question about damaged/recovered .jpg files

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

<trevor_smithson@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1127081202.032178.260680@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone
>
> I accidentally deleted 15 or so .jpg file off of a 256MB xD card. The
> photos were taken with a Fuji A340 camera. I used a recovery program
> that I got off download.com to undelete the pictures. 14 of the 15
> were recovered fine, but the last one seems to be damaged. The
> recovery program actually recovered 5 very slightly different version
> of the same photo, each with just a bit less or a bit more of the
> picture.
>
> When I open any of those 5 files in a graphics program, the bottom half
> is blank. The top half is ok, with a bit of noise/garbling right in
> the middle. The odd thing to me is that the picture previews like it's
> intact, both in Windows Explorer and in programs like Ulead
> PhotoExplorer and Adobe Photoshop Elements.
>
> Is the preview data stored seaparately in the file? If it is, I
> suppose that would explain why it previews ok. If it isn't, is there
> any way for me to recover more of the image? I have not used the xD
> card since I ran the recovery program.
>
I suspect your preview supposition is correct. You might try another
recovery program. I use PhotoRescue, but it costs to register. I believe
these are more than just undelete programs. PhotoRescue has a mode that does
a more thorough scan, but I've never had need for that.
Dave Cohen