Question about files recovered by testdisk

[zachiepie]

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?

[cgrenier]

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

[zachiepie]

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?

[cgrenier]

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).

[zachiepie]

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.