Recovered Files Not Opening?
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DowntonMini
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I'm not really sure I think it lost its format as it stopped working and then kept saying it needed formatting I plugged it into several computers and got the same.
No the originally drove wasn't returned
No the originally drove wasn't returned
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If they haven't trashed the original drive yet, PhotoRec could be worth a try: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
If the drive was coming up as not formatted, it means it was at least spinning up, so it probably wasn't mechanical failure. It would just be 'not found' if there electronics were fried too.
If it just stopped out of the blue one day, with no warning or 'unable to read / write' to file, and no obvious slowdown in the previous days, then it's probably not bad sectors. It could be, if the first sector to die was the one with your boot / FAT information on, but you'd be unlucky.
So it point to some form of corruption on the boot record / FAT table (the bit of the disk where they keep a record of where the information is stored for all the files, and what the PC should do when it first finds the disk).
Normally when you re-build files from this form of corruption, some of the files will be fine, and some will be toast. Many factors play a part here, but you would expect some to work! You would also expect to pull back old deleted files, and the older they are (and the fuller the disk was), the less likely they are to work - they are just a side effect of building back the files - the recover can't tell if the file was previously deleted or lost during the corruption, so they will also come back (well at least in name - chances are the files are just bits of new files strung together).
Do the file sizes look reasonable for the types of files they are? Smaller files should be more reliably recovered than larger ones - check a few documents, text files etc to see if they are okay?
For larger files, such as your RAW files, even if the file as a whole is corrupt, it may be possible to extract the embedded jpeg preview to give you some form of the image back.
If none of the files are readable - I'd ask for your money back.
swanseamale47
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Sorry mate, I was really confused yesterday when I posted, we'd just had a family drama, and I've been going like a headless chicken all the week, so my brain was fried.
Can you pm me a link and I'll pass it over to my brother, he used to be an IBM tech (one of the ones they went to when they were stuck) I've also get a computer nerd friend who goes all over the world fixing problems for big companies, that and I have a few bits of software here to try.
swanseamale47
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They've probably stripped the drive and put the platters in a reader and reset the boot sector (or whatever it's called) Either that or they just run the drive through some cheap recovery software.
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That very kond if you pm me your email address I'll send you a drop box link when I put the computer on later
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DowntonMini
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Ok so I've spent a little time looking at the files over the past few days and it appears that some of the jpg files have thumbnails (well they do in Bridge) but they still will not open.
I am still awaiting a response from the data recover company.
I am still awaiting a response from the data recover company.
ChrisH
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Well I've tried various programs both pc and Mac and although both show the same file size I just can' repair or open any of them. Whilst the company won' have given any guarantee you should at least have had the original drive returned.
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Mark,
Have a look at
https://samsclass.info/121/proj/p7-image-header.htm
and check what the headers of the files look like (use a duplicate, not the original).
You *may* have some luck hex editing the file headers so that the software knows what the file is. (and then again, it may be toast).
If these are RAW files not jpg, then have a look at a few known good ones in a hex editor to see if the same process can be applied (if the header is consistent - I suspect it should be so that the s/w can understand what it is reading).
I found a few comments on the web about using DCRAW to extract jpgs from RAW files, but you would need a c compiler as the author only supplies the .c files (Do you run linux - If so the gnu compiler would work)
Also, try the exiftool forum
http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php
I found a few posts on there where people were hex editing files to try to recover them and they seemed to be helpful rather than scathing.
Have a look at
https://samsclass.info/121/proj/p7-image-header.htm
and check what the headers of the files look like (use a duplicate, not the original).
You *may* have some luck hex editing the file headers so that the software knows what the file is. (and then again, it may be toast).
If these are RAW files not jpg, then have a look at a few known good ones in a hex editor to see if the same process can be applied (if the header is consistent - I suspect it should be so that the s/w can understand what it is reading).
I found a few comments on the web about using DCRAW to extract jpgs from RAW files, but you would need a c compiler as the author only supplies the .c files (Do you run linux - If so the gnu compiler would work)
Also, try the exiftool forum
http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php
I found a few posts on there where people were hex editing files to try to recover them and they seemed to be helpful rather than scathing.
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