The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

Error

The error “The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable” appears in the backup report logs

Cause

This is an error coming from Windows itself. The most common causes are filesystem corruption due to underlying hardware issues, most likely disk or storage problems.

Resolution

  1. Check the event viewer for hardware problems.
  2. Check the RAID or storage array health.
  3. Replace any faulty hardware.
  4. Run a chkdsk only once the hardware has been confirmed healthy. Failing to do this will result in data loss as the source problem is not being fixed.