# Damaged File..... HELP!!!



## sanj (Mar 10, 2017)

My back up hard disk stopped mounting. I used software Disk Warrior to somewhat revive the disk - It created a 'review disk' and I am now able to copy files from it. But, there are certain photos - both PSD and RAW which look like the attached jpeg. Anyone experience this before? Any suggestions pls? Lots of my work stands to be lost if I cannot fix these photos. Help!


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## Pookie (Mar 10, 2017)

If this is your backup disk why do you need to recover? 

I have two backups to my archive... when one fails I buy another and back up the good backup. Nothing get lost. If this is your only copy of critical file you've learned very painfully the real definition of backup.


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## neuroanatomist (Mar 10, 2017)

Pookie said:


> I have two backups to my archive... when one fails I buy another and back up the good backup. Nothing get lost. If this is your only copy of critical file you've learned very painfully the real definition of backup.



+1 for two backups.

To expand the real definition, those two backups should be stored in physically separate locations (e.g. home/work or home/cloud). Having three copies of a critical file, all stored in the same room, means a fire takes out all copies.

As for photos, I actually have _four_ backup copies of the RAW files. I haven't yet had to delete RAW files from my laptop SSD to reclaim space, but in addition to my cloned backups, I do keep another set of backup HDDs at home/work just for RAW images because at some point, I'll need that space on my laptop and will start deleting the oldest RAW images. I waas almost there once before, but I swapped out my 500 GB HDD for a 1 TB SSD and postponed the 'problem'.


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## Pookie (Mar 10, 2017)

neuroanatomist said:


> Pookie said:
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> > I have two backups to my archive... when one fails I buy another and back up the good backup. Nothing get lost. If this is your only copy of critical file you've learned very painfully the real definition of backup.
> ...



Indeed... both backups are stored in fireproof vaults. One in my house and the other at a friends miles away. Technically they are backed up every 2-4 weeks. In addition to this I use an Amazon cloud service but it is painfully slow and I selectively back up to that every night. Mostly family and my children's photos for Amazon... this is my last line of defense.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 10, 2017)

It looks like the files are gone. Storing images or any data on just one disk is a fairly high risk, even more so if its a portable drive, because just a light bump can damage it if it happens in the right place.

I have copies of my files on two NAS units, and on 4 pc's. I also have some on stored hard drives. They are in widely separated different buildings, but still not as far as I would like. I've tried cloud services, but my upload speeds are too slow. I store currently update copies for reliability and traditional backups for recovery. One NAS backups up to the reserve nightly, it copies the backups as well as the in-use files which, are, of course may be clobbered by any malware that gets thru. I just finished the long job of replacing all 6 hard drives on my older NAS, two of the old ones had SMART warnings, and since the drives were dated 2010, I replaced them all, one at a time. They take several hours to update the replaced drive, and the next day, I do another. My NAS sends a e-mail warning when a Drive gets a SMARt warning, the two happened about a week apart, so I knew they were reaching the end of life.

I had a SSD which which got corrupted startup files three times, so I replaced it, and the same happened to the replacement. I tracked that down to a dying SATA controller on the motherboard of my PC. I've never had that happen. A DVD-ROM also started acting up first, but I did not connect it with the bad controller at first. Everything is now hooked to the ports from the 2nd SATA Controller, and I have a add-in SATA card as a backup. A new PC arrived a few days ago, so the older one is out in my studio while I decide to fix or scrap it. Its from 2012, not horribly old, but still a bit older. I do not think the I7 processors have improved in speed much since then, so a new motherboard might be a cheap fix.


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## anchorage (Mar 10, 2017)

I had a similar problem recently where my photo database got corrupted, the main backup drive decided to give up the ghost at the same time, and my secondary backup was out of date. Drive Savers (https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/) were able to recover almost everything from the broken backup drive. It wasn't cheap, but better than losing a lot of work.


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## LDS (Mar 10, 2017)

Those data looks to come from a file filled with invalid sequences of bytes, maybe because of corruption, damaged sectors, or the like. Didn't the tool reported any warning about what it couldn't recover?

Recovery software can't do miracles anyway, the data probably have gone. There are companies specialized in data recovery, but they're expensive, and usually is better to let them work on a disk before any other attempt to recover data from it.

Unluckily, if you have a device with the only copy of a file, moved out from primary storage because of space needs or the like, it's an archive, not a backup. Thus it needs to be backed up as well.

A good backup setup means that but a "small" window, the same data exist in more than one location. Then there are also best practices to keep older copies to recover from errors and the like, but the first rule is "more than one copy".


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## AlanF (Mar 10, 2017)

You can overcome the slowness of the Cloud by adding to it incrementally your edited selection. I upload to DropBox the files I want to keep from my laptop after each shoot, which DropBox automatically downloads to two desktops (work and home) as well as another small laptop.


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## AUGS (Mar 10, 2017)

Unfortunately, I think your files may be lost, so a corrective action may not be possible although there are some data recovery options that have been suggested. What you need now is a preventative action to save what you have and stop this happening again.

I use a 3-2-1 backup strategy, as I described in this previous thread: http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=27788.msg549862#msg549862

I have only made one amendment to this process, and that is backup immediately after transferring files from the camera. The problem with a failing disk is that you may not look at the corrupted files for a while and the ongoing backup "over-writes" the good copy. This may be what the OP is experiencing - it happened to me a month or so ago, but was recoverable.
First thing I do is check all my photos are okay, then backup, and only when the camera cards are all exhausted do I delete the files and/or format the camera card.

Sorry to hear about your problems, and hope this helps.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 11, 2017)

Software like Lightroom can save image files to two locations as you copy them from your card, so one would be the working location, and one to your backup location. In the import dialog, Just check the box "save a 2nd copy to---"


Ideally, you have a camera with two card slots, so you have a backup of the files in case a card is or gets corrupted. I keep the files on my card(s) until I have finished reviewing and rating the images. This assures that none are corrupted.


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## sanj (Mar 11, 2017)

Thank you friends for your inputs. Lesson learnt. I was using a raid system (Drobo) with 4 Hard Drives. I was under the impression that it was safe enough.


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## RGF (Mar 11, 2017)

when I see an image like that, I toss it. 

If that is your backup drive, I would certify it by writing and reading to it for 24-48 hours to make sure that there no errors (on my mac pro I tools from Softraid - no idea what to do on a PC).

If you hw is okay, then rebuild your backup drive. If you get hw errors, time to replace the backup drive


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## niels123 (Mar 11, 2017)

sanj said:


> Thank you friends for your inputs. Lesson learnt. I was using a raid system (Drobo) with 4 Hard Drives. I was under the impression that it was safe enough.



If you're out of options, I'm happy to give it a try if you ship me the external hard drive. I guarantee that I'll be able to recover anything, but I succeeded many times before with friends and family's hard drives. PM me if you're interested.


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## sanj (Mar 11, 2017)

niels123 said:


> sanj said:
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> > Thank you friends for your inputs. Lesson learnt. I was using a raid system (Drobo) with 4 Hard Drives. I was under the impression that it was safe enough.
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Thx much!!! Let the painfully slow transfer finish first! I so appreciate.


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## LDS (Mar 11, 2017)

sanj said:


> Thank you friends for your inputs. Lesson learnt. I was using a raid system (Drobo) with 4 Hard Drives. I was under the impression that it was safe enough.



Was the disk part of a RAID system? Depending on the RAID level used - and IIRC Drobo also uses a proprietary one - recovery of a failed RAID, one that the RAID system can't recover itself, is far more complex, because data may be spread all over the disks.


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## niels123 (Mar 11, 2017)

sanj said:


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 Just drop me a reply if you like to send the disk and I'll take a look. It is important to know if the backup disk was part of a raid system indeed. And in my previous post I said "I guarantee", but I meant "I can't guarantee", although I presume that was already implied from the last part of that sentence.


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## sanj (Mar 11, 2017)

niels123 said:


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## Orangutan (Mar 11, 2017)

niels123 said:


> sanj said:
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> > Thank you friends for your inputs. Lesson learnt. I was using a raid system (Drobo) with 4 Hard Drives. I was under the impression that it was safe enough.
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I've done this for myself, friends and at work also. But I will caution sanj against doing anything other than choosing a professional recovery service. If these files are sufficiently important then they're worth the money to have it professionally done.


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## Orangutan (Mar 11, 2017)

sanj said:


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sanj, good luck on your file recovery. Please consider what several here have said about integrating a backup scheme into your workflow. Remember always to consider what your backups are intended to guard against, and think whether your backup scheme would be successful. My list of data risks is:


Loss of individual files or groups of files due to accidental deletion or routine corruption (as opposed to catastrophic disk failure)
Loss of entire drive due to theft, fire, catastrophic disk failure, etc.
Loss of files due to degradation of backup media or obsolescence of media (e.g. Zip drives)


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## sanj (Apr 12, 2017)

Orangutan said:


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Thanks. Lesson learnt.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 12, 2017)

Orangutan said:


> sanj said:
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Ransomware is a up and coming issue, as are any of the malware threats. Unfortunately, they can be included in a backup, and malware checkers do not find many of them.

The best solution is to keep at least a few backups over a long period of time, like a year. I have backups of photos going back for many years.

Malware can be stored in a image file, ( http://www.tgdaily.com/security-features/51056-embedded-malware-hidden-in-image-files )

https://www.virusbulletin.com/virusbulletin/2016/04/how-it-works-steganography-hides-malware-image-files/

No matter what you do, there is still a risk, we just reduce it to be as small as we can afford.


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