I can't play my recovered .mov files

I recovered my deleted files using a number of different softwares, Recuva, PC Inspector, Zero Assumption but none of the .mov files that I recovered can be played.

The file size shows the full original size but I've tried playing it with VLC, DivX, Media Player Classic etc and none work!

They are precious memories these videos so if anyone can help i'll be really grateful.

Cheers - Ar
 
I'm going through the same thing

I deleted a load of movie files by mistake. I recovered them with PC recovery 7.5.

All the recovered files came up as .mov type.

These wouldn't play but a simple change of file extension from .mov to .mp4 helped Quicktime and VLC to recognise them and play them.

Good luck, hope this helps

:)
 
I have a similar problem. I'm sure this is my own user error. I downloaded Recuva, ran it on the SD card from my son's camcorder to recover videos that we deleted somehow at the end of our August vacation. Recuva recoved about 100 files and put them in New Folder on my desktop. I can see the files as filenames with .mov extensions, but they won't play when clicked to play. Windows Media Player says "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file."
I try to open on Firefox and get a Q with a question mark in it, and I try to open on my desktop with Quicktime and get "Error- 2408: Couldn't open the file FILE0021.MOV becuase it is not a file that Quicktime understands. I even copied a few of the files back to the SD card and tried to play them on my son's camcorder, but they just have a big X through them now. Thought I was being so clever in doing this recovery. I tried changing file extension to mp4 but that didn't change any of the errors described above.
 
Try opening the files in VLC - sometimes it can open and repair broken video files.
 
I tried VLC

Hi I downloaded VLC and tried to open one of the recovered files and I got:
No suitable decoder module:
"VLC does not support the audio or video format "undf". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this."

First time I've seen "undf"--must stand for undefined?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.
 
I recovered my deleted files using a number of different softwares, Recuva, PC Inspector, Zero Assumption but none of the .mov files that I recovered can be played.

The file size shows the full original size but I've tried playing it with VLC, DivX, Media Player Classic etc and none work!

They are precious memories these videos so if anyone can help I'll be really grateful.

Cheers - Ar
I have read all this and still can not recover my .mov files. Most of these files were taken from my iPad and as I remember were downloaded to iphoto as movies. I wanted to move them out of iPhoto and I think that is when I lost them or they became corrupted. Yes, they show 0.00 for time and nothing else. Any new ideas let me know as well. I think they are lost forever.
 
When you can't play the .mov files, it means that the file is not recovered properly. You may have to recover it again with another data recovery software.
 
Agree; File content is determined in two ways, the ext name, eg avi, mov, mp4 and the first four bytes of the content. you can see this for yourself by using NOTEPAD to open a **.pdf file

I see "%PDF-1.1" and the -1.1 is just extra info.

The first 4 bytes was the original technique used by Unix + Linux and is more secure than the file extension - - obviously.
 
I have a next book and I recorded a dance and I was able to play it then I saved it to 'my favorites and now the video says "can not open this file" I was able to bluetooth the file(video) to my phone but the only way I can play is is through the app that I downloaded call All Player, how can I get the video back to my nextbook
 
The 'Nextbook' I believe is an Android tablet, (Nextbook Ares 8?) and so it might be worthwhile downloading the video player called 'VLC Player'.
If the tablet could send the video file to the (Android?) mobile using Bluetooth, then it should possible to send it back the other way too.
Otherwise it would be possible to connect the phone to a laptop using a USB cable, and go through the files to find the video that's needed.
You would be using the laptop to 'explore' the mobile's files, so much easier than trying to do that in the phone.
( If it were me, I would copy the file off to a flash drive/memory stick to be able to use it in many other devices.)
VLC player is well known for playing a very wide range of video formats, so it's most likely to be able to play anything that the tablet will record in.
When you find the video file in the phone's folders, and make a copy onto the laptop, it's then easy to transfer it back to the Nextbook using Bluetooth again.
 
I have a next book and I recorded a dance and I was able to play it then I saved it to 'my favorites and now the video says "can not open this file" I was able to bluetooth the file(video) to my phone but the only way I can play is is through the app that I downloaded call All Player, how can I get the video back to my nextbook
Tablets and phones operate differently than a PC or a Mac. all files are controlled (used, viewed) ONLY in the app that downloaded them. On an Apple devices, iBooks can be made to open/view several different file types.

The original on your PC/MAC should still be there and usable leaving ONLY the mobile device with issues.
 
Hi grape6002 , maybe you should try more nice software. such as
Recover My Files ,7dataRecovery, EaseUS Data Recovery , PandoraRecovery . try to use deep scan , and recover

James
 
I had the same problem; recovered video files-some of the .mov files would not play. I first converted them to .M4V as someone on this forum suggested; it worked. However, I thought I'd try converting the .mov file again to .MOV. It also worked. Hope this helps. WORKED!!!
 
Please help my mp4 files and mov files are not playing. It is important video for me thanks I used recuva anad Pdata recovery.
 
I had the same problem; recovered video files-some of the .mov files would not play. I first converted them to .M4V as someone on this forum suggested; it worked. However, I thought I'd try converting the .mov file again to .MOV. It also worked. Hope this helps. WORKED!!!
what did you used recovery tool sir ? THanks mine not working when I changed the file extension
 
If you're still here, I have a solution! I also had this problem when I used any of the recovery programs, I researched this for quite some time and I found out that the software returned two types of files, one very short MPEG and a longer MOV, I found out that the software reads the video file as two different parts, one with the video information and one with the header information. You need to combine them for the video to play properly. So I use the command prompt to merge the files together.

Here's what I did, Make a copy of your original files! The uppercase bracketed letter are paths that are specific to your computer. So you open the command prompt, and it will say something like this:


C:\Users\(NAME)>


...and the (NAME) would contain whatever your username is for your computer.

1) So step one would be to direct the command prompt to wherever your video files are. You might be able to copy from the address bar then right click on the command prompt and paste.


C:\Users\(NAME)>cd /d (PATH OF FILES, Example: E:\Video\Private)

Press Enter, and in a new line, it should display the path that you typed.

2) in this new path, type copy /b (VIDEO).mpeg+(VIDEOB).mov E:\MERGED.mpeg

The copy command will merge the files, then the new path will be where the new file will be placed. Replace the uppercase bracketed portions with the actual file names.


VERY IMPORTANT!!! You must choose a different folder and file name, otherwise the original files will be overwritten!

3) Press enter and then it should list the two files in two different lines, then say 1 files(s) copied. Check the video to see if it works, the shorter video usually should go before the longer one.

Hope this helps!

 
If you're still here, I have a solution! I also had this problem when I used any of the recovery programs, I researched this for quite some time and I found out that the software returned two types of files, one very short MPEG and a longer MOV, I found out that the software reads the video file as two different parts, one with the video information and one with the header information. You need to combine them for the video to play properly. So I use the command prompt to merge the files together.

Here's what I did, Make a copy of your original files! The uppercase bracketed letter are paths that are specific to your computer. So you open the command prompt, and it will say something like this:


C:\Users\(NAME)>


...and the (NAME) would contain whatever your username is for your computer.

1) So step one would be to direct the command prompt to wherever your video files are. You might be able to copy from the address bar then right click on the command prompt and paste.


C:\Users\(NAME)>cd /d (PATH OF FILES, Example: E:\Video\Private)

Press Enter, and in a new line, it should display the path that you typed.

2) in this new path, type copy /b (VIDEO).mpeg+(VIDEOB).mov E:\MERGED.mpeg

The copy command will merge the files, then the new path will be where the new file will be placed. Replace the uppercase bracketed portions with the actual file names.


VERY IMPORTANT!!! You must choose a different folder and file name, otherwise the original files will be overwritten!

3) Press enter and then it should list the two files in two different lines, then say 1 files(s) copied. Check the video to see if it works, the shorter video usually should go before the longer one.


Hope this helps!
thanks for the tips, but how I find the MPEG files and combine them? because all my recovery files are MOV file types
 
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