Pictures on S4 won't Open

[AC Question]

I had some pictures on my conventional camera that had a SD card. I pass the pictures from the SD card directly to the mini SD card on my phone by plug-in both my cellphone and SD card in my computer.
When the transfer was finished, I went to open the Gallery on my phone to check out the pictures. They were all blank/black.

Now, when I pass my pictures from the mini SD card to my computer, it says "it does not support this file" (i tried to open with Windows Photo VIewer, Microsoft Office and Paint). The format is JPEG FILE (.JPG) I tried to convert one file into .GIF or something else using the converters online and no luck.

What can I do?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Picture file transfers like over USB to the external SD card can be temperamental. It might be more of a hassle, but I would first insert the camera's SD card into the computer and copy all of the photos onto your computer's hard drive. Then insert the phone's microSD card into the computer (using a fullsize SD adapter), and copy the photos from the computer onto the microSD. Now put the microSD back into the phone. Can you access the pictures now?

Remember that whenever you remove a microSD card from a phone, make sure you Unmount it first in Settings>Storage​.

 

[SDCARD]

I actually do nothaave the sd card with me any longer, so the only way to access the photos is by using the mini SD card from my phone. Do you suggest using an adapter to connect my mini sd card directly into my computer, therefore no phone in between?

 

[B. Diddy]

So the original photos on the SD card from your camera are no longer available? That might be a problem if the files were somehow corrupted during the transfer.

Try unmounting and removing the microSD card from your phone, and inserting it into your computer using a fullsize SD adapter. Can you access the photos on your computer? If not, they might be corrupted. Try running chkdsk from your computer to see if there are bad sectors: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...guide-using-chkdsk-fix-corrupted-sd-card.html

 

[Rukbat]

Last resort (because you'll probably have to run it overnight, is PhotoRec - CGSecurity Burn it to a CD, then boot the computer from the CD. Point PhotoRec at the miniSD card (mounted in an adapter and plugged directly into a USB port on the computer, or into an SD card reader on the computer) and let it run. If there are pictures on the card, PhotoRec will recover them. Even if there are corrupted pictures, it'll recover the parts that look like jpg files (or any other file types it knows - and there's a long list of them at the site).

This is a program that could easily sell for a few hundred dollars, but it's free. It just takes a bit of effort (downloading, burning a CD, restarting the computer, waiting many hours) to use it, but if the pictures are important (your baby, now 5 years old, will never take her first step again), it's worth the effort.

If PhotoRec can't recover a file, the only possibility left is physical deconstruction of the SD card. (There's a whole computer in there - RAM, ROM and a controller.) The memory storage chip may still have the files on it, but it can't be accessed directly from outside the card. (The process is very expensive, so unless you have a picture of the combination to the safe at Fort Knox, it probably doesn't pay.)

But I'm more inclined to go along with what B. Diddy is thinking - that the pictures got corrupted during the copying (or when you removed the microSD card from the computer), and all you have are corrupted files. Some parts of them may be parts of pictures, and recoverable, but the original full pictures may be lost.

(NEVER get rid of a file you want to keep until you have at least one working backup. And then make another backup to another destination. That rule is about as old as computer storage. A file not backed up to at least 2 different destinations is a file you don't need. Become a devout backer-upper. Remember, the file you're going to back up "as soon as I get the chance" is the one that will get corrupted before you get the chance, and that you'll need desperately.)