Photo recovery: Unable to open recovered images, images corrupt, or thumbnails only

[Alexey V. Gubin]

If you actually recover these images, and try to open them with whatever image viewer you typically use, are they still unusable?

[MeiLi]

I already tried your advice in this thread. But I still cannot recover my photos from my Olympus XD-Picture Card.

This is so frustrating. Earlier today I tried opening it through my laptop but it asked me to format it. I took the card to a nearest photo shop who tried to recover the files using Smart Recovery. But to know avail.

Before the technician used Smart Recovery, he asked me to click on "format now" from my digicam (Olympus FE-210). He said it's ok because he can recover the files using the said software.

Now, I feel hopeless. The pictures are of my mother's vacation overseas. This is the only time my mother can travel abroad and I don't have pictures. Please help!

[Alexey V. Gubin]

Could you please find ZAR log file,
C:\Program Files\ZAR\logfile.txt
and email it to me at development@z-a-recovery.com

it should not be that big

[rosscoboy]

I just used ZAR to scan my memory card and it found all my files so I saved them however, when I open them the pictures are really small to what they are meant to be. However there seems to be about 3 copies of each image all at different dimensions

They are meant to be 2592 x 1944 pixels and I have found only some of the recovered images that are of that dimension but when I try opening them it says 'drawing failed'? I took images and videos on the 11/08/08 and it was the 12/08/08 that they vanished however I still used my memory card on the 13/08/08 and the images I took on that day seem to be fine.

the other dimensions that do open are 170 x 128 and 320 x 240.

Anyone know if there is a possibility of recovering them all properly?

[milo_fishie]

I got all my photos from ZAR and the thumbnails are right but when I open it, the pictures have grey all over it and sometimes over half the photo is grey. What should I do? These photos were from my Grad dinner dance... It would be great if they turned out ok. Thanks =)

[Alexey V. Gubin]

Unfortunately if you tried both of

http://www.z-a-recovery.com/unformat-tutorial.htm
and
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/demo-ir.htm

and still no positive result, then there is nothing else we can suggest.

[usafmonty]

I was able to recover my photos, however I am having the same problems as stated with only 10 of the 320 recovered photos (they would be the ones I wanted the most). Has anyone been able to find a way to copy the photos that will not open? The fustrating part is seeing the photos and not being able to do anything with them.

[Alexey V. Gubin]

they would be the ones I wanted the most

.. and I guess these are either the earliest in the set, or the latest in the set?
Earliest shots are often first to be overwritten (e.g. after format).
Latest shots tend to be damaged when things go wrong (writes go wrong, buffers not written completely, and so on).

Unfortunately, this is in most cases just the bad luck.

[sidcoronel]

Hi Alexey:

I think I have the same problem opening recovered powerpoint and excel files

I get the following message from MSOffice help.

The selected file does not appear to be a valid Microsoft Office PowerPoint file. It might be another kind of Microsoft Office System file or a file created by using a different program.

Try double-clicking the file in Windows Explorer to see if another program will open it. If PowerPoint opens again when you double-click the file in Windows Explorer, it is possible that the file is not a PowerPoint file but that its extension was renamed to be that of a registered PowerPoint file type (such as .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .ppsx, .pptx, .pot, or .potx) but the file is not a PowerPoint file.

To determine which program can open the file, try any of the following:

Contact the original author (if known) to find out which program was used to create this file. Then rename the file with the correct extension so that it can be opened by that program.
Try opening the file in other programs.
If you, or someone you know, are very knowledgeable about software, examine the file header in a text editor to determine which program can read the file.
Another possibility is that the file was damaged during transfer from another computer. If the file was transmitted over a modem, try re-transmitting the file.

Lastly, the file might have become corrupted. If you have a backup copy of the file, use it. It is not currently possible to reverse file corruption.

Please take a look at the attached file.

Thanks in advance!


Sid

[Alexey V. Gubin]

Could you please describe the incident you are recovering from?

1. What was the original problem?
2. What is the size of a volume involved?
3. If you can recall, what was the filesystem type, FAT or NTFS?
4. How many files were on that volume?