Recovering data from a corrupted file

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mjareo
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Joined: Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:44 am

Recovering data from a corrupted file

Post by mjareo »

Good morning,

My son accidentally deleted files from his USB drive that represented a fair amount of work over the past couple of weeks. I was able to recover them using a data recovery utility, but the files appear to be corrupted; when trying to open them, we receive an error saying the file cannot be opened and a further error saying there is an error parsing the JSON file.

I have looked at the file in a hex editor and it appears to be missing both header and footer tags. I experimented with replacing the existing file data with a header and footer from a good file and with inserting a header/footer before/after the data in the corrupted file, but all I get is a file that spins and never actually opens.

I'm going to teach him about some better file management practices (oh the things I never thought to mention but now really wish I had), so my real question is: does anyone have suggestions on how to recover as much data as possible out of this file so that he can salvage as much of his work as possible?
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synthsin75
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Re: Recovering data from a corrupted file

Post by synthsin75 »

I'd have to see the JSON file (the Project.mohoproj when you open a Moho file as a ZIP archive) to know how much can be salvaged. Unless you're familiar with the file format's data structure, it'd be pretty hard to salvage a file by intelligent guesswork.
mjareo
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:44 am

Re: Recovering data from a corrupted file

Post by mjareo »

So that's interesting... I looked at a valid .moho file and I can see what you mean about opening it like an archive and finding the .mohoproj file in it. The recovered files I pulled up aren't opening like an archive, which would make sense why it is having a hard time parsing the JSON file....the structure must have been corrupted in the recovery process.

I'm guessing there isn't much that can be done, is there?
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synthsin75
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Re: Recovering data from a corrupted file

Post by synthsin75 »

Yeah, if you can't use a zip utility, like 7zip, WinRar, etc., to "open archive" or "extract files" from a .moho, then the zip archive itself is probably hosed.
mjareo
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Joined: Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:44 am

Re: Recovering data from a corrupted file

Post by mjareo »

That's what I feared - good to know...thank you for the information!
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