I recovered a bunch of .mov files, but none can be played by anything I have found, quicktime, media player, vlc etc. Is there a codec that Recuva needs, or did I do something wrong?
Nope, no codec needed by Recuva.
Just to clutch at straws, have you tried Irfanview? I seem to recall others sometimes have better luck with that one.
What error do you get when trying to play the recovered MOVs?
What was the status Recuva showed for each of the files?
Maybe supply other info like, what OS, what media recovered from, how many files, and anything else you deem relevant so others can jump in and help.