📑 Table of Contents
🛠️ Cause 1: File System Errors on the Drive
🛠️ Cause 2: Interrupted Transfer or Bad Sectors
🛠️ Cause 3: System File Damage
⚠️ What This Error Looks Like
It usually shows up mid-task — halfway through copying a folder to a USB drive, deleting an old backup, or opening a file you haven't touched in months. The exact wording is: "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable." Sometimes the drive itself still shows up fine in File Explorer and everything else on it opens normally, which is what makes this one confusing — it's not always the whole disk, often just one file, one folder, or one section of the file system table.
🔍 4 Causes at a Glance
Rather than guessing, match your situation to the table below first — it'll save you from running the wrong fix.
| Cause | Typical Trigger | Best Fix |
|---|---|---|
| 1. File system table errors | Sudden shutdown, unsafe eject | CHKDSK |
| 2. Interrupted transfer / bad sectors | Cable pulled mid-copy, aging drive | CHKDSK /r, move the file |
| 3. System file damage | Only happens on the C: drive | SFC / DISM |
| 4. Malware or failing hardware | Recurs after repair, odd file names | Scan + backup + replace drive |
🛠️ Cause 1: File System Table Errors
This is the most common cause, especially on external drives — an unsafe eject or a shutdown mid-write leaves the file system's internal table (MFT on NTFS) with entries that don't line up. Open Command Prompt as administrator and run CHKDSK on the affected drive letter:
Replace F: with your actual drive letter. If it's the C: drive, Windows will ask to schedule the check on next restart — accept it and reboot.
🛠️ Cause 2: Interrupted Transfer or Bad Sectors
If the error only hits one specific file — and especially if that file was being copied when your PC lost power, a cable was pulled, or the drive disconnected — the physical sectors storing that file may actually be damaged. Add the /r flag, which locates bad sectors and tries to recover readable data from them:
This scan takes much longer since it reads every sector. Once it finishes, try copying the file to a different, healthy drive rather than working with it in place.
🛠️ Cause 3: System File Damage
If this only happens on your main C: drive and CHKDSK didn't fully clear it, the underlying Windows system files themselves may be the corrupted part, not your personal files. Run these two commands back to back from an elevated Command Prompt:
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
Run sfc /scannow first; if it reports files it couldn't fix, run the DISM line, then repeat the SFC scan once more.
🛠️ Cause 4: Malware or a Failing Drive
If the error keeps coming back on the same drive after CHKDSK reports it fixed everything, or you notice odd renamed files nearby, run a full antivirus scan first. If the scan is clean but the error persists, treat it as a hardware warning sign: back up everything important immediately and plan to replace the drive. A drive that keeps regenerating this error, especially an aging mechanical one, is telling you it's on its way out.
❓ FAQ
Q. Will I lose the file if I run CHKDSK?
Usually CHKDSK repairs the file table without deleting data, but if a file is unrecoverable it may end up in a "found.000" folder at the drive's root — check there afterward.
Q. Can I fix this without Command Prompt?
Yes — right-click the drive in File Explorer → Properties → Tools → Error checking → Check, which runs the same scan through a GUI.
Q. Does formatting the drive fix it?
It clears the error but also erases the drive, so only do this after backing up what you can and only if repeated CHKDSK runs don't help.
Q. Does this affect SSDs the same way?
File system errors, yes; but SSDs rarely get true "bad sectors" the way HDDs do — for SSDs, repeated errors more often point to drive health, so check its SMART status with your manufacturer's tool.
✅ Wrap-Up
#0x80070570 #WindowsError #FileCorrupted #CHKDSK #WindowsTroubleshooting