Photos on CD won't open: corrupted files?

Mark Pav , Jan 01, 2006; 09:40 p.m.

Hi. I have a bunch of CDs with photos on them. The CDs are from two to three years old and the photos are saved as JPEGs, TIFs and PSDs. Here's my problem: They won't open! I can get the JPEGs open, but I'm having no luck at all with the TIFs or PSD files. They were originally saved on a Windows computer in PS7, but that machine won't even admit that the CDs have any files on them at all. My Mac will show me that the files are there, but won't open them.

If I try to open them in Photoshop CS2 on my Mac I get an error message saying:

"Could not complete your request because it is not a valid Photoshop document."

The files are clearly labeled with .tif and .psd extensions.

Preview gives me this message:

"Couldnﾒt open the file. It may be corrupt or a file format that Preview doesnﾒt recognize."

I've looked at some data recovery programs, but they all seem to be for memory cards, not CDs.

Is there anything I can do, or have I just lost about 20 gig of photos?

Responses

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Beau Hooker , Jan 01, 2006; 09:56 p.m.

Hi Mark, It sounds like your CDs are giving up the ghost. Not all hope is lost, however. I've seen these guys do amazing things but get out your checkbook because while they're good they can be expensive. If anybody can get the data back it's Ontrack. Hey, I just invented their jingle! But seriously - good luck and I hope it works!

Mark Pav , Jan 01, 2006; 10:04 p.m.

Thanks, Beau. I'll check them out. I don't know if I need to mention that sometimes a couple of the files on a given CD will open, but the rest of them won't. Weird.

Frank Skomial , Jan 01, 2006; 11:09 p.m.

This is just a guess !

You say: "They were originally saved on a Windows computer in PS7"

I always use dedicated CD recording software like Nero, or better. Unlike PS7, CD writer specialized program can take many steps to assure that the CD recorded information will be error free (at least for the time being), e.g. Simulation, Verification, Hard disc Image creation, CD Recorded hardware speed testing, buffer underrun protection, just to mention a few.

Writing directly from PS7 to CD drive, well it can be done, but I never do this that way., and never had a problem with CD data discs as old as 8 years.

Daniel Ho , Jan 01, 2006; 11:29 p.m.

Mark, I may be asking the obvious, but could you open the files on these discs before? You said that you could open the jpeg files.

I find it hard to believe that 20 G of CDs all died at the same time... Have you tried opening these files on another computer? Will the Mac open the jpeg files?

Michael Matsil , Jan 01, 2006; 11:39 p.m.

Go to the Adobe website discussion forums if you haven't already.

Robert Chura , Jan 01, 2006; 11:41 p.m.

I've had that error before and after a reboot all was fine.

Tim Lookingbill , Jan 02, 2006; 01:23 a.m.

Have you tried copying first to your hard drive, then open them? In other words don't open them straight off the CD.

Mark Pav , Jan 02, 2006; 01:27 a.m.

Frank, I'll keep your advice in mind for the future. Thanks.

Daniel, that's a fair question. Yes, I was able to open these files in the past. My Mac will open about 80% of the JPEG files. I've come across a few disks now where it will open the TIFs, but there are still a bunch of disks that conatin files (mainly TIFs and PSDs) that I can't open at all, with anything on either computer.

So they didn't all simultaneously die; it's a bit more patchy than that. Out of about 15 disks that I've gone through so far, only 3 of them could be accessed exntirely, six of them had completely unopenable files, and the others are mixed.

Oh, and I'm well past the fix-it-with-a-reboot stage, I'm afraid.

Thanks.

Mark Pav , Jan 02, 2006; 01:30 a.m.

Tim, yeah, I tried that already and still got the same error messages.

If anyone's interested:

Maxell CD-R = All failed

Memorex = Most fail to open

Verbatim and TDK = So far so good

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