What is best way to fix corrupted directories in Win2K

[chip4par]

I have been trying to backup my C: drive to another drive. I got an error that stated I had corrupted directories/files in C:\Winnt. I looked and found 18 files that look like junk. I tried deleting on but was not allowed. Any suggestion as to what would be the best way to fix this?

 

[sieistganzfett]

hey, could you tell me more info so i know how the files became corrupted and why your trying to backup the winnt directory (im assuming you already got the rest)? also, is this hard drive failing? and the hard drive diag could not repair the sectors, which may contain these directories/files that are corrupt? if you just need the data off that hard drive to copy to the other hard drive, winnt and windows in both 2000 and xp just contain the OS, the data that belongs to users, such as their documents, etc. is under "documents and settings." if this hard drive is not failing, and you wanted to boot off the drive again after you get your important data off, you can run the windows 2000's "repair" install, which will install 2000 right over itself and fix those corrupted files(providing the drive is not failing). another option once you get your data off is to format the drive(providing it is not failing) and reinstall from scratch. As i said before though, winnt is primarily the OS since most "data" is under "documents and settings', or under "program files", with a few remaining under the root directory.

 

[chip4par]

I cannot tell you how it got fouled up. When I tried to run my weekly incremental backup, I use Retrospect for a Western digital USB drive, it checks all files everywhere to see if there were any changes. When it got to my WINNT directory it slung an error message about corrupt or malformed files. I looked and found about 12 files(directories) that were ACSII junk for names; boxes, tildes, squiggles, number, etc. The drive seems sound and does not appear to be failing. I was going to use the repair install but thought there might be a better way.

Thanks for the quick response!
Hank

 

[sieistganzfett]

you should still double check the drive with a diagnostic from the manufacturer, but this sounds like the boot drive and it has had no problems other than the backup one, when you have the backup occur, just have it backup everything except the winnt directory since you need the data on the drive, if something were to happen to the hard drive, you would do a reinstall and restore you data. the reason it didnt work (did it work before?) could very well be that files in that directory are currently in use as the backup runs since they are OS files.