# Solved: recover jpgs from rar - "header is corrupt" - 4 weeks of photos



## saac_dogg (Oct 27, 2007)

while oversea, we plugged our digital cameras into a coputer which decided to do something to the memory card so the camera couldnt read from/to it. So we needed to store all are pictures on a usb drive so we could format the camera memory cards. 

4 weeks worth of photos was put into a rar file and put on the usb drive. I tested all the picture were there b4 formatting the cards, and they were.

now, were home and the peice of **** rar says: 

"....Desktop\thaipics.rar: The file "???" header is corrupt"

only 7 of the 300 show up!!! Tried various rar recovery tool but all only find these 7 files...I thought these would work as all files are fairly small jpgs, but i guess not.

i fear all is lost but thought i just see if anyone has any ideas.....


thx, saac


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## grannyGrump (Jan 24, 2008)

I've posted this link at a couple of forums
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=10291113

Lots of people are posting everywhere that their jpegs are getting corrupted after moving or copying or "recovering deleted" files, and this procedure might be able to help recover some corrupted jpegs.

The linked page describes how you can use a hex editor to graft a header from a healthy file with the image from the sick file. 
Sounds tedious and time-consuming, but if your pics are important, it might be worth it.

Jpegs seem too fragile and prone to corruption, so I'm starting to convert all my pictures to bitmap, even though the file size is more than twice the size. My pictures are more valuable than my hard-drive space.

I wonder if the new "lossless" jpeg format is sturdier.....


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## saac_dogg (Oct 27, 2007)

yeah its the .rar file thats corrupt so that method wont work. It doesnt even show the corrupt files. Just nothing. 

I used the binary editor suggested in that walkthrough to view the rar file and 10% of the file show up normal, the other 90% was 0000 0000 0000 0000 for thousands and thousands of lines. Which tells me the data isn't even there to be recovered. 

4 weeks of photos is the one thing that cant be recoverd. Even work can be re-done, just costs time. Photo are unique and even if i went back to thailand the pics wont ever be the same ..... (breathes deeply) at least i have my health. Until my girl finds out and reminds me it was my idea to put them on usb drive...

y didnt i burn to disk as well????? ahhhhhh!!!!!

backup backup backup ..... remember these words, for they will haunt my dream.....

little overdramatic

thx anyways, saac


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## grannyGrump (Jan 24, 2008)

Ah, I mis-understood, I thought it was the jpeg headers, not the rar header.

There are "Rar Recovery" tools out there. I have never needed them, but give a search, and download some free trials. Maybe you will find one that can help you.

google gave me a bunch. The first link has some instructions for trying WinRar itself to repair the file.

http://www.diskdatarecovery.net/repair-corrupt-rar-zip-archive

http://www.rar-repair.com/

http://www.fileinternals.com/repair-corrupt-rar-repair.htm

http://corrupt-rar-repair.qarchive.org/

good luck. If she really loves you, she will forgive you in two or three years.


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

I've got a feeling someone forgot to 'safely remove' the usb drive.......


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