Corrupt .jpg's

tyler4402 · Aug 26, 2019

Hi all
I have have had this problem for long over 12 months and need some info if anybody else has had the same problem and cured it.
Sometimes when I open a photo album, I use (FastStone Image Viewer free) which I do like, sometimes I find one or several photos have been corrupted and they show with a red X or a grey or muti coloured section as far as half way up the picture, when a red X is clicked on the message usually is (Unknown format) but I know it was saved as a .jpg and has probably been opened and closed many times.
Over the last year I have checked and re checked the HDD's, and the memory etc and all has been ok, indeed I have put all the jpg's on a brand new HDD and this has not cured the problem at all.
I now have a theory and I would like to know what others think, as when I have been searching the albums and tweaking photos using FastStone I have now started quite regularly I hear a click it's quite audible as I run the pc without sides and the program freezes for up to three minutes before it carries on, this only happens when I am working with my photos so as it is the graphic card which opens the .jpg's I now wonder if when an album is clicked upon it may possibly occasionally struggle to open images and corrupts a photo or two whilst trying to open the album? I have visually checked the GE-Force 210 card, and the fan is running as it should, so that's my theory, has anyone had this prob, if so how was it cured I would like to know, regards Robert

Ysarex · Aug 26, 2019

Sounds like a bad hard drive to me.

Joe

tyler4402 · Aug 28, 2019

Ysarex said:
Sounds like a bad hard drive to me.
Hi Joe, yes it does, but I have had that suggestion a few times and tested the last two hdd's and they were ok, the latest hdd is brand new and the prob is still there, I am looking for different theories or what people think, of my own latest theory, regards Robert
Joe

Original katomi · Aug 28, 2019

Ok start. I don’t know your soft ware but that and the graphics card should not make any difference
Jpg format is a lossy format every time you save it will loose some info think of the xerox factor, eg coping a photocopy same thing
Whilst the file says jpg I have found not all jpgs are equal but that should. Not cause your probs
So as said in post 2 could be bad hard drive or even a virus

tyler4402 · Aug 31, 2019

Hi, sorry for the slow response I have been waiting for an email alert but they don't seem to come, anyway many thanks for your info, it now looks like Joe was right, I took out the HDD and replaced it with another containing photo albums and it ran ok, when I replaced the hdd again the clicking came back and some more images went corrupt the galling thing is this 2Tb Seagate hdd is only 8 weeks old, regards Robert

Original katomi · Aug 31, 2019

Bummer sorry to hear about the hdd glad you are sorted.

tyler4402 · Sep 1, 2019

Hi Katomi, thanks for your interest, but I'm not quite sorted yet, as I would like to find and return my corrupted photos denoted by the Red X, when I click on them they open as a Black screen but the info on the image is like this > IMG_0181.JPG (Unknown Format) but the info is there on the image stating that it is a .jpg I think that they will still in the album somewhere, although its probably that the PC or my FastStone Image viewer cannot find them.
Some images I took last week went corrupt as I was opening the album coming up as a blank square then the Red X appeared in the middle and I am wondering if there is a way to tell the PC where to look for the missing data which will open the image, any ideas most welcome, regards Robert

Original katomi · Sep 1, 2019

Ok I use pc not Mac but there is something
Have you tried a star. Jpg *.jpg search it’s old school means any file with the jpg extension
The other thing is with photoshop I get a second file once I have worked on an image. If your prog does the same and you can find what it’s called you could search for that.
Failing that google file recovery programmes
You could get a long list take time and a cuppa
Ok just been off doing some research
One idea that has come up is when you find a jpg file
Poss one of the bad ones copy and rename it then get your prog to try and open the renamed ver.
Maybe the prog sees the file name and has it logged as bad and will not open
Hope this helps

bratkinson · Sep 1, 2019

I've had similar situations and it was not from opening and closing a JPG too many times. It was a failing stick of RAM memory. Somewhere along the way, while editing a bunch of files through Photoshop, and then doing my final 'save' on them, the couple of images that were in a failing portion of RAM appeared to be written out OK, but when assembling the finished images into a photo presentation, I saw the damaged images. Fortunately, it was simple enough for me to start over from one of my intermediate process 'saves' and redo only the affected images.

Thinking it was failed hard drive and copying that drive to another won't magically 'fix' the damaged files. It can't put back what's been lost. It will only copy the damaged image and create a duplicate of that.

As for the 'click' you've been hearing, it may be nothing more than the heads of your hard drive moving from one sector to the next, or, perhaps, the next sequential sector of data is not adjacent, but 'some distance' (cylinders) from the previous record due to hard drive sector reallocation due to problems (ie, if sector 1000 is bad, for example, the HD will automatically substitute a sector in a reserved space such as #10,000, so while reading a sequential file at sector 999, then when it tries to read 1000, it has to 'jump' over to 10,000 and then back to 1001 and continue reading.)

tyler4402 · Sep 2, 2019

bratkinson said:
I've had similar situations and it was not from opening and closing a JPG too many times. It was a failing stick of RAM memory. Somewhere along the way, while editing a bunch of files through Photoshop, and then doing my final 'save' on them, the couple of images that were in a failing portion of RAM appeared to be written out OK, but when assembling the finished images into a photo presentation, I saw the damaged images. Fortunately, it was simple enough for me to start over from one of my intermediate process 'saves' and redo only the affected images.

Thinking it was failed hard drive and copying that drive to another won't magically 'fix' the damaged files. It can't put back what's been lost. It will only copy the damaged image and create a duplicate of that.

As for the 'click' you've been hearing, it may be nothing more than the heads of your hard drive moving from one sector to the next, or, perhaps, the next sequential sector of data is not adjacent, but 'some distance' (cylinders) from the previous record due to hard drive sector reallocation due to problems (ie, if sector 1000 is bad, for example, the HD will automatically substitute a sector in a reserved space such as #10,000, so while reading a sequential file at sector 999, then when it tries to read 1000, it has to 'jump' over to 10,000 and then back to 1001 and continue reading.)

Hi Guys, thanks for the info, I have had a quick look at the*.jpg and so many pix showed its going to take a long time to go through them, but I will enjoy doing so, and I think I can what you mean about the clicking but on the hdd test no bad sectors showed, although it might be a good idea as you suggest to check the memory many thanks to you both, regards Robert