file extension "15"


  #1  
Old 03-21-15, 06:05 PM
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Jackson, NJ
Posts: 522
Upvotes: 0
Received 3 Upvotes on 3 Posts
file extension "15"

I copied some files from my laptop to my usb thumb drive, into a new folder. The folder is now appearing as a file, with the extension "15". I did name the file with the date, ie "files from laptop 2.23.15". Could this be taking the last characters of the file name and thinking it's a file extension? These files seem to be totally lost now, as I "moved" them to the thumbdrive instead of copying. Also another folder where I had moved some files, shows up as a file with no extension. Is there any way to recover these folders?
 
  #2  
Old 03-21-15, 06:38 PM
PJmax's Avatar
Group Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Jersey
Posts: 64,811
Received 3,922 Upvotes on 3,518 Posts
I'm not the pro here but I've been thru similar things.

Do you know how to clear the "Hide extensions for known file types" ? Right now your file extensions are hidden on your computer.

If you don't how to unhide them.... post your operating system.
 
  #3  
Old 03-21-15, 08:16 PM
H
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 2,412
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
I am not a pro either I have repaired and restored computers though for many years and built a couple too. If you have Windows 7 click on the icon that looks like a file folder in your start menu and then click on organize. Then click on folder and search options and finally click on the view tab and then click on show hidden files, folders and drives and then you will see all files. Make sure you click on apply though or your settings will not be saved.
 
  #4  
Old 03-22-15, 05:13 AM
czizzi's Avatar
Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: USA
Posts: 6,541
Received 15 Upvotes on 13 Posts
I believe it is the "dots" in the date 2.23.15 that throw off the system. I just use a blank space and save it as - fileName2 23 15 or use an under score as - fileName2_23_15

pictures are filed as - fileName.jpg
PDF files are desinated as - fileName.pdf
excel files as - fileName.xls

Your computer says look it is a new file extension called .15

So it is the dot that is throwing things off.
 
  #5  
Old 03-22-15, 05:32 AM
P
Temporarily Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: NY
Posts: 10,265
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Do what PJmax said about unhiding file extensions. Did you try to restore the PC to an earlier date? If that doesn't work & you know Linux commands boot the machine with a backtrack Linux CD. Other Linux distributions would work but backtrack will automatically mount the windows partitions. They would look like /dev/sda1. If you find the missing files you can copy them across the network to another machine.

Another way would be to download an undelete or unerase program. I don't remember the exact name. The trial version won't let you restore the file to the same place but it will let you copy it to another machine or drive.
 
  #6  
Old 03-24-15, 12:44 PM
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Jackson, NJ
Posts: 522
Upvotes: 0
Received 3 Upvotes on 3 Posts
Trying an Undelete program to attempt to recover files, just don't know if it will recover "deleted" files as opposed to "moved" files. I would think it should work on both since the files were once there, and now they are not.

No restore available, as this is my work laptop and backup must be turned off. Also only files saved to the server are backed up, not the hard drive, and the stuff I'm trying to recover is from the hard drive.

File extensions are already unhidden. I tried pasting a snapshot of the screen, it wouldn't allow, so attaching a pic of what the folders in question look like. As you can see there are other files and folders that appear fine. The highlighted folders are the issue, as these were folders with many files inside and sub-folders too.

Name:  file extension.jpg
Views: 172
Size:  18.2 KB
 
  #7  
Old 03-24-15, 03:21 PM
P
Temporarily Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: NY
Posts: 10,265
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
If the program finds the files, copy them to another drive before anything. If you can't drag & drop them, I'll explain how to do it from a command prompt. Let us know what happened.
 
  #8  
Old 03-25-15, 06:35 AM
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Jackson, NJ
Posts: 522
Upvotes: 0
Received 3 Upvotes on 3 Posts
Used a free program called iSkysoft Data Recovery, which turned up a bunch of files, but not the ones I was looking for. I wonder if it really is because I MOVED them and didn't COPY the files/folders. Is there another data recovery software app I should try?

I also noticed on my 32G flash drive, which I used to transfer many files/pics from my iphone and work laptop to my home desktop PC, there was only 6GB of free space remaining, but only a few GB of data on the drive... almost 20GB unaccounted for... So depending upon what computer I plug the flash drive into, I see a folder called RECOVERED or RECOVERED FILES - this was system generated as I never created a folder with that name. There is almost 16GB of data in this folder - over 6,000 files, all of which have the extension .CHK ( I think that's the extension, as I don't have the flash drive with me now). When I open up some of the files, it is a pic that was once on the flash drive but subsequently deleted or moved off to my deskptop PC.

If I change the extension to .JPG then I can see the thumbnail of the pic. I am now wondering if the files I am looking for could somehow be in this recovery file, but it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Is there any way to change ALL of the extensions in this folder from .chk to JPG at once? Then I could simply look for the thumbnail with no picture, which would indicate it could be a data file. Or is there a way to search these files to determine if any are data files (Excel)?

Thanks!
 
  #9  
Old 03-26-15, 07:25 AM
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Jackson, NJ
Posts: 522
Upvotes: 0
Received 3 Upvotes on 3 Posts
Update on the RECOVERED folder name appearing on my thumb drive - Folder is FOUND.000 and another one FOUND.001. All of the files, mostly pics from what I can gather, are named sequentially as follows:

FILE0001.CHK

These are also showing up with the Undelete software I am running. I believe I either moved many of these files off of the drive or deleted them, and now they are reappearing, but only on my laptop at home...strange. So since the recovery software is detecting them, they are still taking up space on my thumb drive, but maybe only showing up in the FOUND folders on the laptop where I deleted them?
 
  #10  
Old 03-26-15, 10:46 AM
Z
Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Southeastern Pennsylvania
Posts: 3,375
Received 121 Upvotes on 112 Posts
daronson this isn’t going to help you now, but if I understand correctly this problem may have been caused by removing the thumb drive too soon when you were doing the move/copy operations. Device Manager for that drive may have had the setting for the drive set to “Quick Removal” (under Policies), which is the default setting, but my understanding is that should not be relied upon. You should use the eject option before removal and wait for the Safe to Remove message.

Just a guess, but that would explain it, if it actually looked like the system had completed the operations to the thumb drive but operations were still in progress when it was removed. If the “Better Performance” option is set for the drive then caching is used and you definitely have to wait for the Safe to Remove message otherwise information needed to be written to the drive definitely won’t be written. But the “Better Performance” setting is not the default.

But if you did in fact wait for the Safe to Remove message then that obviously isn’t the problem (unless there is a Windows bug – they do seem to have a few here and there, lol)
 
  #11  
Old 03-26-15, 11:45 AM
P
Temporarily Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: NY
Posts: 10,265
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Yes, you can change all the file extensions in one shot. Let's say that the flash drive is E:\
Open a command prompt
Type E: & press enter
If the files are in a particular folder on that drive type
cd folder_name & press enter
To change the file extension on all folders at once, type
rename *.chk *.jpg & press enter
Follow the spacing that I have. You may get a warning that changing the file extension can cause problems.
 
  #12  
Old 03-26-15, 12:06 PM
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Jackson, NJ
Posts: 522
Upvotes: 0
Received 3 Upvotes on 3 Posts
Pulpo, so I basically needed to apply what I learned in computers 101 about 300 years ago!! Thanks for the simplified instructions, I will give that a shot, and hopefully solve one of my problems!! For some reason I can't see that folder on my work pc, will try at home.
 
 

Thread Tools
Search this Thread
 
Ask a Question
Question Title:
Description:
Your question will be posted in: