Repairing corrupt photos?

guitargeek62

I've just got back from a couple of weeks trekking across California to find that 90% of the 800 photos I took on my camera can't be read properly on anything other than the camera itself!  

I'm on Mac btw, the files are visible so I haven't bothered trying any file recovery software, but is there any tricks you guys can think of to salvage the other 700-odd?

*edit* Extra info added:
It's a Sony cybershot DSC-HX90. I've tried via USB and via the smartcard reader on my Mac. I've also tried using their software but it crashes each time it tries to read the file list. They're just JPG files.

stickyfiddle

Argh, shit! What's the camera?

Have you tried copying both by plugging the SD card into the Mac, and also connecting through the camera via usb?

Are they RAW or JPG? Which version of OSX? Does the camera have wifi?

Beyond that the guys on talkphotography are good at this stuff...

ToneControl

if you can  view them on the camera, there should be a way to get them, give us more info

JezWynd

Graphic Converter? Worth a shot.

https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/image-editing-slideshow-browser-batch-conversion-metadata-and-more-on-your-mac/

guitargeek62

Info added above

Sporky

Try putting the battery in the other way around, so that the camera projects the images. Then hang up a white sheet, and take a photo of the results with another camera.

Obvs really.

guitargeek62

Why didn't I think of that?  

Headphones

I often find the same thing on my cannon (camera manufacturer, that is).  I suggest connecting the camera via a USB (most have this in some form) and downloading it from the camera.  Most Windows versions see most cameras easily enough, but crapple?

stickyfiddle

Headphones said:

I often find the same thing on my cannon (camera manufacturer, that is).  I suggest connecting the camera via a USB (most have this in some form) and downloading it from the camera.  Most Windows versions see most cameras easily enough, but crapple?

You know Apple is the industry standard for photographers across the world, right?

Bygone_Tones

This can happen if you are using a cheap SD card. If you are, get yourself a decent quality one.

guitargeek62

^ That's what I'm afraid of, it's a new card purchased right before the holiday from Amazon (direct), looks like a Sandisk but now I'm doubting it.

@JezWynd - seemed to get a little further but then crashed in a similar manner, thanks though.

I'm going to take it into work tomorrow and try on a windows machine anyway just to check.

Danny1969

I expect the FAT is corrupt on the SD card .... something cheap like recover my files can be surprisingly effect at getting photos back from corrupt cards  

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/how-to-recover-files.php

In the meantime don't use anything that writes any data at all to the card

Headphones

stickyfiddle said:

Headphones said:

I often find the same thing on my cannon (camera manufacturer, that is).  I suggest connecting the camera via a USB (most have this in some form) and downloading it from the camera.  Most Windows versions see most cameras easily enough, but crapple?

You know Apple is the industry standard for photographers across the world, right?

You know Crapple is the industry standard for stopping you moving your own data around, right?

Danny1969

Headphones said:

stickyfiddle said:

Headphones said:

I often find the same thing on my cannon (camera manufacturer, that is).  I suggest connecting the camera via a USB (most have this in some form) and downloading it from the camera.  Most Windows versions see most cameras easily enough, but crapple?

You know Apple is the industry standard for photographers across the world, right?

You know Crapple is the industry standard for stopping you moving your own data around, right?

mmm not really, connect a windows formatted drive to a Mac and the Mac will see the drive and the FAT no problem. Connect a Mac formatted drive to a Windows machine and Windows will see fuck all and probably suggest a format

I work with data recovery and a Mac is my weapon of choice purely because it does read any drive (and doesn't care about permissions) 

guitargeek62

Thanks Danny, will give it a shot.

ToneControl

can you first copy the SD card using a disk image copier?
I would

Headphones

Danny1969 said:

Headphones said:

stickyfiddle said:

Headphones said:

I often find the same thing on my cannon (camera manufacturer, that is).  I suggest connecting the camera via a USB (most have this in some form) and downloading it from the camera.  Most Windows versions see most cameras easily enough, but crapple?

You know Apple is the industry standard for photographers across the world, right?

You know Crapple is the industry standard for stopping you moving your own data around, right?

mmm not really, connect a windows formatted drive to a Mac and the Mac will see the drive and the FAT no problem. Connect a Mac formatted drive to a Windows machine and Windows will see fuck all and probably suggest a format

I work with data recovery and a Mac is my weapon of choice purely because it does read any drive (and doesn't care about permissions) 

Interesting point - but whenever an Apple product gets anywhere near my stuff it assumes I've stolen it, prevents me from copying or retreiving it, then randomly deletes it. At least MS assumes your stuff is your stuff - in the main.

Axe_meister

Looks like the camera can read the imbedded thumbnail of the JPEG but not the actual JPEG itself

guitargeek62

The thumbnails read inconsistently on the mac too, and I can zoom in and pan around fully on the camera itself in playback mode so I'm not sure on that part @Axe_master? I'm far from an expert on this though so...!

stickyfiddle

Does the camera have wifi for transferring photos? Time consuming but worth a try - worked for me with my Fuji when I had some unreadable shots 

ToneControl

Before you try anything, use something like "win 32 disk imager" to take a copy of the SD card onto another card
Then you can try repairing the  FAT on the copy, etc