Digital Images disappearing

[soccio97]

A couple of months ago I posted in the Windows 10 forum about problems I was having. As it turned out I had a bad hard drive. The PC repair could not recover the files so I sent the hard drive to a data recovery lab. They recovered some of my documents and most of my photos. The problem is; when I go to the recovered digital images, many of them will show the original image very briefly and then it turns to a colored box. After that the photo viewer acts as if the colored box is the actual photo. In other words, it's not telling me that it can't be accessed because it is corrupted, as other photos do, but rather it shows all the data such as date taken, size and file type.

I've been waiting a couple of days for the Data Recovery engineers to get back to me and decided to try this forum while I wait. I'm not real hopeful that they will have the answer. The recovery cost me $1,200 and without the photos it's useless.

Just to be clear, it doesn't happen to every photo and in some cases only part of the photo changes to the colored box. I've used Photo Viewer, Photo Gallery and another Windows Photo program, they all do it.

Need help before the wife files for divorce because of the missing grandkids photos.

[photolady]

I've moved your thread to the proper forum. Digital imaging is for printers, scanners, and cameras, not images disappearing in your operating system.

[Train]

Are they on cd/usb stick or what?

Recurva is my go to program.
https://www.piriform.com/recuva

[dneilson]

As he sent his hard drive to a data recovery lab I would think they are on his hard drive.

[Train]

I sent the hard drive to a data recovery lab. They recovered some of my documents and most of my photos.

Now if they burned the cd/dvd to darn fast, that happens. Been there and done learned.

[soccio97]

Train,

I have them on an external hard drive with all of the recovered files.

[soccio97]

The hard drive was basically useless, the recovered files were put on a USB hard drive.

[jdc2000]

What happens if you load the questionable images into Paint or some other photo or image editor?

It is possible that some of the images were only partially recovered.
I hope you have made additional copies of the recovered files on another drive or media.

[Train]

You can never have to many back ups.

16 years of genealogy work has taught that real well.

[soccio97]

I have two other backups of the original recovery. I have a photo editor from Nikon which came with a digital camera. Are there any Windows 10 apps you can recommend I try (preferably Free)?

I forgot to mention. When I view the recovered photo on the USB hard disk, I see a normal picture when I open it in on of the photo viewers or (I now know) Paint, the image is replaced by a colored block. Sometimes I can see part of the original picture, usually just the top but sometimes half or more.

[dneilson]

https://www.google.com/#q=free+photo+programs

[soccio97]

I've now tried using Fotor (which I don't like), Irfanview and Nikon's View NX2. It's the same with all of them I can clearly see the original image but when I click on it to attempt to copy or save it, I get a colored block that may or may not show part of the original. The programs then act as if the colored block is in fact the original and gives me the date taken, size and file type.

Other photos are clearly corrupted and state that and will not attempt to show an image. I understood from the beginning that there would be some of those, in fact a lot. It's the others, the ones where I can clearly see the original image that I'm concerned about.

I have three separate copies of the recovered data. Any ideas? I'm still waiting to hear from the engineers at Secure Data Recovery and have sent yet another email. I guess that now that they have my money, they are no longer interested.

[jdc2000]

When you say that you can see the original image briefly, are you referring to the full size image, or just a standard thumbnail size image? If it is the latter, the thumbnail size image may still be available, even though the full size image is corrupted. Also, what type(s) of files are these - .jpg, .bmp, or other type(s) of image files?

[soccio97]

I guess it's the thumbnail, when I try to go to the full size I get the colored block. There are a variety of extensions going back for years, but mostly from phones, and digital cameras, but I started with the .jpeg.

So, am I screwed?

[jdc2000]

You could look into some software to recover the non-corrupted parts of the images. I have not tried any of these, but you could check out some of the reviews.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...ed+image+files