File Verification

[Steve]

The one thing I haven't seen discussed is File verification..
After recovering data, the customer expects the data to be good.
I find that checking the files usually takes more time than the actual recovery.
So. my question is : what do you guys use to check the files .
Pictures are easy as thumbnail view allows for multiple file viewing ,
but for word docs , excel docs , power point , quickbooks, and the numerous
other file types , there has to be a better way than opening each
individual file.
If I send a drive out to a large DR shop, I always get a file listing
with the status of each file , but I haven't seen any software that
generates such a list .
So.. how does everyone here verify files?
Any and all input is appreciated

Thanks in advance
Steve

[rchadwick]

You know, I was just about to ask that same question. In theory, you could just use the program that created the file. In practice, this could take longer than the data recovery! Also, if you open a file created with an older version of a program, and you open it with the latest version, it might update the file to the latest version, and the customer won't be able to open it.

[sempre]

excellent question!
I use the experience, depending on the situation I am certain that the archives are opening, now when had been subscripts the data and if he has a great amount of archives to recoup complicates there exactly, this reply also I look for to optimize the service in these cases.

[dobrevjetser]

Well, I once had a case where i had to recover several thousands of word and excel documents from a badly damaged raid.
About each second file was bad.
In order to minimize the time needed to check each file, I wrote a program to verify if the signature of the files was good. This way, i could find about 80% of all bad files.
The rest i had to do by hand, by using viewer software. This is much quicker and less risky than using word.

Regards,

Dobre

[zed]

When i use a program like R-Studio or X-Ways it often tells you which file had bad sectors or which sector range, if it's less than 20-30 files i manually create a file list of damaged files.

But as far as corruption goes, i don't know how anybody else does it. I just insist my customers check any important files before they pay and if they pay for the data they are accepting the data in as-is condition, no refunds or complaints. It has worked well in the past.

Most of the time the only time i ever see corrupted data is if somebody has attempted to resize or convert a partition and it's crashed in the middle or something weird has happened. For hardware problems or RAID jobs i hardley ever get any corrupted files.

For file lists i normally use dir /s >filename.txt in dos CMD or use this program which is free and works well:
http://www.snapfiles.com/screenshots/lsfilelist.htm