Damaged .AVI files

[Smartx21]

A deleted folder and a lost .AVI video!
I recovered the files using MiniTool Power Data Recovery.
Movie length is 1.5 hours, 17GB.
After some repair sessions, video became only 3.5 minutes long! No way to go further (lots of software were tried).
Unsuccessful attempts to repair the recovered .AVI movie, I decided to go through HEX DUMP.
Then I finally noticed that the remaining bytes after those 3.5 minutes were all ZEROS. That is, everything is lost.
Any suggestions on how to search the hard drive for the lost biggest part of the video?
A general search with PHOTOREC also was unsuccessful.
Thanks in advance...
Max.

[aedipuss]

the file chain was broken after you deleted it. sorry but it's just gone.

[jagabo]

File undelete software usually just joins all successive available clusters hoping the file was not fragmented. If the file was fragmented everything but the first fragment will be the wrong data. Since you've been using the computer since the undelete the remaining data on the drive may have been overwritten by now. Even if it hasn't been overwritten, it will be hard to identify the correct clusters. You'd probably have to do it manually by looking at the contents and finding clusters that look like video data.

This is one reason it's good to defragment your drives often.

[Smartx21]

Thanks, guys. That's what I was wondering about.
In fact, it is not my drive. The guy who asked me to try the recovery swore he didn't save anything else. Which I don't believe....
I am trying the last attempts to rescue any video fragment with Stellar Phoenix, Digital Media Recovery and Disk Doctors Photo Recovery.
By the next morning maybe I will quit!
Thanks anyway!
Regards,
Max.

[Smartx21]

Hello!
Switching from UNDELETE RECOVERY to DIGITAL MEDIA RECOVERY, I got the same amount of data, now without those ZEROS, but with all the recorded video, safely rescued.
But, unfortunately, the audio track has some problems. The stream is OK during some parts of the video, but completely fades in others. I searched for other tracks, but found only one.
Is there a tool to repair the audio track? All players and editors I've tried until now show the same results.
Thanks a lot!
Max.

[jagabo]

Nice to hear about the recovery. So that was with MiniTool Power Data Recovery?

It's odd that the audio is messed up because the audio and video are normally multiplexed together -- so you can't really recover one without recovering the other. Are you sure the audio wasn't always like that?

[Smartx21]

Yes, that was the tool.
I guess my computer isn't the perfect machine to manage to check the integrity of the whole file (AMD Athlon X2 5200.... old, slowing down!).
I'll switch to a faster one and post the news later.

[Smartx21]

Same thing under a Core i3.

Please, what is the function of each of the associated files with MOVIE.AVI:

MOVIE.avi.A.index
MOVIE.avi.index
MOVIE.scn
MOVIE.avi.scn.xml ?

In my case, playing with or without these files in the same folder, the results are the same.
Also, I could not retrieve the .avi.scn.xml associated file.
And these files have been rescued through UNDELETE method, contrarily to MOVIE.avi, which has been recovered using DIGITAL MEDIA RECOVERY.
Thanks!

[Smartx21]

Now trying some DIGITAL VIDEO REPAIR, to see if the audio track fully comes to life!

[jagabo]

The AVI is a standalone file as far as playing is concerned. Those other extension are associated with editors that were likely used to edit the file, and probably metadata.