Question Data repair software

[kacper6768]

Is there any software for Windows 10 that can repair corrupted videos and photos and rar archives and voice recordings and documents of office suites preferably in one package? Does there have to be a different program to repair each file type or is there 1 package for all file types? Can programs like Remo Recover or Stellar Windows Data Recovery Technician only recover deleted data or repair damaged data? What about the recovered files when they are unreadable. I'm more interested in repairing corrupted files. Sometimes when I record a video with my phone, the phone may freeze while recording and the video is corrupted.

[Moderator Note: Deleted unrelated link as potential spam.]

 

[Math Geek]

i don't know of any software that can "repair" a file once it is corrupted. would have to be some pretty high end stuff to analyze a file and then figure out what is missing from it. would be some serious high power stuff to do that job.

a solid back-up regimen is your best bet against data loss.

if your losing video at the time of recording, then i'd look into a better recording method as again, you can't put back the missing 1's and 0's after the fact.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Is there any software for Windows 10 that can repair corrupted videos and photos and rar archives and voice recordings and documents of office suites preferably in one package? .......

No such software exists, nor can it exist. From where would it get the data to perform the fix?

If you had an identical file (the only place such data would exist) then you would have no need to repair the damaged file.

 

[kanewolf]

Is there any software for Windows 10 that can repair corrupted videos and photos and rar archives and voice recordings and documents of office suites preferably in one package? Does there have to be a different program to repair each file type or is there 1 package for all file types? Can programs like Remo Recover or Stellar Windows Data Recovery Technician only recover deleted data or repair damaged data? What about the recovered files when they are unreadable. I'm more interested in repairing corrupted files. Sometimes when I record a video with my phone, the phone may freeze while recording and the video is corrupted.

[Moderator Note: Deleted unrelated link as potential spam.]

How would software know what is damaged and what is correct? Some files might have frames or other markers that might be CRC encoded. But something like an Word document could have only file level integrity. So how would software know what are the corrupted data.
As large language model AI improves, it may be possible to have software that could predict what the "right" words are in a Word document and "fix" it. But it would be prediction rather than repair.

 

[USAFRet]

Consider this block of "damaged" text:

"The car was $&$%&# and really fast."

Was the original:
"The car was purple and really fast."
or
"The car was orange and really fast."

Both contextually, grammatically, and idiomatically correct.
But only one IS correct.
And would make a HUGE difference in a police report.

 

[Grobe]

I'd say that the only viable solution here must be a backup solution. Heavily corrupted media files nor badly crashed hard drives can be retrieved using some "magic" software.

 

[kacper6768]

I don't have any important corrupted data, I just need a data repair program in case of data corruption so that I'm prepared right away and then I don't have to search on Google or forums or ask GPT chat.
What is the best rescue CD or rescue stick?
First you use the rescue disc or recovery disk, then the data recovery software, and finally the data recovery software if the data is corrupted.
Can they be in 1 data recovery software package and to repair them if they are corrupted?

 

[USAFRet]

I don't have any important corrupted data, I just need a data repair program in case of data corruption so that I'm prepared right away and then I don't have to search on Google or forums or ask GPT chat.
What is the best rescue CD or rescue stick?
First you use the rescue disc or recovery disk, then the data recovery software, and finally the data recovery software if the data is corrupted.
Can they be in 1 data recovery software package and to repair them if they are corrupted?

The best way to protect against this is a real, automated, comprehensive, backup procedure.

There is no magical 'uncorrupt" software.

 

[kacper6768]

There is no magical 'uncorrupt" software.

Here is https://fix.video but only for video.

 

[Ralston18]

Also: Do not "ask" GPT chat.

Following any offered suggestions or procedures very likely to end badly.....

 

[Grobe]

I don't have any important corrupted data, I just need a data repair program in case of data corruption so that

Now - it is your choice to take into account what we tell you about backup or to disregard.

Anyway, I tell you this: You're definitively pursuing the wrong solution here.

Spoiler: some random rambling

Ok - let's take a look from another perspective all together. Say I was an employer for a multimedia team (I'm not) and need to hire some more people to the crew. Then I have to pick between two workers - the overall skills and background look near identical, except one have a backup oriented mindset, while the other claim to have studied every possible method or protocol that pack multimedia formats into it's container and the multimedia compression formats itsel, and also claim he therefore will never need backup because he will always be able to retrieve most of the data anyways.
Try have a guess whom I'd hire ?

And just even more :

Ok - say you have this issue about media files frequently gets corrupted. You doesn't state it directly, but from what I can guess lies between the lines, it looks like you expect this.
Rather than looking for this zuper-amazing-magical media retrieval software, I'd suggest have a look and try to find the root cause instead. It can be either of, a combination, or just something else:

• Bad RAM. About every single multimedia software today store chunks of data in RAM before it's written to disk. Having an address somewhere in RAM that is unstable can have a tendency of not causing big problems with overall stability, but causing issues when particular programs runs memory intensive tasks. Video encoding is one example.
• Bad HDD or SSD. If your OS tends to nag about checking disk from time to time, it suggest data loss in the writing to disk process.
• Software error. You may or may not select another software, depending on the specific task. I have had this issue myself some weeks ago (an app for creating time lapse videos) that somehow made a corrupt header of a video file. I tried a couple of software to reconstruct, both failed so I assumed this just a loss (not anything important anyway because then I'd tested the video software first). In this specific case, solution was to use some other software. As of today I don't remember the specific names, I just removed it from the phone.

One more thing before my fingers go sleeping. I wonder one thing and I also realized this was actually the very first question I should have asked.

This is a question that - if properly clarified - some in this forum can potentially have a solution ; or at least come with a valid conclusion why the desired outcome is impossible to achieve.
What kind of workflow or situation makes it more desirable to potentially experience data loss rather than putting some time and money to get a working backup solution ?

 

[USAFRet]

and then I don't have to search on Google or forums or ask GPT chat.

If you get to a point where you have to ask ChatGPT how to recover some corrupted files, or even accidentally deleted files....consider them already gone.

It has no idea of your real situation, and cannot ask you the deeper questions it needs.

It will happily regurgitate some steps that exist out on the interwebs.
Such steps may be totally inappropriate, or incorrect. Or even more destructive than what you already have.

 

[BFG-9000]

Speaking of AI guessing, there is something that can replace missing data in photos now--it's called "generative fill" and can result in some hilarious results as the AI attempts to guess what was supposed to be there.

I would not classify that as a "repair" but rather newly created art, based on iteratively applying common themes until it starts to resemble existing works. Hence the sort of regurgitated results.

 

[BFG-9000]

BTW usually if power is interrupted while recording (or your phone app crashes), there is nothing wrong with the video file, it's usually just the metadata like the index hasn't been saved to it, so most players won't play it. There's nothing corrupted to repair.

I've had good luck with Grau Video Repair Tool to fix such files so that regular player software can play them normally.

 

[USAFRet]

BTW usually if power is interrupted while recording (or your phone app crashes), there is nothing wrong with the video file, it's usually just the metadata like the index hasn't been saved to it, so most players won't play it. There's nothing corrupted to repair.

I've had good luck with Grau Video Repair Tool to fix such files so that regular player software can play it normally.

Right.

And that is what the above referenced site/software is doing.

Fixing the header or metadata.
Given a known file type (mp3) it can replace the header with something that probably works.


NOT fixing actual corrupted content.

 

[Grobe]

Given a known file type (mp3) it can replace the header with something that probably works.

This remind me of a time back, like 20'ish years ago there was some games (probably even older), that I was able to extract sound from raw files by test and failing different import options (i.e. bit rate, bit pr sample, mono or stereo, little/big endian and others) that is normal for a wav file. I remember this was time consuming, but back then I had whole day to use.

But with mp3 and other audio formats and even multimedia containers - not sure if this guesswork method are feasible.