Repair Corrupt ZIP / RAR Archive

Due to the excellent compression capabilities, WinZip and WinRAR are widely used for backup of important files. Any damage/corruption to these backup files can cause hardships to the business. The compressed files get corrupted and fail to decompress due to various reasons like:

  • Virus infection
  • Software malfunctioning
  • Hardware failure
  • Disk formatting
  • OS corruption
  • Human errors (like accidental file deletion)
  • Power surges
  • Sabotage and others

Some of the common errors being displayed while uncompressing is as follows:

  • "Cannot open file: it does not appear to be a valid archive"
  • "This is not a valid win32 application' or 'Corrupt Zip file"
  • "CRC Errors"

If you encounter any of the above error, there arises the need for Corrupt ZIP / RAR Archive recovery. However, one can easily repair the corrupt ZIP or RAR file using the inbuilt repair option within the compression software itself, if the compressed file is not heavily damaged.

To repair a corrupt RAR / ZIP file using WinRAR, use following method.

  • Open WinRAR and browse to the folder with your .rar/.zip file.
  • Highlight the file and click the Repair button from the tool bar.
  • In the pop-up window, select "Treat the corrupt archive as RAR/ZIP" depending on which type of archive you are trying to repair.
  • You may get a "Suspicious Entry" pop-up. If so, select All. This may happen several times while repairing.
  • After WinRAR has completed repairing the archive, click on Close.
  • To extract your file, highlight your new rebuilt archive.
  • Next select Commands > Extract without confirmation
  • The files will start extracting.
  • The archived files will be extracted to the specified folder as the repaired archive.
If the data loss is significantly very large, seeking help from a professional data recovery service company will be the best option.