File or Directory is Corrupted and Unreadable on Seagate External Disk [4 Fixes]

My file or directory is corrupted and unreadable on Windows 10

When connecting a Seagate external hard disk drive to your computer or laptop, it may be recognized as an external device in "My Computer". However, when you double click the external device and try to open it, Windows system may pop up an error message:
X: drive is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable (X refers to the drive letter of the Seagate external hard disk drive).

Video Tutorial: how to recover corrupted and inaccessible file or directory

Steps to Restore Files From Seagate Disk corrupted and inaccessible Error

Repair Corrupted Seagate Portable Disk Free

Download iCare Data Recovery Pro to find back data from corrupted and unreadable Seagate external hard disk drive on your computer.

Step1. Free install iCare Data Recovery on the computer. Insert the Seagate external disk to the computer and start recovery with the program.

select recovery
Step2. Click the disk which saved your lost and start to scan.

select drive
Step3. When scanning is finished, preview the files list on your disk and choose which to recover.

recover files

Useful Tips for Seagate External Hard Disk Recovery

1. Don’t format the Seagate external hard disk drive to try to fix the error before you can recover all important files successfully.
2. You had better stop doing anything to repair the error before data recovery.
3. Take good care of the Seagate memory card drive to protect it from being destroyed or damaged.
4. If you can backup important data regularly, you won’t feel so upset when receiving the error message and cannot access the external hard disk drive. Therefore, it is recommended to backup important data regularly to avoid unexpected and unnecessary data loss.

4 Solutions to fix hard drive file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

1.Fix external hard drive file or directory corrupted with CHKDSK tool

First, you can run the Windows system CHKDSK tool to fix the bad sectors on the external hard drive.

Find the Error-checking tool on “Tools” module of “Properties”. Click “Check now” option to start.

Fix external hard drive file or directory corrupted with CHKDSK tool

2.Fix bad sectors on the corrupted external drive with disk manage tool

Here is a freeware to fix the bad sectors on the corrupted external hard drive, IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free, you can run it to fix the unreadable external hard drive.

Fix bad sectors on the corrupted external drive with disk manage tool

You can find “Check Partition” option on the software, click it and choose to fix bad sectors easily.

Fix bad sectors on the corrupted external drive with disk manage tool

3.Format the unreadable external hard disk with corrupted file or directory

You can try to format the Seagate hard drive after you have recovered the data on the drive.

First, you can try the system format tool.

Format the unreadable external hard disk with corrupted file or directory

Or you can try Disk Management to format partition.

Format the unreadable external hard disk with corrupted file or directory

4.Fix unreadable/unsupported file system external hard drive with CMD command prompt

Run CMD by pressing “Win+R” and then type“format l: /fs:ntfs”(l is the drive letter of your raw external hard drive)

Fix unreadable/unsupported file system external hard drive with CMD

Possible Reasons for File Directory Corruption on Seagate External Hard Disk

Usually, if Windows shows the message: file or directory is corrupted and unreadable on your Seagate external hard disk, the most possible reason is that the external hard disk is corrupted and Windows system cannot recognize it anymore. Well, the reasons that may cause an external hard disk to be corrupted might be:

1. The Seagate device is infected with virus
if your compute is infected with virus, your Seagate external hard disk drive will also be infected with virus if it is connected to the computer.will corrupt the external hard disk or files stored on the external.

2. There are damaged sectors on the Seagate external hard disk drive
A Seagate external hard disk might be corrupted due to bad sectors. In this time, you may also receive the error message. You can run Windows error-checking tool to fix the damaged sectors and try to format the device after data restoration.
Anyway, the error message mentioned above might be caused by various reasons. As long as your device has not been physically damaged, you can use data recovery program to repair data on the external disk.