Why can’t I open my old photos?
QMy wife was treated for cancer over a decade ago. During this time we saved some photos and videos to DVD. Now when I try to open the files, I can access everything except 17 JPEG images. I’ve copied these files to my PC and tried various ways to open them, but without any luck. I’ve sent you a couple. Can you open them?
Carl Atkinson
AWe wish we could help, but the image files you sent us are empty. When viewed in hex form, which is the numbering system computers use, your files appear to contain millions of zeroes Something must have gone wrong when you created the DVD. We’re afraid it’s impossible to rescue a file when none of the data has been preserved.
You can see the problem for yourself by using a little-known Powershell command called format-hex. Press Windows key+x to open the Quick Link menu, then click ‘Windows Powershell (Admin)’. Now use the cd (‘change directory’) command to switch to the folder that contains your photos. For example, if your files are on drive D in a folder called Myphotos, you’d type cd d:\myphotos and press Enter.
You can view the hex code one page at a time by typing format-hex filename. jpg | more (see screenshot 1 ) then pressing Enter. Replace ‘filename’ with the name of your JPEG file. To type the vertical-line symbol in the command above, hold the Shift key and press the backslash key ‘\’ (usually to the left of Z). You’ll now see the file in hex format 2.
We’re sorry we couldn’t help you retrieve your photos, but we hope we’ve saved you further time trying to access them.