Data Recovery Case File · Cameras, Drones & Cards · Listed Is Not Readable
Two Hundred Photographs That Will Not Open
His enquiry described a state that feels contradictory and is not. A 32GB microSD card "with about 100–200 jpg files on it which I am unable to open. Could you open them or repair them?" The files are listed. They have names, sizes and dates. And not one of them will display. A file that appears in a folder is a promise, not a photograph — the listing and the content are stored in different places and can fail independently. Which of the two has failed decides everything about what comes back, and it is the first thing to establish.
| Media | 32GB microSD card — approximately 100 to 200 photographs listed and not opening in any application |
| Reported situation | Card readable and presenting a file listing · photographs present with names and sizes · files failing to open · repair or recovery sought |
| Fault class | Directory entries surviving over unreadable or unwritten content — index and data failing independently |
| Equipment used | Card imaged write-blocked (DeepSpar USB Stabilizer 10Gb) · listed entries compared against actual content · signature carving run independently of the index · partial images rendered to the point of loss and reported individually |
The decode: two things that fail separately, and what a JPEG does when damaged
Why a file can exist and not work: a card stores an index — the list of filenames, sizes, dates and the locations where each file's data begins — separately from the data itself. When a folder is displayed, only the index is being read. So a complete, confident listing of two hundred photographs tells you the index survived, and says nothing whatsoever about whether the photographs did.
The three things that produce his symptom. The content regions may be unreadable while the index region reads fine, which happens because the index is small and concentrated while the photographs are spread across the whole card. The files may be zero-filled or padded — present at the right size and containing nothing, which occurs when a card fails mid-write or when a previous recovery attempt wrote placeholders. Or the index may be stale, describing files that were subsequently overwritten, so the entries point at regions now holding something else.
Why that distinction is the whole assessment: the first is largely recoverable — the data exists and needs reading with proper timeout control. The second means the content genuinely is not there. The third means the photographs may still be present but somewhere other than where the index claims, which is exactly the case where carving succeeds and file-by-file copying fails.
The useful thing about the format: photographs of this type are decoded progressively, from the top of the image downward, with each portion depending on what came before. So a partly recovered photograph is not a blank — it renders correctly to the point where the data stops and degrades or halts below. That means partial recoveries are genuinely useful here, and it is why results are reported per image rather than as a percentage: knowing that a hundred and forty rendered fully and sixty are partial is a real answer.
Why carving is run regardless of the listing: because it does not consult the index at all. Photographs carry distinctive headers, so they are found by scanning for their own structure — which recovers files the index has lost and, importantly, files the index describes wrongly.
What not to do: not run repair utilities against the card, and not copy the files off repeatedly. Repeated copying of unreadable content is sustained retrying against media that is already struggling.
On the bench
The card was imaged write-blocked behind the DeepSpar USB Stabilizer 10Gb, then the listed entries were compared against actual content — establishing whether the index was describing readable data, padded space, or regions since overwritten, since those three produce identical folder listings and entirely different outcomes. Signature carving ran independently of the index, finding photographs by their own headers rather than by where the listing claimed. Partial images were rendered to the point of loss and reported individually rather than as a total.
The outcome
The index tested against real content, carving run independently and every image rendered and reported one by one. Free assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT; where a chip has to be removed, 50% of parts and labour is payable upfront with the balance only on success — otherwise no recovery, no fee. The decode, for anyone whose files are listed and will not open: the folder listing and the file contents live in different places and fail independently, so a confident list of two hundred photographs proves only that the index survived. The content may be unreadable, silently padded, or overwritten with the index still pointing at it. Photographs decode from the top down, so partial recoveries render usefully rather than coming back blank.
Photographs that appear in the folder but won't open
Stop copying them off repeatedly, and don't run repair tools against the card. What you're seeing isn't contradictory: the list of filenames, sizes and dates is stored separately from the photographs themselves, so a complete folder listing only proves the index survived and says nothing about the content. Three things produce this — the picture data may be unreadable while the small, concentrated index still reads; the files may be padded to the right size and contain nothing; or the index may be stale and pointing at space that's since been overwritten. Only the first two are distinguishable by testing, and only one is bad news. There's a helpful quirk of the format, too: photographs decode from the top downward, so a partly recovered one renders properly as far as the data goes rather than coming back empty.
Don't keep copying them — call Newcastle Data Recovery on 0191 406 1051; imaged write-blocked, the index tested against real content, carving run independently and every image reported one by one.
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Our case files are drawn from genuine enquiries received by our laboratory over the past ten years, anonymised to protect client confidentiality. Each one describes the diagnostic and recovery procedure our engineers apply to that fault, using the equipment listed.