I formatted my computer after saving important files in a RAR archive on a USB drive. I copied the archive back to the computer, then formatted the USB drive. When I later tried to extract it, both WinRAR and 7-Zip reported that the archive was damaged or corrupt. I also tried several repair tools and attempted to recover the original data from the formatted USB drive with recovery software, but neither approach worked. The archive is about 750 MB, so I'm hoping it still contains usable data. I don't need everything back—recovering even some of the files would help. Is there another way to extract as much as possible?
2 Answers
The archive may have been incomplete if the USB drive was disconnected or formatted before the copy finished. A file showing a size only confirms that space is allocated; it doesn’t prove the contents are intact. WinRAR’s repair feature or the older command-line RAR utility may help, but repairs can only reconstruct data when enough recovery information is present.
Try extracting the archive with 7-Zip anyway. It may be able to recover some files even if the archive is damaged, although files that depend on missing or corrupted sections may be incomplete or unusable.
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