CRC Error Correction Methods

Users regularly encounter various system failures caused by software or hardware reasons. One of the common problems is a CRC error, accompanied by a message with the appropriate text “Data Error in CRC”. It indicates a mismatch of the checksums of the downloaded file, which indicates its change or damage, and can occur when using internal and external storage devices. Often, a crash occurs during the recording of an optical disc, copying data from a disc to a computer, installing games and applications, or when working with torrent clients. The moment of tracking the occurrence of a failure always matters, since the way to solve a problem directly depends on the conditions under which the CRC error occurred.

CRC error correction methods.

What is CRC

Cyclic redundancy code or CRC (Cycle Redundancy Check) is an algorithm for calculating the checksum file used to verify the correctness of the transmitted information. That is, as a result of processing information, a certain value is obtained, which will necessarily be different for files, even for one bit different from each other. Thus, an algorithm based on a cyclic code, determines the checksum and assigns it to the transmitted data. In turn, the receiving party also owns the algorithm for finding the checksum, which allows the system to check the integrity of the received data. When these numbers match, the information is transmitted successfully, and if the checksum values ​​do not match, an error occurs in the CRC data, which means that the file addressed by the program has been modified or damaged.

Causes of CRC Error

In most cases, the problem is of a hardware nature, but sometimes arises for software reasons. The message “Data error in CRC” may indicate a malfunction of the HDD, a file system violation, or the presence of bad sectors. Often, a failure occurs during the initialization of a hard disk or SSD solid state drive after connecting to a computer, despite the structural differences and differences in the way it functions, this happens because the data cannot be read correctly. Then the problem may be not only mechanical damage, but also a malfunction of the connection interfaces or poor contact. Error in SSD devices with a PCI-E interface also happens due to accumulated dirt on the board. Problems with access to external drives are often associated with faulty ports. Among software reasons, an error in the CRC data can cause device driver failures. The source of the problem when installing software through a torrent client is often the damaged archive. Thus, the following causes of CRC error can be distinguished:

  • Accidental crash during software installation.
  • Loss or damage to data during transmission.
  • Download the damaged archive.
  • Incorrect registry entries.
  • Incorrect device drivers.
  • Damage to the optical disk.
  • Malfunction of connectors.
  • Damage to the sectors of the hard disk file system HDD.
  • Incorrect file configuration and other reasons.

How to fix CRC error

The factors provoking the problem are not so few. Determine the source of trouble most often, based on the conditions under which an error occurred in the CRC data, then you can narrow down the range of possible causes and figure out how to fix the failure. All troubleshooting steps will be effective in a variety of situations.

Error in CRC data when connecting device

In case of a problem when working with external drives, before treating the device with specialized utilities, the first thing to be done is to check the work with other connectors. If the port is faulty, then the issue can be solved by connecting the media to a different port on the device. Another reason is poor contact, for example, it is often found in the adapter connecting the SD card, as well as when using HDD or SSD devices. A flash drive, SD card or other plug-in drive can also be faulty, special software is used to read data from damaged devices, for example, BadCopyPro, but if the media fails, software methods are powerless.

The emergence of a failure when trying to access files on the HDD

“Error in CRC data” is often manifested due to the integrity of the file system or bad sectors on the hard disk. Since it is not possible to read the information correctly, there may be a number of failures associated with this, including the situation when the hard drive is not initialized. Diagnose HDD using the built-in Windows or third-party programs.

Chkdsk Tool Verification

There are many integrated services in the OS arsenal for solving various tasks. You can check the file system for errors, as well as detect bad sectors using the Check disk utility, called from the command line. To scan your hard drive, do the following:

  • Open the command prompt as an administrator. Use the “Run” console (Win + R) for this, where we enter the cmd command and hold down the Ctrl + Shift + Enter keys, and then confirm the intention to use the tool. You can also start the service through the Start search line - we write a request to the command line, then by pressing the right-click on the desired application in the search results, open the context menu and select "Run as administrator".
  • In the window that opens, write the command chkdsk C: / r / f (here C is the letter of the section being checked, to check other disks, you will need to substitute the corresponding value), press the enter key.
  • If the system schedules a check at the next boot, we agree and restart the computer. The scan will be performed automatically and will take a certain time depending on the size of the drive. According to the results of the procedure, the system will display a report on detected problems and error corrections (if it was possible).

In some cases, when there is no access to the entire disk or an error in the CRC data appears when accessing the software that previously worked, you will need to perform a scan in recovery mode, which requires a bootable USB flash drive or disk with the corresponding Windows OS. Changing the startup order of the devices (set the priority for removable storage in Boot) and starting from the rescue media, you can open the command line as follows:

  • Select the keyboard layout and language, click "Install Windows", then go to the section "System Restore."
  • Select "Troubleshooting - Advanced Options" and find the item "Command Line".
  • The command line interface will start, where you need to enter the same command chkdsk C: / r / f.

Scanning system disk check utility

You can check for errors in another way:

  • Open "My Computer" ("This Computer") by pressing the Win + E keys or in any other convenient way.
  • Among the displayed drives, select the desired one, click PCM and go to “Properties”.
  • In the “Service” tab, click the “Run check” button.
  • When the dialog box appears, check the item “Automatically fix system errors” and start the check. The process will take some time.

When you select a system disk, you will need to schedule a scan, in which case it will be scanned the next time Windows starts. Third-party software is also used to restore HDD, for example, HDD Regenerator, Acronis Disk Director, Victoria and others. Moreover, in the case of physical damage to the device, it will not be possible to straighten them out programmatically, so it is better to copy important information from the hard disk in advance, perhaps its time is running out.

Problem when downloading from CD / DVD media

If the error pops up when copying information from an optical disc to the internal drive, it is possible that the disc is simply dirty or damaged. First you need to clean the surface of the carrier and try the procedure again. If it does not help, we are looking for another source of information, and in case of its absence and the need to recover data from the disk, you can use the BadCopyPro program, which reads and returns to life files from corrupted drives, if possible. Unfortunately, in case of severely damaged disk damage, files cannot be copied from it.

Error in CRC data when recording an optical disc, installing programs or games

If the problem occurred during the process of recording the image downloaded from the Internet on a CD / DVD, it is worth checking the checksums of the recorded data before performing the procedure. For this purpose, the HashTab utility is used, after its installation, a new tab “Hash sums of files” will appear in the file properties, with its help you can compare the value with the source code. So, if the checksums do not match, you should download the image again.

Re-download the file or archive should also be when using the downloaded distribution of the program it is not installed on the computer. Data may have been corrupted during the download process or not fully downloaded. It is convenient to use for downloading uTorrent, since the utility independently determines the values ​​of checksums and downloads some of the information that has loaded with an error. In the case of downloading data from direct links, you can use the Download Master. In this case, it is possible that the archive or file was already damaged initially and in this form is uploaded to the resource, because you need to try to download it from an alternative source.

UTorrent error

When an error in the CRC data appears in the uTorrent program, we correct it with the following actions:

  • We are updating the client.
  • We delete the problem distribution in the program, as well as the missing file in the folder on the computer.
  • We are looking for a similar distribution on another resource and download from there.

The above methods are enough to get rid of the error in the CRC data that occurs under various conditions. So, by determining the source of the failure, you can purposefully fix the problem. In most cases, it is possible to correct the error using software, but when it comes to physical failure of the drive, you should think about replacing it.