1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
@BurnUnit wrote:Just as an experiment, I'd make copies of a few of the files that don't want to open. Make up a new name for the files like TEST01, TEST02, etc. Then try using a couple different file extenesions at the end of the file name, like .jpg, .jpeg, .JPG, .JPEG. And maybe try opening them on a Windows machine if you have access.
Nothing to lose...
@Thanks @BurnUnit - gave it a shot, but no luck... Not even on a friend's windows install of photoshop, paint, and irfanview.
If anybody out there is really smart or has an idea, I've uploaded the bad photos to a public folder on my google drive, along with 2 good samples for reference: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1arGT94iZuH-SAg72rOaXC6R17qJ_cRaO
Thank you guys so much for your help and responding to this post!
I'm out of the loop on Macs, but in Windows under the Properties tab for the viewable image I'm seeing the following EXIF data...
In the un-viewable file this EXIF data is blank...
I wish I knew just what the hell that means, but....? I wonder if the files would open with some or all of the EXIF data intact? Could the info be added to the file properties with EXIF editing software?
@kvbarkley wrote:The answer to the second question is "yes". Exiftool will let you write EXIF info to a file.
What we need is a JPEG recoverer, a program that will read in a corrupt JPEG and create a file that has as much of the information that is recoverable as possible. Hmm, maybe I should write one...
@kvbarkley - is such a thing possible! That would be amazing! I'm sure if you figured that out, I'm sure this thred would get a lot of attention. And as your noble deeds reverberated throughout the interwebs, you would be remembered fondly as one of the great mysterious noble genius sages like the creater of Irfanview or VLC. If you know how to do this or can point me to another software that can (I've tried about 10 or so thus far) - that would be amazing! Thank you!!
@tayzerker wrote:@BurnUnit, you are a boss - super helpful! First thing that smells like a clue to success!! Thank you!!
I appreciate the kind words, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. I'm beginning to wonder if the image file must be opened before the EXIF data can be edited. There may be a "Catch 22" in the process. 
@BurnUnit wrote:I appreciate the kind words, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. I'm beginning to wonder if the image file must be opened before the EXIF data can be edited. There may be a "Catch 22" in the process.
Doh! Hmmm I'll look into how to edit EXIF data. Maybe I could do it manually. I already tried opening in text edit and just copying over everything that looked like header data from a bad file to a good one, but I'm guessing that there might be some file-specific info in there, like image/file size and some keys for the compression algorithm or something that don't quite transer over...
