Graphics: JPEG Images-all zeros in Hex Editor and won't open (Revisite
JPEG Images-all zeros in Hex Editor and won't open (Revisite
by Gemari77 - 10/16/09 8:12 AMHello folks,
I believe I've read through all the threads on the subject and I've regretfully came to terms with the fact that my pics are lost forever...
Backstory... My wife was having serious problems with Vista and perhaps a virus on the computer. We had YEARS worth of pictures on this computer. I burned the files to DVD. Afterwards, I checked the DVD in another computer and it seemed fine... We formatted the drive and did a fresh install of Vista and started putting the pictures back on from the DVD, only to find that over half the Jpeg folders on the DVD were corrupt. I even had to use a special program to even get the corrupt folders off the disc and onto the computer. I've been hit with all the usual errors...no header in Infranview, no previews, no thumbnails, truncated in Photoshop..etc
I'm just left with lots of files that take up space, but don't open. Which brings me to my next question....
If I pull up a jpeg in a hex editor and there are all zeros, I've read that this file in not salvagable as there is no information to be had... However, all these files are taking up space and vary from 300kb to 2 MB in size. What is that information taking up space, if there is no information appearing in the hex editor??
I did have a few photos backed up in other places... In these cases, the damaged file is even slightly larger in size than the identical correctly working JPEG---damaged JPEG of file "2499" is 864K where as working JPEG of file "2499" is 836K.
Anybody know what this information is and why it doesn't appear as info in the hex editor?
Thanks
Zero is zero
by ChuckT - 10/16/09 9:19 AM In reply to: JPEG Images-all zeros in Hex Editor and won't open (Revisite by Gemari77If the Hex data is really just all bytes of "00" data, then yup, that data is gone. You can't pull something from nothing.
There have been some bad people, out there, who wrote viruses that re-wrote the Hex data with zeros. That is, they over-wrote the anything from "00" to "FF" varying data bytes with just "00." The file still may be the same size, but it is all "just a lot of nothing," sorry. (Yeah, I hate those people too, but that is the reaction those people are going for. By you getting mad at them just makes their day. They are mentally and morality lacking.
But, you might look further into the file, and see if the tell-tale "JFIF" (or in Hex, "2A 46 49 46" ) is there somewhere. If so, then possibly, the virus writer just prefixed a bunch of Hex "00" to the beginning if the file. That way, you might be able to strip off the lead (and bogus) "00" bytes, and perhaps get your picture back. Yeah, that is going to be labor intensive, and perhaps if the bogus "00" preamble is a set length (like perhaps 128, or 256, or 1024 bytes - or some other set amount) you could then have a programmatic way of writing a tool to remove the bogus bytes. Or! maybe even just strip off all the leading "00" bytes.
Good luck!
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