EOS Utility // local .dat-files

[ivarvass]

Hello! I have encountered a problem which I have not been able to find a solution to. Hopefully some of you fine people have some suggestions on how to fix it.

I was on a work assignment shooting both video and photography recently. I used my Canon 1DX Mark 2 with a CF card as the main camera for video interviews, and a Sony camera as my 2nd angle.

The interviews were between a few minutes and 30 minutes, thus making quite a few of the files exceeding the 4gb mark.

Afterwards I did my shots as per usual with my camera, put it in the bag and went home.

Coming home I was in a hurry, connected my camera and used the file explorer to enter the camera files. I did the old CTRL+X and pasted the files in the designated place in my HD. All well & good so far.

A few minutes later I came to realize I had completely forgotten about my interviews exceeding 4gb (hello DAT!), and that I obivously should have imported them using EOS Utility. 

Now I have all my files on my HD, including the actual sized DAT-files (not only the 200 kb ones) and a .mov file, but I have no apparent way to access these files.

So.. now what?

Is there any way to transfer the files back into my CF card, or is there any way to access my local HD through EOS Utility? Or even better, is there some way to convert these .dat-files into an actual usable file without using EOS Utility? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Not all hope is lost, as I have my 2nd cam working fine, but if I could choose I would prefer the material from the 1DX.

Regards, Ivar

[Waddizzle]

You can try writing the files back to the card, and see if the camera recognizes them.  It might.  There are software apps that can take the audio and video files, and integrate them into a single MP4 or whatever format you want.

For future reference, don't use Windows Explorer to copy fils out of the camera.  It is not a thumb drive.  Remove the memory card and use a card reader is a best practice.

Most of all, never use CTRL-X to copy files, because I am sure you know that it deletes the originals.  Copy the files, check the files, THEN delete.

[ivarvass]

Thanks, copying the files back into the CF card seems the only possible way as of now, hoping EOS Utility will recognize them. It's not a straight forward process, but I'll try looking into how to get it done.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Your camera should record .mov or .mp4.  .dat means the file is corrupt or wasn't captured correctly.  I don't do much video anymore.  Others here might have better recovery suggestions.  You may also get assistance in the video forum.

You didn't say if the files were .dat before the attempted transfer, or if this was the result of your attempted transfer operation?

I use several cards, and at the end of each day copy the data from a card to a second storage device.   Two copies are always better than one.  I'm sure you'll adopt this moving forward.  Why you would use ctrl+x (even in a hurry) doesn't really make sense.  Always copy and move, never cut and paste something you might need to refer to again.  This usually happens to people once..  and is not a mistake you will likely make again.  

This now appears to be a file recovery request.  Their are services avaialble to recover .dat > .mov or .mp4.  I have no idea what these cost.  Free alternatives might exist as well.  Let's see what others recommend.

**EDIT..  As you can see Waddizzle and I both agree on what not to do..