Recovered files showing no length but files are there....help!

[johnmacgruber]

need help - i've recovered mp4 files that were identified as NOT overwritten and in excellent shape and the recovered files show the right size...but they show no length (duration) and they won't play...any ideas how to fix?  it's like they are there but VLC player can't open them...???

[Augeas]

There are many reasons why this happens, few with a good outcome. First of all Recuva follows the cluster addresses held in the MFT or FAT. Whether the clusters it finds have any relevant data can't be defined by Recuva. What's in those clusters, good or bad, is 'recovered', i.e. copied to another place. The status of excellent, or not overwritten, is exactly that, no live file - at this moment - has overwritten the deleted data. Again it doesn't indicate anything about the value of what is recovered.

If the storage device is an SSD then forget recovery, the SSD controller will have purged the data. Recuva can still recover the clusters but they will be full of zeroes.

If the storage device is FAT32 then it's difficult to recover, the O/S will zero the first two bytes of the cluster address, recovery will return incorrect clusters.

Lastly, I don't know an O/S that assists in deleted file recovery, it's not why they were written. No software can guarantee deleted file recovery.

[johnmacgruber]

ok wow that doesn't sound encouraging at all.  so it's like just a bunch of zeroes then?  i upgraded to full recuva but i honestly don't see any added features over the free version.  was hoping for a miracle feature!