I recently had an indicdent where I discovered that some image folders on the drive that I did a backup of were damaged which resulted in an incomplete/broken backup. Fortunately I managed to recover the damaged pictures from an old computer.

old computer and other devices (no damaged files ) –> backup (had some damaged files) –> backup of backup (also got the damaged files)

I know that the drive shouldn’t had been used the state where files got damaged in the first place, but I’d like to know if there’s a tool that can scan for inconsistencies among the files and identify if there are any damaged ones? Preferably without having to compare with the original files.

I discovered the broken images by pure luck (it was only a couple of folders), and the thought of not doing this and continuing to backup broken files scares me at night when I try to sleep.

  • mayo551BEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I have personally moved to ZFS which can self-repair based on generated checksums and parity data on the fly.

    If you are not using ZFS or another filesystem that has built in bitrot protection then you will want to use par2. You can also use rar which has recovery/parity data options available.