# Photos won't open after recovered from DiscInternals Uneraser



## JohnLocke (Nov 1, 2010)

I accidentally deleted my pictures from my C drive when trying to copy them to an external hard drive. After some research and reviews I thought that DiskInternals Uneraser would be the best program to recover my images. It appears that the software recovered all of the images, however 50% if not more of are not able to open. The file is there, but there is no image to view. 

I hope there is a way to recover these images that were already "recovered" from the software, without having to purchase another program. 

Thanks in advance for any advice that is offered.


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## antimoth (Aug 8, 2009)

When you ran the product, did you take the C-drive out and do the recovery on it from your new PC? You never want to recover using the drive in question to avoid doing anything that writes over the deleted pics. You might try Recuva and ZAR, which are both intended only to find only photos. I would think though that your paid software is as good or better. http://www.piriform.com/recuva http://www.z-a-recovery.com/digital-image-recovery.htm Both are free, and will work on hard drives, although most users use them to search memory cards.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

It is a common problem with recovery that even though files are "found" on the drive, their correct locations are sometimes not. An invalid MFT can send recovery programs to offsetted addresses for a file and retrieve part of the file but mostly bytes that should have been either before or after the file on the drive. For some files where every byte is critical, like an executable, they simply won't run and are worthless. But with images, you might sometimes still be able to open them and they will simply be incomplete, the bottom half missing, for example. Sometimes you get enough to be usable. Some imaging programs are better than others at opening damaged files, too. IrfanView can open many files that others can't if it can find enough data to recognize the file type. You can then re-save the image so that normal programs will be able to open the files, too.

Some recovery programs give you alternative "start" addresses to choose from so that the files can be found relative to differing partition boundaries. After recovering a few files, you then check them to be sure they are really the files and not just random bytes. Then you can continue or choose a new offset.

I doubt very much that those files can be fixed as they are since the actual file data is probably missing from them. I'd suggest trying a new recovery with different software (checking a recovered file early to be sure they are right).

Free recovery applications:

Dr. Freeware Boot CD (also has partition tool, drive cloner and imager)
DiskDigger & NTFSWalker
Pandora Recovery (Free for personal use)
Smart Data Recovery
Recover Files
Roadkil's Undelete
Recuva
Restoration
Free Undelete (NTFS only)
Softperfect File Recovery
ADRC Data Recovery Tools
Undelete Plus
Data Recovery
PCI File Recovery
DriveRescue
Ultimate Data Recovery
Disk Investigator

Commercial:

O&O Disk Recovery
Paragon Mount Everything (Mounts any file system, CD/DVD burning, File Manager, Partitioner)
GetDataBack (For FAT or NTFS)
Ontrack EasyRecovery Pro
File Scavenger
Recover My Files
RecoverPlus Pro
Zero Assumption Recovery
[email protected] File Recovery
Final Recovery
Recover4All Professional
Easeus Data Recovery Wizard
NTFS Recovery


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## JohnLocke (Nov 1, 2010)

Thank you both for your advice. I think part of the issue is that the software did not allow me to recover the items to a different partition. I think I will try to run the IrfanView to see if this program can open any of the images. If that does not work, I will attempt one of the free software programs you list below. Do you recommend one over the other?


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

JohnLocke said:


> Do you recommend one over the other?


PC Inspector .. It's freeware


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