How do I repair a cyclic redundancy check data error?

Question

A client of ours is trying to copy his database, but get's this Windows error:

Error Message: Data error (cyclic redundancy check)

Explanation: The operating system cannot read or write the data correctly.

User Action: If the error occurred on a hard disk, retry the command. If the error occurs again, try running some disk utilities to correct the problem. If the error occurred on a floppy disk, insert a formatted floppy disk or the backup floppy disk, and retry the command.

Is there anything he can do to fix his hard drive? Something like check disk?

Answer 1

This indicates a serious disk/data error.
They could try forcing the windows disk check.

Try to boot in Safe Mode (usually with the F8 key), and select full disk check (scandisk).

Check to see if the database has any recovery options for disk-errors.

If they have a backup, it would be a good time to get it out now.

Answer 2

You could try using Spinrite (not free)

SpinRite.

It's a tool that will scrub your hard disk, bypassing all the built-in mechanisms to repair sectors on the disk. It can fix many a hard disk that would otherwise be toast because of a few bad sectors here and there, and will in most cases help recover files.