Hey guys, Go Pro Hero 3 - Corrupted files Help plz :(

[Giacoo91]

Heys guys,

whats'up..

Im looking for some help, its been some time i have been trying to recover these files from a footage i have recorded...
It was a Creamfields event, where i recorded like 50 videos, some of them short, another ones larger, the thing is when I came back to my home and
I came to my house and downloaded everything to the hard drive, some of these file came corrupted.. I dont know why, i remembered that when I was at the event I only changed the battery, but I never touched the configuration or the sd card..


Some videos I can see, but others tell me that the file is damaged, although when I click on properties it comes out that it has a size.

I will leave some images to see if they can understand my problem and maybe give me a hand ... I have tried several conversion programs such as Stellar Repair, Video Repair or Recover MP4 but they have not worked for me, there is only one video that I lets recover but it is 1.2 GB and it recovers only 2 minutes..

Maybe there is something I am doing wrong, I would appreciate if you could help me and excuse my bad English, I am from Chile haha ​​..

[ProWo]

Try to remux the damaged files with MkvToolnix to mkv.

Check the files also with Mediainfo and post the results.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/MediaInfo

[Giacoo91]

Try to remux the damaged files with MkvToolnix to mkv.

Check the files also with Mediainfo and post the results.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/MediaInfo

Thanks, ill give it a try...

[Giacoo91]

This appears in the media info, and in the MKVTOOL it wont recongnize any file..

[ProWo]

For me no chance for the corrupted files, sorry.
As last resort you could try chkdsk X: /F in a console window (cmd), (where X: is the drive/sdcard with your files)

[davexnet]

Doesn't the camera have a recovery mode that works on the files in the camera?

[october262]

Heys guys,

whats'up..

Im looking for some help, its been some time i have been trying to recover these files from a footage i have recorded...
It was a Creamfields event, where i recorded like 50 videos, some of them short, another ones larger, the thing is when I came back to my home and
I came to my house and downloaded everything to the hard drive, some of these file came corrupted.. I dont know why, i remembered that when I was at the event I only changed the battery, but I never touched the configuration or the sd card..


Some videos I can see, but others tell me that the file is damaged, although when I click on properties it comes out that it has a size.

I will leave some images to see if they can understand my problem and maybe give me a hand ... I have tried several conversion programs such as Stellar Repair, Video Repair or Recover MP4 but they have not worked for me, there is only one video that I lets recover but it is 1.2 GB and it recovers only 2 minutes..

Maybe there is something I am doing wrong, I would appreciate if you could help me and excuse my bad English, I am from Chile haha ​​..

try uploading your corrupt video to youtube and let them process / fix the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfrsZDhytYc

[Giacoo91]

Doesn't the camera have a recovery mode that works on the files in the camera?

Nope, the Hero 3 has the only option to format the SD, but no recovery mode..

[abolibibelot]

1) Did you delete the files on the memory card or not yet ? If not, first create an image of the whole card's contents. You can do it with various tools, like TestDisk (freeware) or WinHex (not freeware). [But before, check part 3) below as it's the most likely explanation, and in this case creating an image is moot.]

2) Then you could examine the headers of unreadable files, and compare it with the header of a known working file of the same type. It can be done with any hexadecimal editor, HxD is free and sufficient for that purpose, WinHex is not free but much more complete. Usually for MP4 files the header should begin with “ftyp...” something. If it looks like random data, something is wrong, it could mean that the file allocation table got scrambled somehow, and with no valid header a video repair tool can not proceed to repair anything. If it appears totally empty, and if the whole files appear empty, then it's even more wrong obviously. [See below part 3).]
If that is the case, it may be possible to recover the correct files by means of “raw” file recovery. Many data recovery softwares have that feature, with varying degrees of efficiency, globally and depending on each file type. Photorec, the companion program provided with TestDisk, is dedicated to that kind of recovery, it may not have a fancy interface, but it's usually very efficient. For optimal results, after selecting the correct device, go to “File opt” (= file options), and uncheck everything except “mov/mp4/3gp/3g2/jp2” (otherwise it may detect false “file signatures” corresponding to other file types which are not supposed to be there, thus interrupting valid files). It should extract everything that begins with a valid MP4 header, so if the videos were recorded contiguously the recovered files should be complete. If some are fragmented (which can happen for instance if some files are deleted but others are kept on the card, and other recordings are stored later on), then it's more complicated.

3) Another possibility is that... you've got a corrupted / counterfeit memory card. In this case, unfortunately, let's say it right off the bat, there's no hope for recovery. And unfortunately it seems like the most likely explanation, based on the screenshot provided in post #4. Files numbered 123 to 154 are all valid / readable, but apparently all files beyond are unreadable. My guess is that the total size of the valid files corresponds to the actual available space on that memory card, which is probably much lower than its reported size. A counterfeit memory card can have, for instance, a size of 4GB, but a tweaked controller which makes it report (to the computer or the camera) a size of 32GB. And when files are recorded onto the card, they're all fine before the 4GB mark, but anything beyond will be written to a “ghost” space, and the copied files will either appear empty, or appear like parts of the valid space, repeated over and over until the reported size is reached (for instance, the beginning of file 160 could be actually the middle of file 123).
There are tools which can identify counterfeit memory cards, one I used long ago was “h2testw”, I don't know if it's still developped and available somewhere. That kind of tool would definitely be a welcome addition to VideoHelp's software library, if there aren't already.

[Giacoo91]

1) Did you delete the files on the memory card or not yet ? If not, first create an image of the whole card's contents. You can do it with various tools, like TestDisk (freeware) or WinHex (not freeware). [But before, check part 3) below as it's the most likely explanation, and in this case creating an image is moot.]

2) Then you could examine the headers of unreadable files, and compare it with the header of a known working file of the same type. It can be done with any hexadecimal editor, HxD is free and sufficient for that purpose, WinHex is not free but much more complete. Usually for MP4 files the header should begin with “ftyp...” something. If it looks like random data, something is wrong, it could mean that the file allocation table got scrambled somehow, and with no valid header a video repair tool can not proceed to repair anything. If it appears totally empty, and if the whole files appear empty, then it's even more wrong obviously. [See below part 3).]
If that is the case, it may be possible to recover the correct files by means of “raw” file recovery. Many data recovery softwares have that feature, with varying degrees of efficiency, globally and depending on each file type. Photorec, the companion program provided with TestDisk, is dedicated to that kind of recovery, it may not have a fancy interface, but it's usually very efficient. For optimal results, after selecting the correct device, go to “File opt” (= file options), and uncheck everything except “mov/mp4/3gp/3g2/jp2” (otherwise it may detect false “file signatures” corresponding to other file types which are not supposed to be there, thus interrupting valid files). It should extract everything that begins with a valid MP4 header, so if the videos were recorded contiguously the recovered files should be complete. If some are fragmented (which can happen for instance if some files are deleted but others are kept on the card, and other recordings are stored later on), then it's more complicated.

3) Another possibility is that... you've got a corrupted / counterfeit memory card. In this case, unfortunately, let's say it right off the bat, there's no hope for recovery. And unfortunately it seems like the most likely explanation, based on the screenshot provided in post #4. Files numbered 123 to 154 are all valid / readable, but apparently all files beyond are unreadable. My guess is that the total size of the valid files corresponds to the actual available space on that memory card, which is probably much lower than its reported size. A counterfeit memory card can have, for instance, a size of 4GB, but a tweaked controller which makes it report (to the computer or the camera) a size of 32GB. And when files are recorded onto the card, they're all fine before the 4GB mark, but anything beyond will be written to a “ghost” space, and the copied files will either appear empty, or appear like parts of the valid space, repeated over and over until the reported size is reached (for instance, the beginning of file 160 could be actually the middle of file 123).
There are tools which can identify counterfeit memory cards, one I used long ago was “h2testw”, I don't know if it's still developped and available somewhere. That kind of tool would definitely be a welcome addition to VideoHelp's software library, if there aren't already.

Thanks for the information, im still proccesing it ahah..
But maybe its most likely option 3, i remembered i recorded like an hour each video, so i guess it would never be like a 1gb file..

Thanks for the help folks, i uploaded a video to drive so if anyone wants to give it a check...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ze9KAuENu5pN3HSlXn5Qrtk-19jHLAsX/view?usp=sharing

[abolibibelot]

I tried the link above, but an authorization is requested.

Have you ever had a similar issue before ? Have you ever recorded as much data on it ?
Is the card new ? Was is purchased from a reputable reseller, or some shady discounter ?
If it was purchased from a reputable reseller, and it worked fine before (meaning that the card could be filled to its reported capacity with corruption), and the problem appeared only recently, then it's probably not the explanation.
What is the card's reported capacity, and what is the total size of the readable files ? How come the files' numbers are not contiguous (123-142-149...), did you delete some of them ?
The numbers I mentioned are just examples, it could be 2GB actual capacity / 16GB reported capacity, or anything else. The reported capacity is always a typical power of 2 number (16GB, 32GB, 64GB...), but the actual size can be a weird value like 3.6GB.
Did you try opening the unreadable files with HxD ? Examining one file probably won't be enough to say anything conclusive. What could be interesting would be to open one of the unreadable file with a hex editor, copy a short segment at the beginning, then search that segment inside all the readable files copied from that card. I would be curious to see what WinHex displays in such a situation ; normally it can analyse a partition (FAT32 for a memory card) and report which file the currently displayed sector belongs to, but what happens when the same sector belongs to several files, because of such controller level trickery ?

[Giacoo91]

I tried the link above, but an authorization is requested.

Have you ever had a similar issue before ? Have you ever recorded as much data on it ?
Is the card new ? Was is purchased from a reputable reseller, or some shady discounter ?
If it was purchased from a reputable reseller, and it worked fine before (meaning that the card could be filled to its reported capacity with corruption), and the problem appeared only recently, then it's probably not the explanation.
What is the card's reported capacity, and what is the total size of the readable files ? How come the files' numbers are not contiguous (123-142-149...), did you delete some of them ?
The numbers I mentioned are just examples, it could be 2GB actual capacity / 16GB reported capacity, or anything else. The reported capacity is always a typical power of 2 number (16GB, 32GB, 64GB...), but the actual size can be a weird value like 3.6GB.
Did you try opening the unreadable files with HxD ? Examining one file probably won't be enough to say anything conclusive. What could be interesting would be to open one of the unreadable file with a hex editor, copy a short segment at the beginning, then search that segment inside all the readable files copied from that card. I would be curious to see what WinHex displays in such a situation ; normally it can analyse a partition (FAT32 for a memory card) and report which file the currently displayed sector belongs to, but what happens when the same sector belongs to several files, because of such controller level trickery ?

Thank you very much for your help, The files that can be opened are less than 1 gigabyte I think. The regarding the sd card is a 32gb Maxwell memory, maybe it is not original, which I think maybe that is the problem, but I find it very rare that some files can be opened and others not .. With regard to WinHex it gives me the following results regarding the videos, in image 1, from 154, all the videos have information behind, while from 155 onwards, as seen in image 2, this information is thrown at me.
Regarding Winhex, I don't know how to use it very well, and it tells me that the trial version only lets you overwrite 200 kb, which I didn't want to do until I was very sure.
and sorry for the delay but I didn't realize I needed the video permissions to download, a hug and thanks for the help

[Attachment 54089 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 54090 - Click to enlarge]

[abolibibelot]

Alright, and if you scroll down GOPRO154.MP4, is there a point beyond which the data appears totally blank as well ? (At which point of course the playback would stop ; for instance, if a file is blank after about 3/4, i.e. offset ~65000000 out of 87000000, and has a duration of 2m00s, then the playback will stop around 1m30s since there is no more valid video/audio data after that.) It would be surprising if GOPRO154.MP4 is complete (with valid data all the way to the end) then GOPRO155.MP4 and all files that come after are totally blank. Or it could be another file which is partially blank, if GOPRO154 (which is rather small) got written in an empty space left after another file was deleted.

The regarding the sd card is a 32gb Maxwell memory, maybe it is not original, which I think maybe that is the problem, but I find it very rare that some files can be opened and others not ..

As I wrote above, a counterfeit memory card does have some valid storage space, it's just way below the reported capacity. All files written to the valid storage space should be fine (unless there's another issue), but once the actual capacity is reached, anything else being written gets corrupted.

I just did a quick search, found this thorough article :
https://photographylife.com/fake-memory-cards

Another very common issue, where the card will report large capacity to your computer, camera or storage device, when in reality it contains only a very small part of the overall capacity. For example, a 512 GB SD card might show up as 512 GB on your computer, but in reality contain only 16 GB of storage cells. This happens because the microchip (a tiny part of the memory card that is responsible for reporting the total amount of storage available) within the memory card has been reprogrammed to report a different size to the host. Such memory cards are extremely dangerous, because you might never be able to tell that they are fakes until you start filling them up. In this particular case, the first 16 GB of storage might work just fine, but anything past that is going to produce data errors. Counterfeit memory cards with reduced capacities should be avoided the most, because they will most certainly result in data loss.
[...]
So what happens when you have a fake / counterfeit memory card? Well, as you can see from the earlier section, the issues can range from getting very slow speeds all the way to data loss and unusable memory cards. Out of all the potential issues, data loss is the biggest risk, especially when a large capacity memory card is used. The problem with fake memory cards with reduced capacity, is that many photographers might not understand that once they go over a certain capacity, all data from that point on will be corrupt. So everything might appear to be working great at first, only to have troubles show up later. This is especially problematic when photographers plan expensive trips where memory cards fail after a few days of use. So the biggest risk one might run into, is loss of data – that’s where you do not want to end up! And having a dual memory card slot camera is not going to help in any way with fake cards, because both will fail at some point. This is why it is especially important to identify fake memory cards and get rid of them.

And this interesting forum thread :
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14743039
which leads to this blog post :
http://blog.nothinguntoward.eu/?p=238

If you want to test the card with h2testw, be aware that it will overwrite everything on it.

Regarding Winhex, I don't know how to use it very well, and it tells me that the trial version only lets you overwrite 200 kb, which I didn't want to do until I was very sure.

In this case, for examination only, the trial version is enough. And for recovery purposes you should not overwrite anything anyway. WinHex can be used for recovery purposes, and if I remember correctly a license is also required to extract more than 200KB, but in this case there's nothing that can be recovered from billions of "00".
With WinHex you can also open the whole volume with : Tools => Open disk, then under "Logical Volumes/Partitions", select the partition with the same letter and same (reported) size as the memory card as it appears in Explorer. (I don't know if that feature is available with the trial version.) Likewise, you can scroll down and look at the data pattern, while checking the "offset" value, and see where there is valid data (anything other than "00 00 00 00..."), and if it appears completely blank beyond some point, and what is the approximate offset beyond which there's no more data. On the right column it should also indicate which file each sector belongs to, or, if pointing to a file in the internal explorer, it should display the hexadecimal presentation of its first sector. Then it would be interesting to see what happens when trying to overwrite a few bytes (with anything other than "00 00 00 00...") inside one of those blank files.

and sorry for the delay but I didn't realize I needed the video permissions to download, a hug and thanks for the help

Well, I could use a hug these days... é_è
But even those can be counterfeit... é_è