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Repairing corrupted .pdf's and .jpg's

Recently my hard drive failed.  I was however able to recover my system by restoring a Carbonite disk image.   All seemed well until I tried to open a  .pdf or .jpg AFTER the restore.


The following message is generated when I try to open a .pdf:

Adobe Acrobat Reader could not open '<file name>.pdf' because it is either not a supported file type of because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded).


The following message is generated when I try to open a .jpg:

Windows Photo Viewer can't open this picture because either Photo Viewer doesn't support this file format, or you don't have the latest updates to Photo Viewer.



My computer is a Dell XPs (6 years old) which is running Windows 7 Home Premium as its OS.

Also, the hard drive that failed was a 1 TB drive and was replaced with a 2 TB drive.  I had to use "diskpart" to allow the file system to recognize all of the new drive's increased disk space.



What could have caused the corruption of these types of files (they seem to be the only ones affected) and is there any way to fix them.
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Unfortunately, the answer is "no" to both.  I've checked the Carbonite web site and found that the .jpg's nor the .pdf's were backed up.  Also, the  failed disk drive is indeed fried, i.e. my computer will not recognize it.
I suggested above a failed drive.
>>  Also, the  failed disk drive is indeed fried, i.e. my computer will not recognize it.   <<  how did you connect it?
best use a direct sata cable, not over USB for such tasks
My computer has two internal disk drive bays.  The bottom one contains the working drive with OS, user applications, and files.  I installed the failed drive in the bay above the bay of the working drive and connected the power ribbon cable and a direct sata cable.  My computer refuses to acknowledge the failed drive's existence!
is the drive seen in the bios?  if not then it's probably a logic board problem; assuming all cables are ok

i would still try it on another system - just to make sure (i don't like to give up easily) -  and check then also if it is seen in the BIOS
I do not have access to another system.  How do I determine if my system can see the defective drive in the BIOS?  Do I have to get into setup during boot up?
If the drive cannot be seen by Explorer then the likelihood is you cannot get into it. You can sometimes use recovery tools (SpinRite, Recuva) but there is no guarantee these will return your data. You may get some files back.
That is my situation.  The drive cannot be seen by Windows Explorer.
So hopefully you have some sort of backup, the use a tool like Recuva (Piriform IIRC) and see if you can recover the data from the disk.
Well, my backups will have to be my granddaughter's .jpgs on my sons computer and the manuals I will need to download from the Internet once again.
>>  I do not have access to another system.  <<   then go to a friend or relative who has one to use, or have it tested in a shop
>>   How do I determine if my system can see the defective drive in the BIOS?    <<  by entering the bios;
>>   Do I have to get into setup during boot up?    <<   yes, usually, Del, or F1, F2, or F10 key
you can also post the bios picture if unsure
I may have a bad SATA cable connected to the failed drive.  A new one has been ordered and should arrive any day now, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.  Sorry for the delay but I've had to deal with a family medical emergency.  However, I will keep posting as often as I can.  Thanks to all for your advice and recommendations so far.
family matters come first - so take your time
i'll be around
I've got good an bad news.  The good news is that I received my new SATA cable today.  The bad news is the failed drive is still inaccessible.

On boot-up I get a "AHCI Port 2 Device Error - Press F2 to continue" message.  When I press F2, I'm taken into setup where the following BIOS information regarding the drives connected to my computer is shown:

SATA-1     [Hard Disk]
SATA-2     [Atapi CDROM]
SATA-3     [Not Detected]
SATA-4     [Hard Disk]
eSTAT       [Not Detected]


Now my questions are which SATA connection does Port 2 relate to, and is the drive really dead?
Probably the third one and yes I think your drive is really dead. Try Recuva if you can
Whenever I recycle an old computer, I ALWAYS remove and keep its hard drives.  So to prove that the drive which failed recently is really dead, I put one of the "old" drives in the second bay (HDD1).  On boot-up this time, there was no device-error message and the "old" drive CAN be accessed within Windows.  May the failed drive rest in peace!

I do have some remaining questions however.  On boot-up, I saw about some information regarding RAID that took up about half a screen that  I've never seen this before.  Is this information a result of adding an additional working drive and is there a way to pause the display of that information so I can study it?
Did you have RAID running and was the failed drive part of a RAID set? I read through very quickly again and did not see RAID mentioned until now.
Can you have RAID running on a single hard drive device?  If so, RAID has been running because of something Dell did, not me.   If RAID  was running, why didn't I notice this new information every time I restarted my machine?
That would not be a good way to go (no protection if a drive fails), but it might be possible with two partitions. I am not aware that Dell sets up RAID by default, however.
i saw 2 connected disks in the bios info - and there would also be the bad one - right?
what system model is this, or mobo?
I'm assuming the failed drive is reflected in the SATA list.  I just don't know how or which one.

My system is a Dell XPS 8100.  How would I determine which MOtherBOard I have?
for brand pc's the model should do it
The corrupt .pdf's can be replaced by downloading them again from the Internet.  My granddaughter's .jpg files can be copied from my son's machine.  As such, I am closing this case and will distribute the points evenly among "Experienced Member" and "Nobus'.  Thanks very much for all your recommendations and assistance.
Thanks for the update.