How do I fix a cyclic redundancy check error when I try to copy a file?

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Hi Leo,

First of all I just want to let you know how critical and helpful your site has been, particularly this page. Maybe you don't think about it but you are really able to have a huge impact on people's lives.

For example, my boyfriend is a grad school student in the middle of an important project with a deadlne, and as is usually the case, his computer crashed at the worst possible time. I'm helping him by trying desperately to back up his data and save his hard disk because he can't, and because I have a little more computer experience than he does; without having found your site on my computer we would not have known what the "cyclic redundancy" message we kept getting was. It is a good thing we ran the check disk command when we did because every time we started his computer, even in safe mode, more data was being lost to the point where we were almost unable to start it at all the last time. So without your help, we would have a huge loss on our hands, and being students we just don't have the money to buy a new computer. I just wanted to say thank you very much for what you do! You are indeed a lifesaver- or at least a semester-saver!

One question I have- Running the chkdsk command, literally hundreds of bad clusters are being repaired. After the scan is done running, will we be able to access any record or list of what has been repaired? There are simply too many to keep track of, and seemingly no way to save.

Thanks again, Leo!

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Not that I'm aware of. I'd recommend backing up and copying off as much
of that hard drive as possible, and replacing it.

Alternately, you might try getting and running spinrite - it may be able
to recover/repair the drive. http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm

Leo
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Hey Leo,

First off I want to thank you for your site. It's incredibly helpful when things like DELL Help Center fail to come through.

But I do have a problem. I know the above article deals with copying a file, but my problem is deleting a file. I first got the cyclic redundancy check error message when I tried to empty my Recycle Bin. A window popped up stating the following:

Cannot delete Dc224: Data Error (cyclic redundancy check)

Well, I'm sure its a particular file that's the problem, because I can go into the Recycle Bin and manually delete everything. But even if I delete all the files shown, the recycle bin still reports the presence of one file. I believe that one of the files I tried to delete did not do so completely. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure where to go from here. Should I even keep deleting the files in the Recycle Bin one by one?

Up till now, my computer hasn't had any problems and now this. It's always something.

Even if you don't reply, your article was incredibly helpful in informing me of this type of error. Thanks for your time.

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It sounds like the CRC error is in the filesystem itself, not one of your
files. This is actually more dangerous because if the filesystem itself becomes
corrupt you could loose multiple files.

I'd strongly recommend the SpinRite, or at least the CHKDSK options noted in
the article.

Leo
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Hi Leo,

I also got a "cyclic redundancy check error" when trying to copy my Outlook.pst file. Interestingly, I never got any crc errors with any other file on this harddisk and I don't even use Outlook very much (hardly at all in fact).

What's more, I found your webpage because I googled for "hard disk error bad sector cyclical redundancy", so I wasn't even looking for Outlook related information.

All this makes me suspect that Outlook somehow "creates" these errors. (CHKDSK didn't report any bad sectors anyway).

Hope this info is useful somehow.

Correction regarding my own previous post:
In fact there actually was a bad sector, when I did a real CHKDSK (from the command line), and some of my Outlook data was lost.

Hello My name is Salman from Afghanistan.I have some sound files in a CD. There are about 70 .RM files on a CD all of them are fine but when I want to copy some of them there is this error.
I read the above instruction. but I want to ask you that is there a software to fix it? is there a good way to solve it?
because I need my files please tell me about it as sson as possible.the file itself is fine it works and can be read. but when I want to copy there is this error Data Error (Cyclic Redudancy Check) What should I do with this error? Thank you very much

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If you're positive that the files can all be played completely, then they can
be read, and I would assume that the CRC error is happening on the device
you're writing too. Try copying them to a different drive or device.

Leo

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Leo,

I am receiving a crc error when trying to copy the outlook.pst file. Based on your instructions I have determined the problem is on the hard disk. However, I can not copy the outlook.pst file using the xcopy /c command. Still get the crc error. Do you have any other suggestions for making a copy of the file?

Thanks

Hello,
I am having teh same problem as Keith McCollock.
When I copy to NUL the copy failes with a Cyclic Redundancy check.
When I open a DOS box from WinXP SP2 and run xcopy with the /c switch receive a messge that the file was not copied.

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