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Converting CR2

Taiyosan
Contributor

Just discovered that the Canon RAW files shot with a Canon 20D in 2005, are no longer openable. (is that a word?) I have a few thousand of them and in '05, '06, etc., i opened them, worked on them in PS and saved them. Now i want to work with some of them and they are not viewable, openable, etc. Not with Canon software, Adobe DNG Converter, etc.. I don't know what to do ... do one of you know what to do? Who to ask? Where to search? Have you had this kinda problem?

 

The larger question, how did 5000 Canon files get corrupted and will that happen again as the years go by (yes, i'm converting them to dng, but not so at that time) ??? i've no idea how to address. Yes, all files are backed up in triplicate but they are copies of the unopenable files - sigh ... all help appreciated.

 

Thank you,

 

Taiyo

41 REPLIES 41

The beauty of Time Machine is that it keeps old files as long as possible and then deletes old ones only as needed to make space for new ones.

Thanks KV.

As KV mentions below, this is one-removed from the latest software, El Capitan, not Serra. I haven't upgraded any of my computer as i've heard and read about the chaos being caused by the latest Apple update (always wait until the first, maybe the second upgrade is out).

 

 

To All you Wonderful helpers ... this corruption could have happened a year ago, three years ago, etc. I only dig into my back files when someone asks for something that is in them. Hence, i did discover, about six months ago, that one of the folders from '05 with some hundreds of photo files in it were all corrupted but did not look beyond that. Someone ask about a print from '05 last week and when i searched for that i discovered, with a bit more looking, that more then half of '05 were corrupt. I think there is no way to know when that happened nor how it happened. I'm now browsing the other years (digitially from '99 to now) to see what else may be corrupt. So i guess its good for those of us with photos files from the past two decades to ocassionally look thru to see how they are faring.

 

An interesting challenge, to get the photos viewable again.

I have no idea of the inner workings of Macs. But have you noticed any changes in the images' file names? I've seen some Windows software that allows you to leave the file extension off the file names. I'm really just grabbing at straws here.


@BurnUnit wrote:
I have no idea of the inner workings of Macs. But have you noticed any changes in the images' file names? I've seen some Windows software that allows you to leave the file extension off the file names. I'm really just grabbing at straws here.

I think what you're saying is that the Windows operating systems let you view file names without their their extensions being displayed. IMO, this option is best ignored (which may mean turning it off; I don't recall what the default is).The software using the files still needs to know their extensions, especially since the user may not. It's all just Microsoft's way of making things more confusing by dumbing them down for the masses.

 

I have no idea whether Mac computers have a similar misfeature.

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA


RobertTheFat wrote
I think what you're saying is that the Windows operating systems let you view file names without their their extensions being displayed.

 

Precisely. I didn't really fully explain how this might prevent a file from opening, at least in Windows. I had a manager at work once ask me why he couldn't open a Powerpoint file he'd received as an email attachment. He nearly fell out of his chair when I added .ppt to the end of the file name, double clicked it and it popped right open. I've also seen a couple other instances of jpeg files that wouldn't open because the file name was missing the .jpg extension.

If they are originals then what did you mean about being "edited in photoshop"?

And just what error are you getting?

 

Can you see the jpeg preview?

Can EXIFTool get at the EXIF data?

In the ImageBrowser EX there are only 'question marks' in the file window; in the EXIF (does the DPP have an EXOFTool?) window on the right there is exif info: file name, data type-CR2, Modified: 6/18/05 (imported date); Image Size: 0x0; File Size: 7.1MB, etc.

 

By editing in PS, i mean i did some work with them and savd them as psd or tiff and occasionally jpegs - those are either gone or not readable. This is true across many files in the master folder 2005, over 5k of the 9.5k files ... whatever happened effected many many files ... so far, i've not found any opening/reading solution.

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