follow the steps given below:

  1. Open your Microsoft Office program (For example, Word for .docx files).
  2. Click on the File button.
  3. Select Open, followed by Browse.
  4. Browse the target directory that contains your file.
  5. Select your corrupted Office file, and click the drop-down icon next to the Open button.
  6. Select Open and Repair.
  7. Microsoft Office will attempt to repair your corrupted file. It may take some time.

Method 2: Restore an Earlier Backup

A backup is a copy of an original file. Backups are helpful in times of data disasters. If you’ve been taking periodic backups, you may restore an earlier copy of the corrupted file.

  1. Type restore files in the Search Box on the taskbar.
  2. Open Restore your Files with File History.
  3. If no files were backed up, you’d see: No file history was found.
  4. If you’ve previously backed up the files, locate your file.
  5. Click the arrow icon to view all the file versions.
  6. Click on Restore to restore the file to the original directory. Alternatively, you can right-click the Restore option and select Restore to, to specify a different location for file restore.