Hi,
This is a bit complicated, so bear with me.
We are running XP on an old Dell Dimension 8200. We have two hard drives. The first is the original drive the computer came with and this is where we've had XP installed. Last year we added a secondary HDD (250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM) for data storage and such.
Recently we bought a new computer, so we decided to put Linux on the old Dell. I disconnected the secondary drive and we installed Linux on the primary drive. A couple days later I decided to start backing up the data off the secondary drive (mostly photos, movies and music). I reconnected it but found it wasn't accessible with Linux. No real surprise there. This might be where things went wrong.
I decided to put XP back on the Dell so I could backup the secondary drive data and then we'd go back to Linux later. Disconnected the secondary drive again, installed XP clean, etc. Hooked drive up again and went to start backing up data. The files are all there, they are accessible, everything LOOKS fine, but when I try to open files, especially photos, nothing shows up. Some seem fine--for instance I'll look at a directory full of JPGS and switch the view to thumbnails, and there will be maybe 5 or 6 in a row that are fine, but the rest aren't. The movies are for the most part completely wrecked, they either won't open, or if they do the data is all scrambled or pieces of other files show instead of what they're supposed to be. In some cases, entire folders are fine with all the pictures in tact. The weirdest thing is that it seems all of the music files are fine. Luckily, I backed up the music libraries just a couple weeks ago, and I've also been fairly regular with backing up my photos. The movies are no loss really. The real loss here is several folders of photos which are, obviously, irreplaceable. The thing is, the files are THERE and even show file sizes, but as I said, the images won't show up as thumbs or in XP's image viewer window.
If I attempt to open the "broken" files with an iMac over the network, it says it can't open the file because it "may be corrupt." I get no errors when attempting to open the files with XP, it will simply say, "No preview available." We also have a laptop running XP, but it's not networked at the moment to the Dell, and networking it has been a bit of a headache so far.
I ran a disk check a couple times now. No errors upon completion, but it did lots of work it seems.
Anyone have ANY suggestions at all? If I can't save these apparently ruined photos I'll be extremely sad, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. I would like to give it my best shot, however.
By the way, it goes without saying that I never connected/disconnected the secondary drive while the computer was on and/or even plugged in. Also, I followed all the standard precautions for mucking around inside a computer, so I am as certain as one can ever be that I didn't fry it with static or anything.
Thank you so much if you can help me!
This is a bit complicated, so bear with me.
We are running XP on an old Dell Dimension 8200. We have two hard drives. The first is the original drive the computer came with and this is where we've had XP installed. Last year we added a secondary HDD (250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM) for data storage and such.
Recently we bought a new computer, so we decided to put Linux on the old Dell. I disconnected the secondary drive and we installed Linux on the primary drive. A couple days later I decided to start backing up the data off the secondary drive (mostly photos, movies and music). I reconnected it but found it wasn't accessible with Linux. No real surprise there. This might be where things went wrong.
I decided to put XP back on the Dell so I could backup the secondary drive data and then we'd go back to Linux later. Disconnected the secondary drive again, installed XP clean, etc. Hooked drive up again and went to start backing up data. The files are all there, they are accessible, everything LOOKS fine, but when I try to open files, especially photos, nothing shows up. Some seem fine--for instance I'll look at a directory full of JPGS and switch the view to thumbnails, and there will be maybe 5 or 6 in a row that are fine, but the rest aren't. The movies are for the most part completely wrecked, they either won't open, or if they do the data is all scrambled or pieces of other files show instead of what they're supposed to be. In some cases, entire folders are fine with all the pictures in tact. The weirdest thing is that it seems all of the music files are fine. Luckily, I backed up the music libraries just a couple weeks ago, and I've also been fairly regular with backing up my photos. The movies are no loss really. The real loss here is several folders of photos which are, obviously, irreplaceable. The thing is, the files are THERE and even show file sizes, but as I said, the images won't show up as thumbs or in XP's image viewer window.
If I attempt to open the "broken" files with an iMac over the network, it says it can't open the file because it "may be corrupt." I get no errors when attempting to open the files with XP, it will simply say, "No preview available." We also have a laptop running XP, but it's not networked at the moment to the Dell, and networking it has been a bit of a headache so far.
I ran a disk check a couple times now. No errors upon completion, but it did lots of work it seems.
Anyone have ANY suggestions at all? If I can't save these apparently ruined photos I'll be extremely sad, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. I would like to give it my best shot, however.
By the way, it goes without saying that I never connected/disconnected the secondary drive while the computer was on and/or even plugged in. Also, I followed all the standard precautions for mucking around inside a computer, so I am as certain as one can ever be that I didn't fry it with static or anything.
Thank you so much if you can help me!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram