[SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

mibadt · 2010-12-21 08:55:59

HI,
Somehow a 16GB FAT32 CF card with thousands of important (RAW) photo files became unreadable.
I'd very much appreciate any help to access my (sentential) important files.
The original structure of the card was:
* Level 0 (top): 2 files + 1 directory named DCIM
* Level 1 (under DCIM): 2 directories named 100ND300 200ND300
* Level 2 (under either of above 2 directories): hundreds of files named _DSCnnnn.NEF (where nnnn is a 4 digit sequential number), each with a size in the 9-14 MB range. All files where created between 17-19 Dec 2010.

I've run the testdisk utility which found the following problem:

Disk /dev/sdd - 16 GB / 14 GiB - CHS 15296 64 32
Partition Start End Size in sectors
5 L FAT32 LBA 0 1 32 15295 63 32 31326145 [NIKON D300]

Boot sector
Warning: Incorrect number of heads/cylinder 15 (FAT) != 64 (HD)
Warning: Incorrect number of sectors per track 63 (FAT) != 32 (HD)
OK

Backup boot sector
Warning: Incorrect number of heads/cylinder 15 (FAT) != 64 (HD)
Warning: Incorrect number of sectors per track 63 (FAT) != 32 (HD)
OK

Second sectors (cluster information) are not identical.

A valid FAT Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.

Using testdisk, I've tried to restore that partition and MBR, yet, when mounted, it shows several unreadable files with erroneous size and date, for example (partial output):

-rwxr-xr-x 1 miki root 3108194005 May 7 2075 ¼ì╤~╛▒╦7.
n$-xr-xr-x 1 miki root 2936221220 Feb 23 2082 0i┤iAêK.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 miki root 1539427395 Jan 28 2010 ¼><l┼@4ñ.w:▐
-rwxr-xr-x 1 miki root 3048043375 Sep 24 2047 ]
¼┤må.îKP
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? ½n@¥≥∞.ñ¢w
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? ¼Öê╧c6Ω.ùQû
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? ┴¼╓Q▓≈R.╓₧░
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? 0δ}┌ñ".&¥ô
-rwxr-xr-x 1 miki root 2426234566 Sep 19 2077 ½τH╩`}.╝ô╬
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? ╨18!Jσwα.╙/c
-r-xr-xr-x 1 miki root 269239952 Jan 16 2097 └
.
.
.

d????????? ? ? ? ? ? ╘σσi┘¢!½.êp╩
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? σφ(╧iç?l.Γ├j
-rwxr-xr-x 1 miki root 3459798283 Aug 1 2046 τ?U%m6█M.`µö
-r-xr-xr-x 1 miki root 3897690065 Jun 8 2036 ?╜┌τµxñ2.<?⌠
-????????? ? ? ? ? ? ?▄.@Φ/
-r-xr-xr-x 1 miki root 1728987957 Jan 2 2089 ?-?.▓¢φ
-r-xr-xr-x 1 miki root 2182499716 Apr 3 2079 φ6°rÄ┴a£.ú[ê
-r-xr-xr-x 1 miki root 718159472 Aug 24 2026 ▀═│╘φ?Ñ▄.εöm
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? ╬φtö~?d?.l3±
-rwxr-xr-x 1 miki root 2163005750 Jan 10 2030 Ω?╘+7.yü.Θ]╟
-rwxr-xr-x 1 miki root 1938247187 Jan 16 2014 Ω╛ålπx╝ö.≡î?
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? ╦╤≤¢?▒r.\╞?

using testdisk I've created an image of the card and mounted it as follows:

mount -t vfat -o loop,ro /home/miki/image.dd /media/diskimage/

Yet, the mounted image shows the same data as above.

Please advise!

Thanks

Last edited by mibadt (2010-12-22 07:55:40)

stqn · 2010-12-21 09:49:50

photorec ?

Edit: I see that testdisk and photorec belong to the same package... Still it looks like it should be the right tool for the job; but I might be wrong as I never used it.

Last edited by stqn (2010-12-21 09:52:53)

eldragon · 2010-12-21 10:38:53

first thing to do:

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/cfcard.img

where sdX is the cf card's device.

store the card somewhere and dont play with it anymore till you are done with the img file.
then use whatever tool you can find on the img file which you can easily recreate or make a backup of.

Mr Green · 2010-12-21 11:00:33

stqn wrote:

photorec ?
Edit: I see that testdisk and photorec belong to the same package... Still it looks like it should be the right tool for the job; but I might be wrong as I never used it.

Used it a couple of times, my daughter wiped photos from her mobiles memory card by accident .... Linux to the rescue

Last edited by Mr Green (2010-12-21 11:01:01)

R00KIE · 2010-12-21 15:19:05

That I know of (and can remember the names now) you can try testdisk/photorec and foremost [1,2].
I remember seeing a thread (or a blog) about another suite of cli programs to recover files but I can't remember the name or where I saw it now .

[1] http://foremost.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=2014

mibadt · 2010-12-22 07:58:06

Thanks all for the useful tips.
Although most people, myself included, won't like it, I eventually found a Windows based solution- recuva which solved the problem.
I'm sure the Linux route works too, it's just that I've got the MS referencer first.
Thanks!

graysky · 2010-12-22 09:29:53

@mi - whatever works. In the future, do give photorec a try. It works very well.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-12-21 08:55:59

[SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

#2 2010-12-21 09:49:50

Re: [SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

#3 2010-12-21 10:38:53

Re: [SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

#4 2010-12-21 11:00:33

Re: [SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

#5 2010-12-21 15:19:05

Re: [SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

#6 2010-12-22 07:58:06

Re: [SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

#7 2010-12-22 09:29:53

Re: [SOLVED] Restore photo files from CF card with damaged FAT

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