Why My Files Can’t Play Normally after the Recovery

Part 1: The Principle of Data Recovery

Whether you store files on a hard drive, floppy disk, or other external storage device, the way in which the computer stores your data is essentially the same. When a file is deleted, the Operating System marks the file name in the MFT with a special character that signifies to the computer that the file has been deleted. The computer now looks at the clusters occupied by that file as being empty and therefore as available space to store a new file.

What the Windows Operating System does NOT do is go out to the clusters on the hard disk where the files data is actually stored and wipe the contents of these clusters. The deleted file data is still there, but the Computer Operating System no longer knows that it exists. Permanently removing this data requires the use of a special disk wiping tool like Jihosoft Eraser to completely overwrite the file clusters.

The underlying principle of data recovery is simply finding data that still exists on the hard drive but which currently can’t be located by the Operating System. The only way that your deleted MFT record or your file data itself will permanently be destroyed is if it is overwritten by other data. This means that any computer activity after the deletion has the potential to permanently erase otherwise recoverable files.

Part 2: How to Recover Data after Accidental Deletion, Formatting, etc

If you want to recover the mistakenly deleted, formatted or lost files, you can use Jihosoft File Recovery or Photo Recovery to scan and try to recover photos, videos, music, docs, archives, emails, etc from your computer and many other external storage devices as soon as possible.

Part 3: Why when I Recover Files do the turn out Partially Corrupt

Remember that a computer may use multiple clusters to store a complete file. This means that your original data may have been partially overwritten. You may still be able to retrieve some of the clusters containing the file, however this won’t be helpful in most cases as programs typically need a file to be complete before it can be run. Rebuilding partially damaged files is another area of data recovery which requires specialized knowledge about the particular file types one is dealing with.

Part 4: Not-to-do List before the Recovery

All the data recovery programs on the market can only help you recover files in the condition what they should be. If a file is incomplete before recovery, it will not be able to play normally after the recovery. It’s strongly recommend you not do the followings before the recovery is done. All of them may cause your files corrupt.

1. Try not to save the important files in the system partition. Usually the paging files in the system will be stored in the system partition. And the system operation will read them at any time. That is to say, whether you write new files or not, the deleted files will be covered by the written data of the system at any time.

2. When you find the files are mistakenly deleted, don’t go on any operations where the files are lost, such as saving file and copying files and so on.

3. If the files are lost from your mobile phone or digital camera, please don’t take new photos or videos with your device anymore. Meanwhile, avoid adding new files to the storage media. It’s suggested to stop using the device immediately. If possible, lock the SD card and pull it out until the recovery is performed. (Note: preview existing files such as photos and videos on phone/camera may also cause your deleted files be overwritten.)

Part 5: Rescue Corrupted, Incomplete, Damaged Files after Recovery

If files are found corrupt, incomplete, or damaged after the recovery. You can still rescue them with some professional data repair utilities. Here are some ones we collected for your reference. In other means, you can also search the repair tool you want in Google and get the one which works best for you.
Video Repair: Repair Video Master
Photo Repair: JPEG Repair
Document Repair: Excel Repair, Word Repair, PowerPoint Repair, PDF Repair, Zip Repair