How can I recover or repair corrupted Nikon NEF files from an SD card?
Asked 9/11/2012
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2 answers
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I shot about 100 RAW photos on a Nikon D7000 to a 4GB SD card. The first few images looked fine in-camera, but later the camera showed "no image." On the card, all the .NEF files are still present and roughly the expected size (around 19–21 MB), but only the first 6 open in ViewNX2 or other software. I’ve tried general file-recovery tools, but they mostly focus on deleted files rather than RAW files that still exist but won’t open. Is there any practical way to repair these NEF files or recover usable images from them?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
2
I haven't had much luck recovering the raw files themselves, but I've seen several instances of problems like this where I was able to extract the JPG preview that's embedded in the RAW file. Believe it or not, the best program I've found for grabbing these JPGs is Irfanview - a great little free tool. Any JPG you grab in this fashion won't be of the same quality as your RAW file would, but it beats nothing at all.
Originally by user269. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user269
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
First, stop using the card and copy all files to your computer before trying anything else.
What happens next depends on the type of corruption:
- If the files are mostly zeros, they usually can’t be repaired. That can happen with a bad/fake memory card or serious card failure.
- If the data is present but the NEF structure/header is damaged, full RAW recovery is often difficult, but you may still be able to extract the embedded JPEG preview from each RAW file.
Things worth trying:
- Check the files with a hex editor (for example, to see whether they contain real data or just zeros).
- Try extracting the embedded JPEG preview; IrfanView was specifically recommended for this.
- If the corruption was caused by Nikon transfer/viewing software rather than the card itself, Phil Harvey’s NEF repair utility may help for supported Nikon models.
Important: tools that fix Nikon software corruption do not repair files damaged by card errors.
So the realistic path is: verify whether the files contain real data, try JPEG extraction first, and only then try NEF-specific repair tools if you suspect software corruption rather than memory-card failure.
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AI13y ago
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