Just recovered over 1000 files from a pc c drive to a dvd, many of the files chances of recovery were marked "excellent." Now I can see the files but the applications will not open them, stating that the file format is incorrect or the extension is not recognized or they are "corrupted. this appears to be the case for ALL files.....
To test if it is the disk, I recovered 3 selected "excellent" files to my hard drive with the same result
Did I do something wrong on the recover or does the software not work!.
Excellent means that the files being recovered are not overwritten by a live file. It does not refer to the state of the data inside the file.
What extension is not being recognised (by your operating system)?
In Recuva, switch to Advanced Mode and then look in the Header panel for the files you recovered. Does the header have a recognised file signature? (File sigs can be found on Wikipedia.)
Recuva will copy sector by sector what is on the disk. It does not change any file data.