U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | RE: OT: corrupted .NEF files

RE: OT: corrupted .NEF files



Thanks, Camden,  I downloaded the ufraw utility that Gordon recommended
(Thanks, Gord!) and with it was able to open several of the EOF-designated
images.  At least I was able to view what was there before the bad data and
thus get an idea of which images I am missing.  I've run the PC Inspector
recovery application a couple of times - each time with slightly different
results.  If you have any Linux recovery utilities you think might be
helpful, drop me a line.  I'm not sure its worth installing Linux, but
perhaps.

My Serious Photography friends heap scorn on me whenever I shoot .JPG
instead of RAW.  The irony in this case is that had I done that I would have
come home with very few useful images.  Which is not to say "shoot JPG", but
if you are using suspect equipment (or garbage in the case of the SmartDisk
FotoChute), you may want to give it some thought.

How do other digital photographers store images while on the road?  Is there
really any other safe options other than burning CDs?

Keith


-----Original Message-----
From: Camden Hardy [mailto:camden@hardyphotography.net]
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 7:47 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: OT: corrupted .NEF files


Keith,

EOF errors generally occur when a file is "incorrectly" created.  This can
mean many things, but the basic idea here is that these errors result when
a file is missing information.  It sounds to me like the PC Inspector
software probably couldn't fully salvage those remaining raw files, for
whatever reason.

I think it's fairly unlikely that third party software will be able to
open the troubled .NEF files, although not impossible (it's worth a try,
at least).  I recommend going back to the hard drive and trying out a few
different applications designed to recover data.

I don't know the extent of your computer experience, but if you (or
someone you know) has any experience with Unix/Linux there are some great
(free) utilities out there for data recovery.  I did a bit of searching
for some open source Windows software that may help you, but didn't find
anything worth mentioning.  Unfortunately, it may boil down to how much
money those images are worth to you.

I'll keep looking; if I find anything, I'll let you know.

Camden Hardy

camden[at]hardyphotography[dot]net
http://www.hardyphotography.net


On Wed, November 1, 2006 5:00 pm, Keith Gerling wrote:
> I've recently returned from Turkey, where I was fortunate enough to see
> great places, meet wonderful people, and eat fabulous food.  This was my
> first trip where I relied totally upon digital capture methods, and I
> traveled with a thoroughly tested 20 GB hard drive backup.  Said drive
> started acting suspect as soon as I started storing my precious shots, and
> I
> became very concerned.  Fortunately, a very patient Loris Medici humored
> my
> paranoia by allowing me frequent inspections of my drive by using his
> laptop.  My files were indeed present, although we could not see the .NEF
> files, an anomaly I attributed to a missing Photoshop plugin (or
> whatever).
> I switched over to taking mostly .jpeg files, figuring that would lesson
> the
> load on the drive.  However, I did continue to shoot .NEF for those
> "important" shots.
>
> Cut to the chase:  I return home to find a hardrive in total disarray.
> Some
> files OK. many showing gibberish for names.  After a day or so of panic
> and
> stupidity, I find an application, PC Inspector, which over the course of
> 16
> hours rescues most of my files.  Whew!  The first files I had uploaded to
> the drive, mostly Nikon raw files (.NEF) were fine. 90% of the .jpegs are
> fine.  But the later .NEF files (the aforementioned "important" ones,
> while
> recovered by PC Inspector, still will not open in Photoshop (unexpected
> EOF)
> or with Nikon Capture (non-supported file).  On many of them I see a
> thumbnail.  Looking at the Hexcode of the file I can see that there IS
> some
> kind of data in man of them, while some of them are totally empty.
>
> I'm hoping that somebody here might know of a low-level viewer that might
> open these files by "brute force".  I suspect that they mught be damaged
> (obviously), but I'd much rather have a truncated file or one missing a
> channel or two than the alternative: nothing at all.
>
> Thanks!
>
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