PSE Help -- lost some pictures.

[labdogs42]

I lost all of my Christmas pictures due to a hard drive crash (yes, on Christmas, essentially right after I downloaded my pics ). PSE still has the thumbnails of the pictures in there. They look decent on the screen. I wonder if there is some way to save those tiny versions of the pictures so I can at least look at them on the computer or print really tiny pictures from them? I know the full-sized files are wiped out. Let's not even go there, but is there something I can do with those little files that are part of the catalog? Anyone know? Do you know what I'm talking about? I can't stand opening PSE now and seeing those little red boxes on all my Xmas pics! Thanks for any help you can offer!

[JR6ooo4]

You are running the same computer with a new hard drive? Where are the thumbnails stored?

Mikeeee

[labdogs42]

The thumbnails are stored in the PSE catalog which was/is on my C: Drive. The pictures that were lost were on a secondary hard drive used only for pictures, not for any software. So, as far as I know, the thumbnails haven't moved. (I'm not a computer expert!)

[MICKEY88]

are you 100% certain there is no recovering of the pics..??

I thought I lost over 10,000 pics about 14 months ago and managed to recover them even after the drive had been formatted and windows was reinstalled on it..

[labdogs42]

are you 100% certain there is no recovering of the pics..??

I thought I lost over 10,000 pics about 14 months ago and managed to recover them even after the drive had been formatted and windows was reinstalled on it..

Well, I sent the drive to two hard drive recovery places and they told me the read heads had crashed onto the platters, scratching them beyond repair or recovery. I lost that many pics, too.:eek: , but at least I had most of my favorites backed up. Do you think it might be worth sending the drive to yet another place? I'm kind of thinking no, but I'd be willing to try again if you have a recommendation!

[JR6ooo4]

The thumbnails are stored in the PSE catalog which was/is on my C: Drive. The pictures that were lost were on a secondary hard drive used only for pictures, not for any software. So, as far as I know, the thumbnails haven't moved. (I'm not a computer expert!)

Do a search for one of the thumbnail file names.

If the thumb is saved as a jpeg it should find it (and you can see where it is saved) and you should be able to work with that.

If PSE saves the thumbs as a different extension it might not work. Or might work but not as easily.

Let us know if you find them and what file type it is using to save the thumbs.

Mikeeee

[jfulcer]

Do you have the drive? Have you tried any file advanced file restore applications on it? I can't believe the heads would scratch the WHOLE drive you should at least be able to low level read something. I've used http://www.easeus.com/ before and it works well.

[MICKEY88]

Well, I sent the drive to two hard drive recovery places and they told me the read heads had crashed onto the platters, scratching them beyond repair or recovery. I lost that many pics, too.:eek: , but at least I had most of my favorites backed up. Do you think it might be worth sending the drive to yet another place? I'm kind of thinking no, but I'd be willing to try again if you have a recommendation!

wow, if they were reputable places I can't imagine they would tell you that rather than recover files and collecting money... that really bytes..

[labdogs42]

wow, if they were reputable places I can't imagine they would tell you that rather than recover files and collecting money... that really bytes..

Yeah, it does byte! At least I didn't have pay them a dime, since they couldn't recover anything. That makes me pretty confident that it was truly an impossible task. I was prepared to fork over big bucks if they had retrieved my data.