Error reading from file: Input/output error

Question

Good day everyone I do not understand why i can't access the file on my flash drive. I edited the said file less than 2 minutes, saved it, made sure to click the unmount button and restarted my computer (i learned to click the unmount the hard way). Now when i tried to access the file its giving me the following error: Unexpected error: Error reading from file: Input/output error

when i try to copy it to another location on the drive i get the following Error opening file '/media/ubuntu/Drive Name/New Folder/file name': Read-only file system

When i copy the file to the desktop i get the following: Error splicing file: Input/output error

But when i am able to open the file and a SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT of detail is missing. about 6 months worth of detail. Please i must recover the full amount of details in that document. Since i added info and saved it under that same name, will disk carving be of any help?

Thank you very much

Solution

Sound like a defective/corrupted drive/file/file system.

This is important:

You should immediately make an "raw" image of the drive and try to restore/recover the file form the image. Do not try to write to the flash drive. This might result on more loss. Better don't use the drive at all except for making the image.

Once you have the image, try to mount it and see if the corruption is only on the one file. After that you have to start to recover the file manually but it might not be possible at all. Please post the specific problems for further help.

And backup your data on a daily basis so you won't have to learn it the hard way again!

Comments

[JDDoe]

Something has been telling me to make a backup of this particular file for a while and i just didn't listen. But why though? I used it less than 2 two minutes. I should use dd to an image and save it as an .img?

[Albin]

@JDDoe I'm not sure if DD image can handle flash drives, but if you search on how to make flash drive image you will find plenty of answers. Why it went bad? Who know, maybe the flash drive it self is stating to fail, I just had this happen to me last week. And if you don't find enough answers/information on how to create the image or recover the data just ask as second (specific!) question.

[JDDoe]

I was able to image the drive using dd and guymager. Mount and try image recovery. Will i be able to mount if from an external hard drive and try to recover the files on the same hard drive. I have another question. SInce i have saved this same file on the same location many times, if i do a recovery will it recover the files under their original name for example if the file was named what.txt will it recover the file under what.txt? If not thats going to be A LOT of text files to go through? Will i be able to specify the date i want it to recover through. lets say within the past week?

[Albin]

@JDDoe is that a question or a statement?

[JDDoe]

sorry the question will be these: Will i be able to mount if from external hard drive A and recover the files to the same hard drive? Since i have saved this same file on the same location many times, if i do a recovery will it recover the files under their original name for example if the file was named what.txt will it recover the file under what.txt? Thank you

[Albin]

Both yes. You can rovoer to the same device you used to store the image (just not on "into" the image itself). If the filename can be recovered it will be almost the same name yes. But you might only be able to recover part of the content without the name if the part of data that stores the name is corrupted.

[JDDoe]

Alright. I'll give for foremost a try because photorec doesn't do that. Thank you very much. Hopefully this is the last lesson i learn.

[Albin]

Great, if you solve the problem feel free to mark my answer as accepted, if you feel it helped you to solve your problem