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Thread: How to handle corrupt image files

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    Default How to handle corrupt image files

    Ah, the downside of technology. Corrupt files. 3 images from a days shoot are corrupt, first time that's ever happened to me. Every time I open the file containing that days images, my computer crashes and I have to do a hard reboot. All I want to do is open the file and quickly delete the 3 offensive files, then get on with my life. The files cause my computer to crash before I can even get that far. Any suggestions?

    Eric
    Faces of Nature Photography
    www.ericjvirkler.com

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    Can you delete them from the card before downloading them to your computer?

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    Allan, Sounds like a good idea but I've already downloaded everything and formatted the card. I was on a 10 day trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone, so I downloaded each night and cleared the card to make room for more.

    Eric

  4. #4
    Marc Beije
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    Eric, can you delete them using the Windows command prompt (Start menu > Run > "cmd"), or whatever the Mac OS equivalent is?

    Marc

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marc Beije View Post
    Eric, can you delete them using the Windows command prompt (Start menu > Run > "cmd"), or whatever the Mac OS equivalent is?

    Marc
    Good suggestion. On a mac (unix) the command would be "rm" for remove. Open a command window:

    cd /aaa/bbb/ccc/ddd
    rm filename

    The cd is change directory and the aaa, bbb, etc is the directory path to the location of the file.

    on a pc, it would be something like:

    cd d:\aaa\bbb\ccc\ddd
    del filename

    Roger

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    Marc, I did what you suggested (No Mac here Roger) and that worked. I was able to delete the corrupt unviewable files. That's the good news. The bad news is the computer still crashes when I open that folder. I guess my assumption that getting rid of those corrupt files was incorrect, or possibly some of the other files are corrupt. I don't know of any way of finding that out. I've got 180 files in that folder that I need to extract somehow.

    Eric

  7. #7
    Marc Beije
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    A bit of a slog, but this might work. Again using the command prompt, move half of the files to a new directory (command "move"). Keep moving half the files to a new directory until that directory contains only non-corrupt files. Rinse-and-repeat until you have all the good files separated from the corrupt ones.

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    Thanks for the tip Marc. Using the command prompt I was able to move all the files to another folder. Next I tried moving them 10 at a time to isolate the corrupt files. Now I can't move them at all, when I try to move them in the exact same manner I'm told that they're corrupt and can't be moved. Not sure if they're all corrupt or not since they all moved fine the first time. I'm at a loss. Thanks a lot for your help.

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    Marc Beije
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    Sounds like you may have a failing hard disk... Can you copy the files to another hard disk, maybe that will save some of the files? Have you tried running chkdsk (in Explorer, right-click the hard disk and then choose Properties > Tools > Error-checking)? If that is the cause, and you don't have a backup, it may be fatal...

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    Eric,

    First, moving a file to another directory on the same disk does not actually move the file--it just changes the directory in the other location to point to the same place (the file) on the disk. The way to actually move the file is to copy it (all) then delete the original(s).

    I agree with Marc: there is a possibility that the problem may be imminent disk failure. Best to make sure you have everything backed up, and check the disk.

    Roger

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    This sounds like a hard drive issue, you might try SpinRite http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm This utility works only for PCs but can do a lot towards alleviating hard drive related problems.

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    Thanks Marc, I will look into trying that. I'm backing up to an external drive right now, I've been using Carbonite as my backup and I just discovered that I cannot access Carbonite (from any computer) I wonder if they backed up the corrupt files; causing the error.

    Thanks for the explanation Roger, I wasn't aware of that.

    Thanks Chris, I may have to try that.

    It's gonna be a couple of days before I can get to this. Thanks so much for all your help.
    Eric

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    I've finally gotten rid of all the corrupt files, and recovered a few that I thought I'd lost.
    Thanks to all who helped.
    Eric

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