file corruption after disk got too full

[Guest Rob]

Hello,

Here's the scenario:

2003 server, RAID 5 with 2 partitions. D partition had 1 huge folder (about

500GB), and partition itself was about 535GB. Data grew unexpectedly & got

up to about 534GB. Got errors in event logs pertaining to disk full, and

immediately moved folder to partition with more room using Xcopy.

Have since discovered that corruption did occur randomly in some sub

folders. Files are mostly .dwg & .pdf files.

 

If I run a scan disk on the new partition where the data was moved to, could

it possibly repair some of these corrupted files?

New partition is on a DAS & is about 2.1TB in size, so chkdsk would take a

long time to run...

 

If it wouldn't fix them, does any one know of any utilities that could :

-locate corrupted files

-repair .pdf & .dwg files

 

Backups have been spotty lately, and I don't have a good complete backup

that doesn't have any corruption on it....

 

Thanks!

 

Rob

[Guest Edwin vMierlo [MVP]]

Re: file corruption after disk got too full

 

 

response in-line

> Have since discovered that corruption did occur randomly in some sub

> folders. Files are mostly .dwg & .pdf files.

 

How did you discover this ?

>

> If I run a scan disk on the new partition where the data was moved to,

could

> it possibly repair some of these corrupted files?

 

no scan disk and chkdsk will not repair file corruption, it will *try* to

repair the NTFS file-system (e.g. data-structures) to a consistent state,

but will not touch any files or content of files.

 

From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/187941 :

 

"It should be pointed out that NTFS does not guarantee the integrity of user

data following an instance of disk corruption -- even when a full CHKDSK is

run immediately after corruption has been detected. Thus, there may be files

that CHKDSK cannot recover. Also, files that are recovered may be internally

corrupted even after CHKDSK has been run."

> New partition is on a DAS & is about 2.1TB in size, so chkdsk would take a

> long time to run...

 

yep, I would recommend smaller NTFS volumes and spread the data around.

 

Smaller volumes Pro:

- when corrupted, chkdsk is faster

- when corrupted, you do not have to take all your shares/volumes offline

Smaller volumes Con:

- requires the admin to actually actively manage storage

 

Large volumes Pro:

- requires less admin / management

Large volumes Con:

- when corrupted, chkdsk takes a very long time

- you need to take all your shares/folders offline, even when corruption

only occurs in a small part

 

>

> If it wouldn't fix them, does any one know of any utilities that could :

> -locate corrupted files

> -repair .pdf & .dwg files

 

If the corruption is logically in the file, there are no utilities, other

than from the program who wrote the file in the first place, e.g. if this is

an outlook file, then outlook has to have a utility to check and repair its

own files (and it has btw, hence I choose this as an example)

>

> Backups have been spotty lately, and I don't have a good complete backup

> that doesn't have any corruption on it....

 

well, that is a different topic, I won't state the obvious, but do put this

on your priority list !

 

HTH,

Edwin.