Random files on recovered SD card found by R-Photo

[Archiver]

Not sure where to put this thread, but here is as good a place as any.

In a brain fart yesterday, I formatted a SDXC card without downloading the video files. Instantly, I knew what I had done and put the card into the computer to recover the files. I have Recuva and R-Photo. Recuva found over a thousand video files, none of which recovered properly. But R-Photo found video file formats which had no business being there.

There were RealMedia .rm files - the last time I saw .rm files was in the early 2000s. There was a 2.4GB Smacker .smk video file; apparently .smk files are a video format used in video game production?! So puzzling. And there were about ten .mov files which I hoped were viable, but ultimately didn't recover, either. None of the recovered files played.

The card is a Sandisk Ultra Extreme 128GB SDXC card (gold label) purchased brand new about a year and a half ago from a reputable camera shop. Unopened and never used prior to me. I've only ever used this card with either the Panasonic S5 or G9 to record .mov and .mp4 videos, and .rw2 raw files. And yet, R-Photo recovered or at least detected video files of formats that I've never placed on that card.

So weird.

 

[Beemermark]

My hard drive (500 MB) crashed last year. The software doing the file recovering made a lot of intermediate files with different type files. So for example the software created files named puppyone00001.pdf, puppyone00002.xls, puppyone00001.raw, etc. etc until if finally recovered the file as puppyone.jpg. A lot of invalid files names also.

 

[boojum]

Oh, my. I did a quick format in Linux. IIRC the HD was NTFS. And now the drive will not mount although Linux can see the drive with the GUI software "Drives" and I am unhappy. There is hopefully a GUI way to mount the drive.

 

[Archiver]

On the plus side, that situation reminded me of the several old CD-R's from the late 90s and early 2000s which I cannot open because they were unfinalized, and I now have a few software tools that might be able to help me. One is a Roxio UDP reader which will sit in the background and open unfinalized CD-R's which were created using Roxio Easy CD Creator. And there are a few programs which will bypass read errors and copy data from CD's that are otherwise damaged.

A few years ago, I found a .mbx reader which allows me to open old Eudora email files. It was pretty handy as I haven't used Eudora for decades but having access to the emails was a pleasant walk down memory lane.

On the other hand, I have an external hard drive which does not mount properly, and makes a rhythmic ticking sound, so that's going to be a several hundred dollar recovery scenario if I want that data. Unfortunately it has all my processed jpegs and raw video files from 2018-2020. It started to go a bit sketchy, unmounting itself, and I should have just transferred all the data when I could. Now it will sit there until I find a reliable data recovery business.

All of this is a reminder to continue to regularly back up my data. So should we all.

 

[Richard G]

A kid at SanDisk borrowed your card for the weekend before popping it back in production process for packaging on Monday morning….? And had a time machine to go back to when those formats were in use. Or his older brother has some weird collection of old gaming machines.

 

[Zuiko-logist]

Very odd. It is a shame you cannot open the recovered files to see if these are old photos or movies or just renamed current files.

 

[DownUnder]

A (hopefully not too long) aside to all this.

I collect old laptops. Over the years, friends and co-workers have given me their old laptops as they bought new and decided to dispose of the older model they had. Not always a wise decision. Most knew enough to delete all the files (especially the, ah, "compromising" ones) but with the lot of software now available (like Recuva) many hitherto lost or considered lost files can be returned to life. Some interesting, most not. A few downright embarrassing, not to me as I no longer have anything like a private life for anyone to compromise, but the younger folks, well, there's no telling what some of the kids out there get up to.

Of the 20-30 ancient computers I've inherited, I've (usually) taken out the hard disk and then recycled the leftovers. Those disks then go into a portable HD box available on Ebay for < $20, so they can then be used as backups or for me to play with before I re-use them.

Recuva has long been my favorite software for this. For a time I had the paid version, but it really didn't do much more than the free one, and after something technical went wrong with it and I couldn't repair it, I went back to the freebie version. Which goes on serving me well and doing all I want it to.

Anyway, being me, I've run all those "recue" HDs thru Recuva to see what came up. A lot often did. Mostly very meh emails, work related stuff, lists, notes, various personal documents, almost all very boring. But also some of it definitely material the original owners wouldn't want their mothers or their partners to read...

In my defense I will say I have never ever made use of any of this recovered data. I've read it, enjoyed some, been amusedly shocked by a little of it - and always destroyed all the files so nobody will ever get their hands on them. Nor have I told the original authors of those juicy bits of their lives I now know. Them secrets lie with me and will follow me to the grave.

All this to say anybody out there considering the disposal of an old computer - rip out the hard disk, do whatever you want to with it (one friend suggested a good soak in a bucket of water and bleach, which I thought rather extreme, but at the same time eminently sensible for obvious reasons), recycle the rest - and hang on to all your hard disks, in a safe, secure place.

On the other hand, as the late great Mae West once opined, keep a diary, one day it may keep you...

 

[Archiver]

Very odd. It is a shame you cannot open the recovered files to see if these are old photos or movies or just renamed current files.

Definitely. What is peculiar is that R-Photo clearly found file types that had no business being on that card. Either R-Photo is screwy or there was something on that card before it was packaged.

 

[Freakscene]

Definitely. What is peculiar is that R-Photo clearly found file types that had no business being on that card. Either R-Photo is screwy or there was something on that card before it was packaged.

There wasn’t anything on it. This is what usually happens with file recovery software, especially with big files like long videos.

 

[boojum]

If you want to be sure a drive cannot be read take a drill and drill through it and its platters.

 

[Archiver]

If you want to be sure a drive cannot be read take a drill and drill through it and its platters.

Instructions unclear, now all dishes in the kitchen have holes. 😆

 

[Archiver]

There wasn’t anything on it. This is what usually happens with file recovery software, especially with big files like long videos.

Okay, that makes sense now. I was wondering how the heck a memory card could contain files that should never have been on it.

 

[boojum]

Instructions unclear, now all dishes in the kitchen have holes. 😆

OK, but no data is recoverable, right?