PC Disaster and Recovery

The symptoms of a missing file are pretty obvious (you won’t be able to find it), but the symptoms of file corruption can run the gamut. Some of the symptoms of file corruption include

• A file that won’t open when you click it; the operation either puts you at an hourglass or does absolutely nothing.

• You see the file you want to open in a folder list but when you try to open it, you’re told the system cannot find the file or it’s not a valid file.

• A file opens with a wide range of error messages, not all of which indicate corruption.

• A file opens to display what appears to be garbage characters as if you opened the file using the wrong program (see Figure 13.1).

  Figure 13.1: File corruption may make the content look like “garbage.”

• As the file is opening, a low memory warning appears, or you’re told you cannot open the file because you have too little available memory.

• Windows prompts you to tell it what program to load this file with, when the file is of a type already associated with and recognized by that program (such as .doc files in word processors).

• Your application exits spontaneously every time you try to open a specific file or group of files.

• Your application, previously open and working fine, displays odd behavior each time you open a particular file.

• You have problems saving other files from an application that are open at the same time as a corrupted file.

• Closing a suspect file seems to improve the performance of the application.

  Tip

  Before you assume a file is corrupted, shut down and restart your system. Then try to load the appropriate application by itself, without loading any data files. Restarting the system reduces the odds that an instability on the desktop is causing the problem. If the application itself won’t open, you may need to uninstall and reinstall it.