jpg recovery?

Community Forums/General Help/jpg recovery?

Ross C(Posted 2009) [#1]
I recently, yesterday, tranfered over all my mum and dad's photos and music from their, heavily virus ridden, computer. All the photos and music played on the old computer, however, upon transfering the photos and music to the new hard disc, none of the songs play anymore and none of the jpg's open.

- .bmp files open fine
- I have tried to repair the .mp3's via various apps, but i can only get half of a song
- I have tried to repair the .jpg's via various recovery apps, but i get nothing.

Now, either, the virus has somehow overwritten the start of these files headers or something, or, the actual transfering has introduced some errors, and due to .mp3 and .jpg being compressed formats, this would probably have corrupted the files.

Now, does anyone have any other suggestions, or solutions? Baring in mind i have tried various software apps. Most of the ones on the first pages of a google search. I have also tried a recovery search on the old hard disc after it was formatted, but no joy...


Brucey(Posted 2009) [#2]
Now, either, the virus has somehow overwritten the start of these files headers or something

Possible. Some viruses specifically go for certain file types.

But you say they all open fine on the original PC (still?)


markcw(Posted 2009) [#3]
Jpeg is more sensitive than other formats. Try to transfer the data again and see if you get the same results. I would just bring the PC to a local computer centre, they should know what they're doing.


xlsior(Posted 2009) [#4]
I would just bring the PC to a local computer centre, they should know what they're doing.


Hah.

In my experience the vast majority of them have no clue whatsoever.

If you still have any of the original source images around, grab one of them and compare it with one from the bad machine.

If the two are not identical, you can pretty much consider them lost.

If you no longer have an original one but still have the digital camera that created them, you can probably recover a picture straight from the camera, even if they've been deleted or the card has been formatted, using PC Inspector Smart Recovery: http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/smart_recovery/info.htm?language=1


Ross C(Posted 2009) [#5]
Unfortunatly, the computer was so badly infected, i decided to format the old hard disc and install it in the new computer as another drive, for backups (which is rather ironic...), so i have no viable comparison, or orginal data to work from.

It's not something i though to check when copying them, but i'll know next time. Unfortunetly, it's my parents photos from the last 10 years. Just hope i have a recent backup of stuff...

Oh, and file sizes seem to be consistant with jpg camera images. But, again, i have no other image to compare it against. I think i'm buggered with this one, but thanks for your suggestions.


markcw(Posted 2009) [#6]
Well you could try these guys out.
http://www.jpeg-repair.org/jpg-restoring/


Ginger Tea(Posted 2009) [#7]
well seeing as the drive was wiped any and all backups need finding

but if you hadnt wiped the drive already i would have asked if you could save all jgps to bmp on the virused machine as it still read em, id much rather have virus free bloated bmp's over infected jpgs any day, esp 10 years worth of photographs

but 10 years of jpgs and no back ups, i hope not

if mp3's are from cd's then its just the re ripping, you cant go back and re shoot those baby pics


D4NM4N(Posted 2009) [#8]
Send one to me by email if you like, ill examine it with some tools. If it is the header there is a chance i can see what the problem is.


Ross C(Posted 2009) [#9]
Thanks Dan, i'll email me you one of them :)

@ Ginger Tea, I wiped the drive because i though i'd copied across the pictures, but they are unopenable anyways...


BlitzSupport(Posted 2009) [#10]
I'd be interested in taking a look at one of the JPEGs too -- I've fiddled with basic JPEG file access, as below, and am curious as to whether it might be possible to rebuild the header at all:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2477


Ross C(Posted 2009) [#11]
Thanks man. When i get home i'll email you one. Dan said there was no header left on the files i gave him... I'll try and get a few, from different location. Most of them were recovered, so i dunno if the recovery process is further scrambling them.


Ross C(Posted 2009) [#12]
Dan, i replied to your email, but the email address got knocked back. Delivery failure...


D4NM4N(Posted 2009) [#13]
Yeh sorry my domain was knocked out for a few days. Its back now.
I dont know if you got my other mail about details of how and when the file was made and on what software. I suggested that it might have been a case of having the wrong file type selected when you saved it with a .jpg extension (the app-native type perhaps). Although saying that i checked both the "big end" and "little end" and could find no discernable header bytes (that i recognise anyway), but it is possible that if the image is a native format it might just use a letter and a number, or something else 'unreadable' that is only recognisable by that app. Failing that the only other theory i have is that is is either encrypted or corrupted.


_PJ_(Posted 2009) [#14]
There's a free trial version of some data recoery software whih is quite good considering it's not Scotland Yard/MI6 level stuff :)
It's scalled ActiveUndelete and it is pretty much catered towards image files and such by default. With small files like JPGs, the free version should allow for recovery (pretty sure it has a 3Megabyte limit per file or so)

It warns you and suggests saving any recovered items to a separate location so in case things go screwy, you're not harming the files (at least, no more than any corruption already there.)

Fortunately, I've never had much call to use it, but it just might be of some use. . . Just a suggestion :)