Free Ways to Fix File Record Segment Is Unreadable

What is file record segment?

Before solving the problem of File Record Segment is Unreadable, we must understand what is the File Record Segment.

Each file system stores related file information on the drive, which is called the file record segment (referred to as FRS). NTFS stores these record segments in the master file table (referred to as MFT), and the FAT file system (FAT16/32 and exFAT) stores them in the file allocation table (FAT). The file record includes the date, size, physical address, type, and file name of the file on the storage drive. When the operating system needs to access a file, the operating system first scans the file records in the file system table, reads the address of the file, and after obtaining the file address, it then goes to the actual location on the drive to read the data. 

Why “File record segment unreadable”error occurs?

When you receive file record segment is unreadable in Windows 10, 8, 7, it means that you may be at risk of losing data. Because the file record segment cannot be read, it refers to the file system of the data stored on it (for example: file name, date, type, and physical address) cannot be read.

Usually, this problem is caused by the following reasons:

● MFT (Master File Table) or FAT (File Allocation Table) may be damaged logically or physically.
● There are multiple bad sectors on the hard drive.
● The hard drive may be attacked by a virus.
● Or the hard drive was deleted from the computer incorrectly.

How to fix file record segment is unreadable?

After figuring out why the file record segment is unreadable in Windows 11/10/8/7, we can start to solve it.

Method 1. Shield bad sectors with CHKDSK

Windows has a built-in tool CHKDSK that can be used to check the integrity of the disk. It checks the disk and corrects many common errors. So, you can solve the problem of file record segment is unreadable with CHKDSK.

Step 1. Go to Windows Explorer, right-click on the drive with file record segment unreadable error message, and choose Properties.

Step 2. Navigate to the Tools tab and click Check from the Error-checking section.

Step 3. Then choose Automatically fix system errors and scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors in Windows 7. If you are running Windows 8 and 10, these two options won't show up, and you need to click Scan drive to continue with the instructions.

Note:

In addition to the graphical interface, you can also perform this operation in the Command Prompt.

Step 1. Enter "CMD" in the start bar, right-click and select "Administrator" to open it. 

Step 2. Then type chkdsk g: /r (g is the drive letter of the partition having unreadable File record segment issue) and hit Enter.

Method 2. Clone hard drive to a new one

If there are any bad sectors on the disk, the disk will be corrupted sooner or later. It is advised to clone the target hard drive when encountering a file record segment that is unreadable.

For disk cloning software, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard (It supports Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, and XP).

This is a professional cloning software that provides two methods: Clone Disk Quickly and Sector-by-Sector Clone. The former refers to cloning of used sectors, and the latter refers to cloning of entire sectors. In addition, it also supports extending partition size, formatting partitions, merging partitions, etc.

Note: For data disks, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard supports MBR/GPT to MBR/GPT; but if you want to clone system disk, please upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

Step 1. Connect a new disk to your computer and ensure it can be recognized. Then, download AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard and open the software.

Step 2. Click "Clone" in the main interface, and select "Clone Disk".

Step 3. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk and click "Next".

Step 4. Select another drive as the destination disk, and then click "Next".

Step 5. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to "Sector to Sector clone", and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to improve the reading and writing speed of the SSD. 

Step 6. After returning to the main interface, check the pending operation and click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit the operation.

Conclusion

After reading the above two methods, I believe you should already know how to deal with File record segments is unreadable. If you have more needs for disk, then AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro will be your best choice. It also has more advanced features, such as: wipe system disk, move applications from one partition to another, allocate free space from one partition to another partition, etc.