RELATED: How to Scan for (and Fix) Corrupt System Files in Windows. Run the SFC Command to Repair System Files. Run the SFC command when troubleshooting a buggy Windows system. SFC works by scanning for and replacing system files that are corrupt, missing, or changed.
What is a corrupted file?
- RELATED: How to Repair Corrupted Windows System Files with the SFC and DISM Commands. In the case of corrupted system files (from an unexpected shutdown, bad update, or malware), you can always try something like Windows’ built in System File Checker. It scans your system for corrupted system files, and then replaces them with originals.
- A corrupted image file header can make JPEG files inaccessible, using JPEG repair tool you can quickly fix broken or corrupt JPEG file headers in no time. Expert Advice on Tackling JPEG File Corruption Issues Before using any of the above solutions, listen to what our experts have to say about tackling JPEG corruption issues.
- DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) is a tool that can fix corrupted system.
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 rightinformation is in the right part of the files, it will work well. But if the wronginformation 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 toopen it. But it does not affect the original program. That's to say, even if you have acorrupted 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 corruptedfile.
1. Your files corrupted during saving. For example, your computer loses power or crash as yousave 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.
Repair Corrupted Files On Windows 7
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. Thedetailed steps will be a little difference owing to different operating system, so I’ll showyou in 2 parts.
Part 1: For Windows 7users
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 selectProperties.
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 8/10users
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 inWindows 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 asadministrator.
Step 2. In the command prompt, type the following command and hit Enter. Then, just wait forthe final result.
sfc/scannow
✎Note: After scanning, you will receive one of thefollowing messages, which will tell you if the corrupted boot files are repaired.
Repair Corrupted Files On Windows 10
Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations. This messageindicates that there are no missing or corrupted system files.
Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation. This messagemeans that you need to run SFC command in the safe mode and make sure that thePendingDeletes and PendingRenames folders exist under %WinDir%WinSxSTemp.
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 itwith the right one. To view the details, you can go to CBS.Log%WinDir%LogsCBSCBS.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 coulduse 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 Ifyou receive an error message like Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but wasunable 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 hitEnter.
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 thecorrupted files. For the common files, like music files, video files, word, excel, you couldconsider 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 selectingsystem file may omit some of these files.
To create a backup, you need a reliable backup and restore software like AOMEIBackupper Standard, which could help you backup all kinds of files, including the systemfiles. 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. DownloadAOMEI Backupper Standard, install and launch it.
Step 2. Click Backup and File Backup. To backup systemfiles, click System Backup.
Step 3. To select files or folders to backup, you can click Add File orAdd Folder.
Step 4. Set up a destination path for your backup and click Start Backup.
✎Note:
If you want to backup fileswith certain file extension, you could consider using File Filter.
If you modify your files frequently, you’d better create a differentialbackup, which only backup the changed files.
If your target drive is USB, you could create a schedule backup with USB plugged in.After the first backup, this software will automatically backup files when the drive isconnected to your computer.
Sooner or later, your backup drive will be fulfilled if you don’t delete old backups.To avoid this situation, you could enable backup scheme, which will delete backup filesat a specific role.
These features mentioned above is only available on the paid version. If needed, you couldconsider upgrading to the Professional orServer 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 onedares to say that there is a way to fix all the corrupted files.To keep your files safe andintact, you need to create a file backup or system backup. It's an exact copy of yourfiles, which can protect against file corruption.
If you want to protect unlimited computers within your company, you could pick AOMEI Backupper Technician. With the inbuiltAOMEI Image Deploy tool, you are also allowed to deploy/restore system image file onserver-side computer to multiple client-side computers over network.