File0000 CHK Recovery | Recover CHK Files to Original Format

In short, this is caused by a corruption in your storage device's file system. It is much easier to recover CHK files to their original format than accidental deletion files. To this end, this blog will explain what the CHK file is and why it appears, as well as provide available solutions.

Table of contents

What is the CHK File, and How Do You Find It?

Why Are CHK Files Appearing On My Storage Device?

Is File0000 CHK Recovery Possible?

Recover CHK Files to Original Format by Converting the Extension

1. Manually Modify the Suffix Name
2. By CMD Command
3. Using PowerShell
4. Using Python Scripts

CHK File Recovery via Professional Tools

1. Data Recovery Software (Simple and does not rely on CHK files to restore original data)
2. UnCHK

Extract Metadata to Recover CHK Files After Converting Extension or Using Tools That Failed

Conclusion

FAQs

What is the CHK File, and How Do You Find It?

It is a fragmented file created by Windows when attempting to repair drive errors. In short, the system thinks these files are corrupted, but to protect the integrity of the data, they will be converted to CHK files and placed in a hidden folder named "Found.000".

When you find that files have somehow disappeared but their capacity is still occupied, you can view these CHK files by clicking on "View > Show" in the File Explorer menu and selecting "Hidden Items" (on Windows 10, click the "View" tab).

Why Are CHK Files Appearing On My Storage Device?

Many reasons can cause images, videos, documents, or other types of files to become CHK format. The common ones are:

• ⛓️‍💥 Forced unplugging, sudden power failure, or unexpected shutdown when using an SD card, USB drive, or other storage devices.
• 🦠 A virus or malicious program has tampered with the file structure or content.
• ⚠️ The hard disk has logical errors or multiple damaged sectors.
• 🧩 The internal components of the storage device are aging.

When the above situation occurs, whether we run the CHKDSK or Scandisk manually or Windows automatically, the system will convert these suspected damaged items to "* chk files."

Is File0000 CHK Recovery Possible?

Of course! A .chk file is essentially a "fragmented" item that has lost its name, directory structure, or other attributes but still contains the original file's contents. Therefore, several ways exist to restore it, even if you delete it.

Recover CHK Files to Original Format by Converting the Extension

Although CHK files are regarded as corrupted fragmented files by Windows, converting them to a recognizable format using the following four methods is possible, but it is a time-consuming process. If you want to try them, choose one that suits your situation.

Way 1. Manually Modify the Suffix Name

You can manually change their suffixes to the correct format when there are only a few CHK files. However, please note that this method is only applicable if you know the exact type of the original file.

1. Right-click on the CHK file and select "Property" in the menu.
2. At the screenshot location, change "CHK" to the original file type, such as "jpg," and then click "OK."

Way 2. By CMD Command

If you have many items that become CHK files and all are of the same file type, you can save a lot of time by using specific commands to recover CHK files in bulk. Here are the steps:

1. Press Win + R, type "cmd," and press Enter.
2. Use the cd command to switch to the directory where the CHK files are located. For example: "cd E:\folder.000".
3. Type the following command, then press Enter to convert the CHK files to the original format.

   ren *.CHK *.jpeg (replace jpeg with the one you specify)

Click here to learn How to recover permanently deleted files using Command Prompt

Way 3. Using PowerShell

Like the Command Prompt, PowerShell is also a command line tool for Windows. If you are used to using PowerShell, you can run the following script to achieve the same result.

1. Right-click the Start icon and select one in the menu, depending on your system.

   Windows 11/12: Terminal (Admin)

   Windows 10 and below: PowerShell (Admin)

2. Use the same command as in the above method to go to the location where CHK is saved.
3. Type "Get-ChildItem *.CHK | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace '\.CHK$', '.png'}" and press Enter. Here, you also need to replace the file format you need to convert.

Way 4. Using Python Scripts

Most of the time, we have multiple types of data stored in our USB or hard disk, such as JPG, MP4, DOCX, etc. Therefore, incorrectly converting files such as "chk to jpeg" will result in other types of files being useless.

Therefore, we have written the following script to expand the data types so that you can better convert the CHK file to its original format.

Example script:

1. import os
2. import magic # Requires python-magic and libmagic to be installed.
3. def get_file_extension(file_path).
4. """ use the magic library to detect the file MIME type and return the corresponding suffix."""
5. try:
6. mime = magic.Magic(mime=True)
7. mime_type = mime.from_file(file_path)
8. extension_map = {
9. 'image/jpeg': 'jpg',
10. 'image/png': 'png',
11. 'application/pdf': 'pdf',
12. 'application/msword': 'doc',
13. 'application/vnd.openxmlformats-
14. officedocument.wordprocessingml.document': 'docx',
15. 'application/zip': 'zip',
16. 'text/plain': 'txt',
17. 'video/mp4': 'mp4',
18. # can be expanded with more types as needed
19. }
20. return extension_map.get(mime_type, None)
21. except Exception as e:
22. print(f "error detecting file type: {e}")
23. return None
24. def restore_chk_files(chk_drive_path):
25. """ recover .CHK files in the specified paths"""
26. for root, dirs, files in os.walk(chk_drive_path):
27. for filename in files:
28. if filename.lower().endswith('.chk'):
29. original_path = os.path.join(root, filename)
30. # get the correct suffix
31. ext = get_file_extension(original_path)
32. if not ext:
33. print(f"Unable to recognize file type: {original_path}")
34. continue
35. # constructing new paths
36. base_name = os.path.splitext(filename)[0]
37. new_filename = f"{base_name}.{ext}"
38. new_path = os.path.join(root, new_filename)
39. # handling rename conflicts
40. counter = 1
41. while os.path.exists(new_path):
42. new_filename = f"{base_name}_{counter}.{ext}"
43. new_path = os.path.join(root, new_filename)
44. counter += 1
45. # renaming files
46. try:
47. os.rename(original_path, new_path)
48. print(f"successful recovery: {original_path} -> {new_path}")
49. except Exception as e:
50. print(f"rename Failure: {original_path} | false: {e}")
51. # Using the example (replace with the drive letter where the CHK file is located)
52. chk_drive_path = "F:"
53. restore_chk_files(chk_drive_path)

Instructions:

1. Install dependencies: pip install python-magic. You can download it from here.
2. Add more file type MIME mapping in extension_map as needed.
3. Modify the path: change the drive_path at the end of the code to the path of your disk (e.g., E:\)
4. After the modification is completed, run the script.

CHK File Recovery via Professional Tools

If you wish to skip the above time-consuming and uncertainty-existing DIY options, then this section will be your destination. Here, we will introduce two types of programs to recover CHK files in Windows 12/11/10.

#1 Data Recovery Software

Such tools do not rely on existing CHK files but scan your storage device to search for the original information of the files and reorganize them. Therefore, even if all methods in this guide fail or you accidentally delete them during processing, you still have a chance to obtain the original files.

iBeesoft Data Recovery is designed for this purpose, and you can get the lost data back in just a few clicks by following the steps below.

1. Download and install iBeesoft Data Recovery on your computer.
2. After launching the software, select the one whose file changes to CHK in the drive list, and then click "Scan."
3. Once the scanning is complete, you can go to the "Other Lost Files" > "Files Lost Original Name" folder in the left list to view the original files.
4. Check the boxes next to your needed items, then click the "Recover" button. At that moment, you need to specify a location to save them. To ensure that the files are not overwritten, select a directory different from the original storage location.

Tip: The above methods are also applicable to recover files deleted from Recycle Bin.

#2. UnCHK

In brief, it is equivalent to a tool that automatically converts CHK files.UnCHK analyzes the headers of these files to identify the type to which they belong accurately, then recover CHK files original format. Here are the steps on how to use it.

1. Click here to get this CHK file recovery software.
2. Right-click on this ZIP file and select "Extract All".
3. Click on "unchk.exe" to run it.
4. Click "OK" and select the directory where the CHK file is located.
5. Follow the instructions to select a scan mode and click "OK."

Extract Metadata to Recover CHK Files After Converting Extension or Using Tools That Failed

Can't use "* .CHK files" after conversion? Did the recovery software not find the original data? Using WinHex to identify the hexadecimal information of the CHK file and then extracting the information between the header and footer to reorganize the file will be your last hope. Although this is complicated for the common user, you can complete the process quickly by referring to the following examples.

Before repairing CHK files, you can learn about the hexadecimal header and tail identifiers of common file types.

	File header identification	End-of-file identification
.jpeg	FFD8FFEE	FFD9
66747970	Higth	No fixed end, combine with file structure (e.g., moov atoms) to determine the end.
.mp3	494433	No fixed end, combined with the audio frame to calculate the end.
.docx	504B0304	504B0506
.zip	504B0304	504B0506
.exe	4D5A	No fixed end, combined with document structure analysis end.

To look up the identification of other types of files, please click here.

When you know the header and footer identifiers of the different files, we will explain how CHK file recovery is accomplished using the CHK to JPEG file as an example.

1. Download and install WinHex to your PC.
2. Use WinHex to open the CHK file.
3. Click Search > Find Hex Values and enter the header identifier of the file you think the type is (if you suspect the file is a jpeg, then you should enter "FFD8FF").
4. After confirming the type of the CHK file, use the above method again to find its tail mark.
5. Select all the data (FFD8FF to FF D9) between the header and tail markers of the file.
6. Click Edit > Copy Block > Into New File. In the pop-up dialog box, save the file as .jpeg.

Conclusion

As we can see, there are several ways to recover CHK files to original format, from simply changing the extension, using tools to extracting metadata to rebuild. We are sure they can successfully help you. Given that the professional recovery tool - iBeesoft Data Recovery, does not rely on files that have been changed to CHK to solve the data loss problem. Therefore, we recommend you try it for the first time.

FAQs