I have a large NTFS disk. Due to unwise modification of partitions (namely, I enlarged C at the expense of D), I now have a lot of files that appear in windows explorer but cannot be open. I suspect the reason is that the partition process did move the partition boundary but did not touch the MFT, such that some files are referenced in the MFT (of D) but the address there actually points to nothing at all (presumably to a portion of the disk that now belongs to C).
So every now and again, trying to open a random file results in a "file cannot open error" (the exact error depends on the application trying to open it).
I have backups so this is a nuisance more than a crisis. But it would be good to be able to identify all the affected files, and replace them by their backup'd version once and for all.
Is there a way to batch check all the files and see which one actually exists ?
EDIT: after comments. Apparently my interpretation is incorrect. Further investigation reveals that the offending files exist, but contain only NULL. Therefore, although I don't know how the situation actually arose, the problem can be rephrased as "identify files which content is purely NULL".
There is a possible solution there How to quickly determine which files contain only NULLs so they can be safely deleted (Windows)? , but of course alternatives do not harm...
