Please Help! Corrupted JPEG Files

(System: eMachines AMD Athlon XP 2800+, Win XP SP3, 2.08 GHz, 1.43 GB RAM. Comodo Firewall Pro, Spyware Terminator, Spywareblaster, Ad-Aware SE, a-squared free, Avast! Pro AV, Spybot S+D 1.6.0.31. Need more info? Please ask!)

Hi Geeks,

I've lost around 100 irreplaceable pictures (JPEG) and I'm tearing my hair out! I thought I had backed up every folder with pictures in it, but I had somehow missed these two folders. The strange thing is, none of the other pictures in other folders were damaged, just all of the pictures in one folder, and HALF of the pictures in a second folder. (No, I have not had any viruses or any other malware.)

When I go to look at these pictures, it says "No Preview Available" I've tried different programs to open the pictures, including Paint. So, using advice I had read on Majorgeeks, I used JPEG Snoop. This is the first result:

Filesize: [720896] Bytes

Start Offset: 0x00000000
NOTE: File did not start with JPEG marker. Consider using [Tools->Img Search Fwd] to locate embedded JPEG.

I tried the suggested action, with the following result:

No SOI Marker found in Forward Search

We took the computer to a very good local computer shop earlier this week, and they did a search for all deleted pictures. The only problem is, I didn't delete them, they just got screwed up! I asked them about the JPEG Snoop information I found, and he said that the pictures may just be too corrupted to retrieve. He also said that he didn't know of any programs I could try to use.

My question is this: is there a way to insert a JPEG Marker (whatever that is) into any of these corrupted JPEG's, or can I convert the corrupted pictures to another format (.bmp, etc.)?? This really is my last hope. Many of these were pictures of my daughter's first Halloween (she was a ladybug in 2006). I'm really crushed because I have always been very anal when it comes to backing up. (I always make 3 backup copies!)

Can anyone help?

Kelly

 

Hi Kelly,

I have the same problem, have you had any luck?

 

Hi, nlk. No luck whatsoever. However, your post reminded my wife of a guy she met through work a month ago. He is in IT, so she has sent my post to him to see if he has any brainstorms. If so, I will let you know ASAP!

How about it, Geeks? Any ideas?

Thanks.

Kelly

 

From what you explained, No trace of virus, or other vicious intrusions has occurred the jpegs were loaded sometime between Oct, 2008 or more recently. You at sometime after the pictures had been in files on the computer made your 2 to 3 back ups deleting the jpegs from the computer. Sometime after this you realized your back-ups were missing jpegs, thinking they to were deleted, you searched hoping you missed them and found you did but now realize they are corrupt and useless.

I am going to take an educated leap of faith and tell you these were not loaded properly from the camera to the computer - it is the only explanation for only these files being corrupted.

This is bad...as there can not be a back up / restore date to the jpegs because if they were corrupted from the date of download.

If I am wrong you can try a system restore to a previous date and/or a file restore to the jpeg download date.

 

Not gonna be sure if this help any.. but you might try recuva program.