This is a message you see often. “The file is corrupt and cannot be opened.” Maybe you’re more familiar with this kind of message. “There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged.”
Irrespective of how file error messages are worded, they can be frustrating. More so, they could be costly if important work or school files are affected. Virus attacks are the biggest causes of corruption in PC files. But it could also a simple thing like shutting down your PC suddenly. Whatever the case, the following tools can help you repair your files.
Stellar File Repair Toolkit
This toolkit comprises of four utilities, each armed to repair a particular kind of Microsoft Office documents. There is a solution for corrupted word, excel sheet, PowerPoint and zipped files, making it the ideal toolkit for office workers and students.
The toolkit is fairly simple to use. Click the files you want to fix and the utility repairs them even when they’re password protected. Stellar is available as both a free and a paid version. The free plan only allows you to see broken files but you must pay to get your files fixed. Stellar charges $69 for all utilities and $39 for each solution.
Norton Antivirus
Norton is an award-winning antivirus solution that offers top-notch protection against all sorts of security threats. Not only can it help recover your broken files back but it can also prevent future malware attacks on your PC.
As a comprehensive security solution, Norton is suitable in all kinds of situations. You can use it to scan and clean viruses from flash drives. It can protect you against spyware; rootkits, worms, ransomware and phishing files.
What’s more, the antivirus comes with an app that makes it conveniently easy to use. You can view all the services you’ve paid for in one place, change settings and customize it to meet your needs. Norton ranks up high when compared to equally renowned solutions like McAfee and Bitdefender. Read this Norton antivirus review for a better understanding of its capabilities before making a purchase.
Hetman File Repair
Most repair tools fix all files apart from images and videos. Hetman is dedicated toward fixing broken image files. Keep in mind it won’t help find deleted photos. It simply finds damaged image files and fixes them. Hetman repair solution deals with JPEGS, PNGs, TIFFs and BMP files and does not reduce their image quality.
Like most file repair utilities, Hetman File Repair isn’t a free solution. There is a free option but it only helps you identify damaged files. If you want to access the utility, a Home Edition costs $20 whereas a premium office edition costs $140.
Digital Video Repair
Digital Video Repair is the contrast of many file repair solutions. It’s totally free and fixes a wide variety of video files, including MP4, AVI, and MOV files. There’s one catch though. The files must be encoded using MPEG4, 3ivx, Angel Potion or Xvid for the utility to fix them.
Don’t worry if you can’t decide whether your broken files are encoded in a manner the utility can fix. Because it’s free, find it and find out how many videos it can help you fix. Just keep in mind that Digital Video Repair can’t fix your video files if they have missing frames.
Cimaware Office Fix
This is yet another toolkit focusing on fixing Microsoft Office documents. It recovers MS Excel, MS Word, MS Outlook and MS Access to be precise. Cimaware provides a quick navigation panel that helps you identify damaged files for the program to fix.
Cimaware also fixes graphs and images linked to your Office documents although it doesn’t claim to fix everything. The toolkit also helps edit your documents on its panel before saving them. Unfortunately, Cimaware is quite expensive, costing as high as $249.
Recover it
Recover it lets you conveniently recover broken files from a hard drive. If you suspected your PC has been compromised by a virus attack, this is one of the best tools to get. Recover it supports all Windows Operating Systems and MacOS 10.12 or later versions.
The utility’s panel is designed in such a way that you can conveniently recover files located in different folders. Let's say you've already deleted damaged files and they are in the recycle bin. Recover it can fix the files while they are still there.
You can also recover files on external devices or retrieve deleted files. Additionally, Recoverit features special categories for fixing files broken by viruses or files affected by a system crash.
Disk Internals Zip Repair
Zip files are notoriously hard to repair. They're also sensitive and get corrupted easier than MS Office documents. Yet, not many repair tool kits can fix these kinds of files. Disk Internals doesn't promise to repair all broken ZIP files on your PC but it can repair a great deal of them.
The utility is easy to use and has a free trial session, so you can fix some of your files free of charge before deciding whether to upgrade. The company making the repair kit also provides standalone toolkits to recover video and music files.
EaseUS Data Recovery
This is one of the most popular solutions for recovering missed or deleted files. What most people don’t know though is that EaseUS can also help fix a variety of broken files. EaseUS requires that you at least know where your damaged files are located.
It doesn’t scan your whole PC. You must direct the program to a particular disk. You can also narrow down to word, excel, or use other filters on its panel. EaseUS then scans potentially lost and damaged files.
To Conclude
Never panic when you get that dreadful “The file is broken” message. Simply find a repair solution. There are toolkits for different kinds of files, so make sure you download a toolkit that’s suitable for the kinds of files you’ve damaged.
Some of the toolkits are free or at least come with free trial sessions. It’s important to try out the solutions before you buy them. If a solution can’t fix your files during the trial period, it probably won’t fix them after you upgrade.
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