Jump to content

Recovered .mov video files will not open.


Grumpy D

Recommended Posts

I used Recuva Pro to recover some .mov  video files i deleted by mistake on an SD card from my Nikon D5300. The software recovered the files, but it only showed them as part recovered.

I have tried to open these files with Adobe Premiere Elements 15 and with Quicktime and Windows Moviemaker, but none of them will open.

I have read on some internet searches that its probably a Codec that is needed. Various third party sites offer a solution but I don't wish to download this from a website unless I know this is the problem. Plus I have doubts about some of the sites.

Does anyone have any experience of this problem please? Perhaps you could give me some guidance. Is it some software that i need to add to my editing software or is it something that should be done at the recovery stage? 

I still have the SD card. It has not been formatted or anything since the mistake, the files were simply deleted.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Grumpy D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

Your card is almost certainly formatted as FAT32, and there are some aspects of deleted files that make recovery of an intact file quite difficult.

 

In a file's directory entry there is a field holding the address of the file's first cluster. In the FAT there is a chain of cluster addresses linked off this first address, all the way to 0xFFFFFFFF for the last entry. When a file is deleted all the entries in the FAT are set to zero. This is the only way that FAT can tell if a cluster is in use or not.

 

When the card has had some use the chances of the clusters being contiguous, especially on a large file, reduce. As the cluster addresses of deleted files have been zeroed, it is not possible to retrieve more than the first extent of a fragmented file.

 

The first cluster address is still held in the directory, so Recuva will retrieve that and all following clusters until a non-zero FAT entry is reached, or EOF as indicated in the directory.

 

Your failure to play the recovered movies may be that they are truncated, Does the file size look OK, or less than you expected?

 

FAT32 may also corrupt the first cluster address, depending on how Nikon have implemented it, which makes it even worse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Moderators

The next step is to decide whether you have a Nikon camera (as in this thread) or a Samsung phone (as in the other thread you tagged onto). Both have entirely different O/S's. Perhaps you could start your own thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.