Photoshop cannot open cr2 and jpg files in a single folder on an external harddrive

February 16, 2008 11:57 PM

I can no longer open a number of raw and jpg files in a single folder on an external harddrive. What's going on? Is my harddrive about to die?

Between some time last night and sometime this morning, a folder of pictures on my external harddrive has become almost entirely unusable. I'm using photoshop cs2 on windows xp.

The pictures are all .cr2 raw files from a canon 5d digital camera. My workflow involves tagging and color coding the pictures I want to tone and edit, and once I'm done with the editing, saving a new jpg with the same filename as the original with an additional identifier that it's an edited version. I spent a little while working on the folder (toning in photoshop and captioning in photo mechanic) and then left the harddrive alone and turned off for the night.

When I opened the folder in photomechanic today, a majority but not all of the files (both the cr2's and the jpg's) would not display. When I open the files in photoshop cs2, I get errors. For the cr2 files, photoshop says "could not complete your request because it is not the right kind of document." For the jpg's: "could not complete your request because an unknown or invalid JPEG marker type is found."

Some jpeg's and cr2's in the folder work, and as near as I can tell, all other jpeg's and cr2's on the drive open without a hitch, as well. As such, I don't think this is not a problem related to my raw plugin. In some cases, the cr2 opens, but the edited version, a jpg, does not open.

There's a possibility that, last night, while working on the offending files, the drive quit responding (could not do the "safely remove hardware" thing) and had to be restarted.

Though I have backups of these files on dvd's, I'm still concerned. Is this a larger problem with my harddrive? Is it only a problem with these particular files that won't crop up elsewhere on the drive or my computer?

Is there a way to fix the offending files?

posted by msbrauer to computers & internet (5 comments total)

One more thing: the folder also has xmp files with my raw conversion settings for individual files. They have the same names as the cr2 files. All of the xmp files work just fine. Leads me to suspect photomechanic might be to blame.
posted by msbrauer at 12:17 AM on February 17

Right click the drive, "properties," "tools," "check disk."
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:39 AM on February 17

Try copying one of the files to another hard drive and see if it opens. If it does, there's a chance everything is fine. If it doesn't, along with the data "The drive quit responding", could indicate that the drive is suspect.
posted by filmgeek at 6:13 AM on February 17

If you do determine the drive is about to fail, or if you seriously suspect it might, over at GRC.com you can get spinrite, which is likely the best piece of software you can get for data recovery. (Steve Gibson also suggest you use it to maintain the HD, but I haven't gone that far...yet.)
posted by TheDukeofLancaster at 9:21 AM on February 21

Thanks for the advice everybody. Ran check disk before posting the question and it found no problems. The files also didn't work once copied to another source. The drive has performed flawlessly ever since, so I think something else is going on.
posted by msbrauer at 7:59 PM on February 25