cgsecurity.org

Hey guys,

I just used TestDisk to copy files from a bad hard drive to an external and I'm having problems going to the files here. TestDisk was able to recover about 800 gigs of data, and that's about how much I had stored on that bad hard drive. When I look at the files that were recovered, there's a lot of JPG files (that windows cannot open; some have correct date/time stamps and believable file size) and a bunch of zip files titled "Backup Files xxxx", where X corresponds to numbers from 2-1000 ish. Most of these zips are about 200 megs each and I can't get any of them to open. Windows says that the zip file is invalid.

Did I actually recover any of my data, or is all of this just fluff from a corrupted hard drive?

Honestly I don't see how anyone other than you can check the recovered files...

Guess my question should lead to the files themselves. If a Jpg is recovered, does it always mean it's a jpg? Why wouldn't I be able to view it?

If the block allocation list is corrupted, a damaged file may have been copied.

If may also be a ownership problem, the recovered files have been created as administrator, you may currently lacking the rights to view them (google for file take ownership).

I've looked into how to take file ownership, and I believe I've done everything I can but still can't open these images. Is there any way you guys can check for me? I'll attach the image here. Thank you so much.