Location is not available... the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

[steve12955]

I occasionally use an old Toshiba laptop with Windows 10.  I tried to access some Word and PDF files in Dropbox from the C: drive and got the error message: "Dropbox is not accessible.  The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable."  The documents still exist on the Dropbox website and I can access and open them from my phone and another desktop we have at home, so the issue is with my laptop's C: drive. 

I did not recently install any new software although an automatic Windows update occurred in the last 10 days or so.  I tried to run DSKCHK, both scheduled and by manually rebooting so that it executed on StartUp, but it doesn't run.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[smarquina]

Did anyone get an answer to fixing this problem? Thanks!

[smarquina]

Did anyone get an answer to fixing this problem? Thanks!

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@Chris G.12 wrote:

"Location is not available" (personal information removed) and "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" when accessing file in Windows 7.. Yet luckily I can still open the folder going through a browser to access Dropbox, open files, etc

Can you run any troubleshooting software to identify which file(s) in [personal information removed] are causing the issue? I tried to run something that said a bunch of Pandas were identifying the bad files but then a red rectangle appeared at the top saying the program had quit running. A little help please?

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[Luffy]

Hey there @smarquina - welcome to the Forums!

What does your desktop app report when you mouse over the little Dropbox icon next to the clock?  Can you give this tool a go to see if there are incompatible characters in your files' names? Note that this error is a generic Windows error and there are quie a few factors that could be causing it - you can run a quick google search to see all about it. Is it possible that you have moved your Dropbox Folder to an external drive? Is it on a supported file system with all the appropriate drivers ( NTFS should do the job for Windows computers)? 

Note that a screenshot of the exact error you get is always helpful too. Hope this helps point you to the right direction and please let me know what you find!

Cheers!

[steve12955]

Hi - I'm still having the issue.  I've tried a number of ways to use CHKDSK to check my C: drive (CHKDSK c:).  While running CHKDSK I get a message saying: "Attribute record (A0, $I30) from file record segment 552 is corrupt." 

Then it shows "1369344 file records processed."  

Then on the next line: "Errors found.  CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode."

I've also tried running CHKDSK with /f and /r to repair the error - but they don't work. 

[Jane]

Thanks for looping back to me here steve12955, let’s investigate the possible cause of the error you’re getting in a bit more depth & we’ll take it from there! 

I was able to run a search on my end for some tips on this error message, let’s recap you previous points & we’ll take it from there. 

For starters, as you’ve mentioned that you’re trying to access you files from your C:\ drive, can you also clarify whether you had moved Dropbox on a removable drive previously? Had you installed Dropbox its default location on your Toshiba device? 

If the Dropbox folder resided in a different location on your device, can you let me know whether the drive was formatted to a supported filesystem (ex. NTFS, HFS, ext4, APFS, which support extended attributes)? Any detail you could send me in regards to your previous setup (in relation to Dropbox) would be very helpful, so as to narrow down the possible causes. 

Thanks for all your time & efforts & I’ll be awaiting your next update on this discussion here. Happy Friday Steve! 

[steve12955]

Hi Jane,

Thanks for your reply.  Unfortunately, I did not move my Dropbox location nor install it on another device.  It's been part of my laptop's C: drive since it was originally installed years ago.  As mentioned, it appears the files are accessible from my phone and desktop - it's only the Toshiba laptop that is problematic.

I reached out to Microsoft's support community as well.  Since I believe that a Windows 10 Security Update was installed a few weeks ago and the problem appeared soon after, they suggested uninstalling it and provided instructions on how to do it.  I'll try that and will report back to you.

Thanks,

Steve