.CR2 corrupted files

[jaull]

I downloaded 4,500 .cr2 files from a recent event and 232 of the files are corrupt. They can not be viewed in any way. When I try and open one of the corrupted files in photoshop I get a "photoshop does not recognize this type of file" message. The files all have the the "correct" amount of date (between 27 - 30 mb)  The files are to large to attach here but I would love to provide one. Thank you for any help

[Hayo Baan]

This doesn't sound good. In many cases corrupted images are lost and contain completely zeroed out blocks. In some cases you can still recover them from the original memory card using a different card reader. But to be honest most of the times they are completely lost 

Have you tried to run exiftool on the files yet? What does it say?

If you could upload the file somewhere for us to look at, I'd be happy to give it a go.

[Phil Harvey]

Or you can mail one to philharvey66 at gmail.com and I'll take a look.

- Phil

[jaull]

Thanks guys...Here is a link to one of the files.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nlznrp999f8t74w/AAA3r76Zg66ITlb0-9lHwbHta
Thank you all for taking the time to help me out.

[Phil Harvey]

The good news is that there is some data in this file.  There is a CR2 image that starts at byte 512 in the file, with the first 512 bytes being all zero.  But unfortunately the raw image data is truncated.  It is possible that the data exists elsewhere on the memory card, so perhaps the full images may be recovered with some work.  Be sure you lock the card to prevent any further data loss.

From the files you have now, you may be able to recover some embedded JPEG images (see this post), but it is unlikely that you will be able to recover the raw image from any of them.

- Phil

[Hayo Baan]

The good news is that there is some data in this file.  There is a CR2 image that starts at byte 512 in the file, with the first 512 bytes being all zero.  But unfortunately the raw image data is truncated.  It is possible that the data exists elsewhere on the memory card, so perhaps the full images may be recovered with some work.  Be sure you lock the card to prevent any further data loss.

From the files you have now, you may be able to recover some embedded JPEG images (see this post), but it is unlikely that you will be able to recover the raw image from any of them.

That's what I found too; first "sector" of the file is all blank, with the rest filled with data. However, simply stripping the first 512 bytes let exiftool show the data without warning (the header was now at the right location), but it is still not a valid CR2 file. To me this looks like a file from a memory card where the FAT table somehow got corrupted, but hopefully just got skewed by one sector. If you still have the memory card and have not touched it since, try to use memory card image recovery software on it. If you started the shoot on a cleanly formatted card and have not deleted images in camera (or only the very last ones), you may still be able to recover some of the images.

Good luck,
Hayo

[jaull]

Hi Phil....When I extract the .jpg files they are all scrambled. Would you be willing to try and extract a .jpg from the one I attached and see what you get. Thanks

[Hayo Baan]

The file you sent is not complete, and the embedded jpg is indeed jumbled. The thumbnail did contain valid info, but is extremely small and useless (it looked like a giant cake).

I don't think Phil will be able to get any more out of it than you and I did, so your best option would be to use recovery software on the memory card in the hope it can recover anything.

Good luck,
Hayo

[Phil Harvey]

The largest JPEG I could get from the one you sent was thumbnail-sized.  The full-sized JPEG was either jumbled (as Hayo mentioned), or was actually compressed raw data.

- Phil

[jaull]

Bummer....Those images were shot a month ago and the card has been used many times since. The weird thing is I've checked all the other shoots and there are no other corrupted files - thank god. Thank you all for your help and unfortunately it looks like I've lost my first group of images in almost 11 years of shooting. Thankfully it is a small section of the event.