How To Fix Corrupt Or Damaged ZIP Archive File?

Updated on June 03, 2022

“I had stored huge number of files such as documents, photos, videos etc in ZIP file. But yesterday when I tried to open the Zip file using WinZip, I got an error message which said something like “Cannot open this file, it does not appear to be a valid zip archive”. The files that were stored in ZIP file were very important. Can anyone tell me the reason behind the error message and the way to sort it out?”

You are not the one to face such scenario, there are lots of users who are troubled by the similar errors while trying to download or extract their Zip files. Basically, the error message pops up when the downloading process of Zip file is interrupted due to low or no network connectivity, power failures, sudden system shutdown, etc. This warning message also appears when you move the Zip file from one place to another and the moving process is disrupted in any way. The message shows that the ZIP file is corrupted and in order to repair it, you need to make use of any good repair software.

Normally, to reduce the size of a file or a folder or even to back up some important files many users prefer archiving or compressing. ZIP is a popular archive format that is being widely used in internet. Like other archives, ZIP file is data containers. It can store one or several files in a compressed form. Since you won’t be able to send a complete folder containing number of files through an email in one go users choose is to compress files into a folder i.e. Zip archive. Though this compression method seems to be advantageous, but when you do so it brings problem in other hand too. It might get corrupted for several reasons and as a result you may face data loss.

Reasons for Corruption of ZIP Archive are:

• CRC Error: CRC or cyclic redundancy check is a technique used in digital transmission to calculate the accuracy of transferred data by comparing CRC values at sending and receiving end. If both sending and receiving values does not match then OS displays an error message you cannot access the files. Such type of error occurs when there is interruption during transmission of ZIP file. It shows that the ZIP file is corrupted
• Virus Infections: You may have come across files on your system that has changed to shortcuts. These are common signs of virus attack on your system files. When your system is infected with viruses, it can cause further damage to the file structure or content and damage other files stored on hard drive as well. So viruses can infect and damage the Zip archive making it inaccessible
• Header Corruption: Zip files have a header and data part, the header part contains information related to file like its name, size, etc and this information is needed to access the files content. In case if the header part is corrupted due to any unknown reasons, then Zip archive refuses to open
• Changing File Extension: Changing or renaming the file extension of particular file to some other unsupported format can severely corrupt the ZIP file. For example changing the file extension from file name.zip format to name.rar format may corrupt the ZIP file. Because changing the file extension just changes the file name but the functionality remains the same. This may make the ZIP archive inaccessible and the file does not function as a ZIP archive anymore

How To Repair Damaged Or Corrupted ZIP Archive?

To get your ZIP file repaired, you need to make use of any good repair software. One of the competent software that has been specially designed to repair corrupted or damaged Zip archives is Yodot ZIP Repair software. This software is developed for testing, processing and repairing corrupt or unreadable ZIP archive files that are not completely downloaded, partially damaged or any other cause. This repair tool helps you in fixing broken and invalid ZIP files. The graphical user interface of this software makes it easy to operate even for non-technical users. It is compatible with all Windows operating systems such as Windows 8, 7, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and 2008.

Steps to repair ZIP archive:

• Download Yodot ZIP Repair software and then install it to your computer
• Once you install the software, run it to start the repair process
• Follow the steps that you can see on the main screen
• Choose corrupted ZIP file, that you want to repair
• Begin the repair process by clicking on the Repair option
• You can view the repair progress in the progress bar
• Once the repair process ends, you can view the repaired file’s contents
• At the end you can save the repaired contents on the desired location by selecting Save option

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