Can't open recovered files

[PeterAnicea]

I used the free version of Recuva to retrieve jpegs accidentally deleted from my SD camera card.  It recommended not saving back to the original so I saved them to a new folder on my computer.  I've tried Photoshop. Windows Photo viewer, Irfan etc., but none of them will open the files.   Any ideas?  Thanks.

[Augeas]

Go back to Recuva and rerun the scan only (it won't affect anything). Switch to Advanced Mode. Select one of the recovered files that won't open and look at the Info panel. What is the cluster start number? Look at the Header panel: on the character display, does it have ÿØÿà in the first four bytes?

[PeterAnicea]

I see this:- Comment: No overwritten clusters detected.

57 cluster(s) allocated at offset 1181

 

Yes the first 4 characters are as you said.

 

[Augeas]

If the card is formatted as FAT32 then on file deletion the first two bytes of the starting cluster address are set to zero, so the original starting cluster may have been in an entirely different place. Furthermore 57 clusters is not a large number, is 57 x cluster size the size of file you were expecting?

 

If the first chars are indeed ÿØÿà I would expect that the recovered file would display something, even if it isn't the pic you thought you were recovering.

 

You could try a deep scan, then list in thumbnails view. With a bit of luck you might find your missing pics.

[PeterAnicea]

I'm afraid clusters and file sizes are beyond my understanding.  There were about 50 jpegs on the card.