diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/commitlog/CommitLogReader.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/commitlog/CommitLogReader.java
index d47fbaea544e..f0d15c6ae271 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/commitlog/CommitLogReader.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/commitlog/CommitLogReader.java
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
  */
 package org.apache.cassandra.db.commitlog;
 
+import java.io.IOError;
 import java.nio.file.Files;
 import java.nio.file.Path;
 import java.io.*;
@@ -119,6 +120,19 @@ static List<File> filterCommitLogFiles(File[] toFilter)
                 // let recover deal with it
                 filtered.add(file);
             }
+            catch (IOError e)
+            {
+                // Only handle file-not-found errors gracefully; let other IOErrors propagate
+                // as they may indicate corruption or serious I/O issues
+                if (e.getCause() instanceof java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException)
+                {
+                    filtered.add(file);
+                }
+                else
+                {
+                    throw e;
+                }
+            }
         }
 
         return filtered;