Data Recovery

[edemiere]

Hello everyone.

I couldn't really find a good forum for this question, so I thought I'd try it here in a general forum.

I have a floppy disk that has about a dozen screenshots of a procedure I did years ago, something I can't remember how to do and by the luck of the Irish I found the floppy in a plethera of old floppies that used to have the images on it (I say that because I recognize the filenames).

When I use data recovery tools (you name the shareware/freeware apps readily available and I've tried them) they all say that files are in "excellent" shape. It recovers all the files but the .jpg's are not viewable anymore. It's like they are either corrupted or just simply not valid .jpg files anymore.

Is anyone aware of any tools or methods by which I can recover these files so they're legitimate files again? I am really at wits end here and would love to hear any suggestions from anyone that might have ever recovered a graphic file from deleted media.

Thanks guys!

E.D.

 

[micker377]

What "viewer" are you using? You may have to use a "General" viewer such as "IfranView".

 

[edemiere]

Well, I have tried to open the recovered files in Paint Shop Pro, Paint or even using the Windows Picture and Fax viewer and none of them recognize the files as 'valid' .jpg files.

All indications are that the files are in 'excellent' condition on the floppy, but I just can't seem to find a tool or method that will restore them without them being damaged.

Thanks!

 

[MonkeyX]

I would try to make a copy of the disk itself before doing to much to it. Use something like WinImage or something similar to make as exact a copy as possible. Then do all of your experimenting with the copy. I have had one disk that started to work just fine after that. I guess the disk wasn't bad just weak? Not sure. But I am sure if you go doing to much to the original disk you will most likely end up losing someing important off of it.

The other photo program you may try is ACDSee it is a photo viewer/ conversion program that will recognize, open and convert many many formats.

 

[MonkeyX]

As for recovery software have you tried Spinrite (

http://grc.com/spinrite.htm)

Not cheap but I have used it in the past to recover data from otherwise dead hard drives. Been a long time ago now though.

You may just not be getting all of the data in the jpg file. Remember it is a compressed (lossy) file format so losing much more data from the file will total the overall image.

 

[BadBigBen]

I use either BAD COPY (

http://www.jufsoft.com)

or File Scavenger (

http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm)...

and if all else fails, I use my AMIGA to copy the DISK as it does not use a FLOPPY Controller like PCs due, but does direct access to the drive...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[edemiere]

Ok, thanks for the suggestions guys, I will give those a try when I get home and let you know what happens.

Cheers!

 

[edemiere]

Hey guys, sorry for the delay in getting back to you all on this, but I've been swamped at work.

Anyway, I got around to trying these and trying the forementioned tools, the files still come out unviewable so at this point, I am not really sure what options I have.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd sure love to hear them!

Thanks for your time everyone, I appreciate you all taking the time to give me ideas.

Cheers!

 

[BadBigBen]

Hmmm.... have you tried this great Freeware called IrfanView and it's Plugins,

http://www.irfanview.net/

...

if it can't recognize those Pics then mostlikely they have become corrupt in their DataStructure...

in that case you may have to copy and edit it with a HexEditor... as JPG need to have the following in their file to be recognized as a JPEG file: JFIF ... ie. (this is taken from a PIC on my PC and the first 6 bytes are relative, meaning they are JUMP Adresses on the DISK Data Structure) "FF D8 FF E0 00 10 4A 46 49 46", where the 4A thru 46 spell out JFIF...

other than that you may want to try to import them RAW to an Imaging Software, like Adobe Photoshop or Ulead PhotoImpact...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[edemiere]

BadBigBen:

Ok, thanks for the tip, I'll give that a whirl this week and then let you know how it goes.

Appreciate the tip though, hopefully this works because I am starting to feel these unreplaceable pictures are going to become a loss which would really be the pits.

Thanks again and will let you know!

Eric

 

[pbb72]

I agree in the suggestion to open the files in a hex-editor, and checking the first 10 bytes. Please post them here. From your description, I am afraid you will either see random "garbage" bytes, or just zeros. I've had a simular problem on a harddisk once, caused by a screwed-up FAT.

 

[edemiere]

Hi guys.

Well, I tried changing the first 10 bytes to fix the jpeg definition of the file and I also tried irfanview and it seems as though I can't recover the files. They still come up as invalid, which is most unfortunate. But I thank you all for your suggestions. If anyone else has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!!!

I'll just have to keep this floppy and hope that somewhere, sometime I can come up with a solution for proper recovery...

Thanks again everyone...

 

[BadBigBen]

Sorry, I am at a loss here, myself...

if I had the disk in front of me, I would/could try to access it with my Amiga setup and see what that could do... it tends to read stuff that x86 OS's tend to balk at...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."