Help with damaged / corrupt mp4 videos

[adam87jones]

Hi

I recently bought a Samsung H300 HD Camcorder. This weekend i visited milton keynes to see the foo fighters perform at the national bowl. While there i recorded about 40 videos of the gig but only about 10 of them i am able to watch back on the camcorder or on my pc I am absolutely devastated about this as i got some really good footage and it was an amazing gig.

The mp4 file sizes of the videos that dont work vary between 10mb and 250mb depending on their length which leads me to believe that the core information has been saved but it is the opening and viewing of the video that is the problem.

I was advised to use a hex editor to compare the hex maps of a video that doesnt work and one of the ones that i recorded that does work as the header and footer may not have been saved propery by the camcorder and is causing the media players i use to be unable to open the files. When i viewed the hex map of a working video the the outcome was to be expected and looked normal but upon viewing the map of a video i recorded that doesnt work the map was completely blank and just a series of '00's. This confuses me as the file sizes read up to 250mb but hex maps dont show any data.

As i said i am absolutely devastated about this, i have an extremely limited knowledge about this sort of thing and am absolutely willing to pay anybody who can help me recover my videos (if it is even possible ) via paypal or cheque or whatever.......i just want my vids to work...........

Please please please, i would be totally made up if someone could help me out.

Thanks

[aedipuss]

all zeros means it's a blank file there is nothing to recover. defective cam?

[adam87jones]

Yeah possibly mate, im taking the cam back 2moro regardless but why do u think the file sizes would read as they do if there is no data? all 30 vids that dont work have got different file sizes that vary between 10 and 250 mb??

Thanks for your reply

[davexnet]

It's not that there's no data, rather the data is comprised of mostly x"00"s.
Have you tried running a recovery program on the original media?
http://www.piriform.com/recuva

[adam87jones]

Im not sure how i go about doing that mate. Im totally new to this sort of thing and im learning as i go lol At the moment ive got a folder of 30 unopenable mp4's sitting on my desktop. If anybody has got the patience to talk me through any ideas they might have to get these working, or if they would like to have a go themselves, i would defo make it worth their while And i mean cash.....nothing else lol

[davexnet]

What was the original media? Some kind of memory card? Assuming the media hasn't been written to since
the problem occurred (otherwise your chances of success are greatly diminished)
Put the media back into the camera and attach the camera to the PC via the USB. The system should assign
a drive letter.
Run the utility at the site I mentioned and point it to the camera drive letter. See the web site for further details.

[adam87jones]

Hey

recovery only retrieves the corrupt files for me and nothin to reapir them ;(

[davexnet]

DO they contain the same x"00"s as before? Perhaps you can upload one of the
recovered files to mediafire.com and we can take a look.

[adam87jones]

Yeah they do buddy. Ill upload one when i get home later and you can take a look if you dont mind. Thanks

[adam87jones]

Here's the link to one of the mp4's mate. If u manage to do anything with it ull make me a very happy lad lol

http://www.mediafire.com/?8gjvvbdqaya4m4p

[davexnet]

I thought the file might have had a header and at least some data, but the whole thing is x"00". It's no use, unfortunately.

[aedipuss]

I thought the file might have had a header and at least some data, but the whole thing is x"00". It's no use, unfortunately.

lol. i think i said that long ago....

[adam87jones]

Wounded ;(

Thanks for tryin anyway ppl