You can't read the rows of an idatasetname. The datasetname contains metadata about the featureclass, such as where it is and what type of featureclass it is, it is not the featureclass itself. The point I am trying to make is if your datalayers are broken, as in the data source has been moved or removed, you will neither be able to access the featureclass nor the rows. You can't read what isn't there. But if you can read where the layer is expecting to have data, you can look to see if the data is indeed missing or not. If it is missing, well then you know that is the problem. You will have to put the data back in the expected location or point the layers to a new location where the data is. Its' like your trying to open a file and read the lines from a directory but the file is not there, you will never be able to read the lines if you don't have the file.