Boy, do I have problem

blacklab · Post by **blacklab** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 3:50 am

Not sure what happened, but I can not access most of the pictures and video files on one of my partitions. Everything was working fine until I tried to access a folder and got an error message. I could access other folders on the partition.

I opened a DOS window and ran "chkdsk /f". It found a bunch of files that had errors. The message said it corrected problems, and it seem to have, because I could access everything again. A few hours later I tried to view a "jpeg" picture and I got the error message "Can't read file header!"

I tried to view other files, "wmv, mov, mpg" for a few, but none of them could be opened. I get an error message "Unknown file format!" I have many different programs for viewing jpegs and movies, but none of them will work. They work fine on files stored on other partitions.

The disk is formatted "NTFS" if that matters, and I run Win 2000 SP4. This is a first for me. I have never had this problem before.

Any suggestions to what I might do to keep these files would be appreciated. Not the end of the world if I loose them, I just would like to know what went wrong.

Thanks
Terry

minir · Post by **minir** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 4:45 am

Hi Terry

Damn, sorry to hear of your problems. I don't have any answers for you, simply moral support.

hope someone comes up with a solution for you.

--

regards

larry

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:12 am

no idea either..but..if ya do get it working again for a short period of time...back up...think maybe erging the partitions with another one iwll help...but thn again..that might mess up the other one's..i dunno!

Forgetful · Post by **Forgetful** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 7:58 am

Hello Blacklab. I think this is something to do with the way it tries to load thumbnails of large video files when you open the folder. Try this fix for a similar problem.

http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak2123.aspx

thepieman · Post by **thepieman** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 8:08 am

If u possibly have bad sectors...go to http://www.maxtor.com and grab powermax and do an advanced scan on your drive. If there are bad sectors it will mark them off and hide them like factory hidden. You do not have to have a maxtor drive to use this utility.

Takes about 20mins+ if its a big drive.

Pie

blacklab · Post by **blacklab** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:05 am

minir wrote:Hi Terry

Damn, sorry to hear of your problems. I don't have any answers for you, simply moral support.

hope someone comes up with a solution for you.

--

regards

larry

Thanks Larry

The main thing this means to me is I have lost a lot of stuff I have downloaded from links you have sent. No big deal I suppose, but it did take a lot of time. Oh well maybe someone is trying to tell me something.

Thanks for the support

Terry

blacklab · Post by **blacklab** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:03 pm

Forgetful wrote:Hello Blacklab. I think this is something to do with the way it tries to load thumbnails of large video files when you open the folder. Try this fix for a similar problem.

http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak2123.aspx

Hi Forgetful

I had a look at the site, but I get the felling that this tweek is for WinXP, not Win2000.

I tried a program that has previews and when I open a folder with a bunch of jpegs some of them will come up with a thumbnail, the others just have a X through the file.

If seems the information telling the program what kind of file it is, is missing, and most of the programs I have tried say it is an unknown file format.

I got a feeling this is going to be one of those great unexplained computer glitches, and one should not make a computer work all day without some play time.

If anyone as a better explanation I would like to hear it, I mean why would I be able to open a file one day and not the next and there has been no power glitches lately or anything else that would piss a computer off.

Terry

blacklab · Post by **blacklab** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:06 pm

thepieman wrote:If u possibly have bad sectors...go to http://www.maxtor.com and grab powermax and do an advanced scan on your drive. If there are bad sectors it will mark them off and hide them like factory hidden. You do not have to have a maxtor drive to use this utility.

Takes about 20mins+ if its a big drive.

Pie

Thanks for the link. I will download and try it. I should probably go to Western Digital's site and see if there is anything there. Never thought of that, thanks again.

Terry

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:12 pm

Worth every penny: http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

minir · Post by **minir** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 7:48 pm

Hi Terry

Will call you and give you a Bump now as well

--

regards

larry

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:16 am

Fixed?

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:26 am

Sorry to hear about that man.. I hate it when I lose multimedia files.

I have a feeling chkdsk's attempt to repair the files could have been the final straw. While chkdsk does an excellent job of rebuilding the file system and making things usable again, it sometimes does some "guess" work while repairing files which can sometimes render sensitive multimedia files useless afterwards.. A 3rd party recovery tool might have been just the ticket, and although chkdsk probably overwrote some of the lost data during its repair, its still worth a shot.

Spammy · Post by **Spammy** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:50 am

mountainman wrote:Fixed?

Fixed yet?

blacklab · Post by **blacklab** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:59 pm

mountainman wrote:Fixed?

Hi mountainman & Sammy

Nope, not fixed yet. I downloaded the program maountainman suggested, but I have not had time to run it yet. My wife thinks I should get my billings done for last month before I start anything else. My banker would probably like that too.

I am anxious to see what happens, but I guess I'll have to put it off for a while.

I will post my results ASAP.

Thanks for your help and suggestions
Terry

Spammy · Post by **Spammy** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:30 pm

Keep us posted im curious aswell.

blacklab · Post by **blacklab** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 12:24 am

mountainman wrote:Worth every penny: http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

Hi mountainman

Downloaded and tried the program you recommended and it cleared a few things up. It allowed me to look at the a file in a binary format and I found that many of the files are all zeros. All the file information, size ect., remain the same, but all it contains is zeros. Those are going to be junk - no hope of recovery there.

Some of the other files still have information in them - those I might stand a chance to recover. I will have to decide if it is worth it. I did have a lot of pictures I wanted to post though.

These files are not recognized by the program I use to open them with. Will this program repair that?

I have not purchased the program yet. I assume it will allow me to find files that need repair, but will not repair them until I buy it. I need to spend some time reading about how to operate it I guess.

When I talked to Larry this evening he suggested I try the recovery program in SystemSuit. I have used it before - it is crippled and will only recover so many files, but it would tell me if the files are recoverable.

Something I will try tomorrow - have to get back to work for now.

Terry