How to repair corrupted archive RAR or ZIP file? We know that file corrupt is one of reasons that lead to archive decompression failure. The other reason is wrong password.

archive file corrupt

If it is just because of password wrong, extract archive again with right password is OK. Even though you have no RAR or ZIP password, RAR Password Genius or ZIP Password Genius would help you to recover it.

So now let’s see how to do with RAR/ZIP archive corrupt error.

When archive is corrupted, maybe it is not so easy to extract it like when archive password is wrong. But it is possible to repair RAR or ZIP archive successfully with following three methods.

Method 1: Repair corrupted RAR/ZIP archive with WinRAR

Compressed file repair function is integrated in WinRAR. So if you want to repair corrupted archive, you can try to use WinRAR.

Step 1: Run WinRAR and in address bar, navigate to the location where the corrupted archive is saved.

Step 2: Select corrupted RAR or ZIP file. Click Repair button in tool bar, and choose “Repair archiver” if there is a drop-down list.

begin to repair corrupted archive in winrar

Step 3: Then a new dialog would pop up. There you can choose the location where you want to save the archive after repairment. Confirm settings and click OK.

rar or zip archive repair settings

Step 4: After 100% repairing corrupted archive, go to the folder you choose to save repaired archive, and find the file named _rebuilt.rar or _rebuilt.zip. This file is the repaired archive file you want.

repair archive in winrar successfully

get archive after repair

Tips: You can try this method, because if the archive is not corrupted seriously, the success rate is high.

Method 2: Repair damaged RAR/ZIP archive with compressed file repair tools

Undoubtedly, the special compressed file repair tools are available to repair corrupted or damaged RAR or ZIP archive. For example, Zipmagic, RAR Recovery Toolbox, Advanced RAR Repair, they should be powerful than repair function provided by WinRAR. They adopt a variety of algorithms to scan damaged archive to recover archive data, and check the consistency of archive file. All of these make archive corrupted data recovery better.

However, most of them are not free to use. So if you have no other ways to repair damaged archive, they are good choices for you.

Method 3: Repair corrupted RAR/ZIP file with shortcut menu

If your compressed file, RAR or ZIP archive is not large software, but an archive with several files, such as images, you can take following method into RAR or ZIP corrupt error repair.

Step 1: Select your RAR archive and right click it. Choose “Extract files” in the appearing shortcut menu.

select corrupted archive to repair

Step 2: In the “Extraction path and options” window, choose a folder to save decompressed archive. And check Keep broken files in Miscellaneous.

repair corrupted archive

Step 3: Click OK to begin extraction. When there are errors message prompting you, ignore them and go on to extract archive. Then we will get all the files that are not broken or corrupted.

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