The symptoms of a missing file are pretty obvious (you won’t be able to find it), but the symptoms of file corruption can run the gamut. Some of the symptoms of file corruption include
- A file that won’t open when you click it; the operation either puts you at an hourglass or does absolutely nothing.
- You see the file you want to open in a folder list but when you try to open it, you’re told the system cannot find the file or it’s not a valid file.
- A file opens with a wide range of error messages, not all of which indicate corruption.
- A file opens to display what appears to be garbage characters as if you opened the file using the wrong program

Knowledge of disk imaging is necessary for all people with several aspects of data recovery. A regular computer user should be aware that the data stored on hard disks are vulnerable and may be lost due to assorted reasons, most of which may not be in your control.

