Is there a way to repair corrupt raw files? (RW2 and NEF) The data seems to be there, but it is in pink and at different places

Question

I do not have much hope, to be honest, but for the case that this is a known issue and there is just one bit anyway I can switch back:

Several files on my hard disk got corrupted. I do not understand how, as this is an SSD and I did nothing strange with this disk. Interestingly, most of the corrupted files are in the same directory. And it affacted a few NEFs and a few RW2.

That's the jpg output (and preview) Lightroom is showing. I tried RawTherapee, too, but RawTherapee just displayed a black image, with the output:

20200724-P1030973.rw2: Corrupt data near 0x9c1c00
20200724-P1030973.rw2: Corrupt data near 0x9c1c00

Is there any way to "repair" this? Or any software that is able to do it? (this is the raw file: https://p.wbou.de/photos/20200724-P1030973.rw2)

Answer 1

In my experience this type of damage is unfixable in RAW photos unless the entire image looks 'off'. For example I have been able to repair files like this where entire image looks distorted with NEF and ARW type RAW files: https://youtu.be/3IT2fhBkK5w. In this case maximum achievable is extraction of embedded JPEG data (BTW this type of damage is repairable to a degree if it concerns JPEG data).

I have seen similar damage on storage devices that were formatted with some flavor of FAT where it was actually related to a corrupt file allocation table. exFAT is slightly different from FAT/FAT32 in the sense that it does not keep FAT entries for a file IF the file is stored in contiguous block of clusters. So could be file system is incorrectly assuming file is contiguous, or could file is fragmented while FAT is corrupt.

As this is SSD can also be corruption at level of SSD firmware (translator (maps LBA <> PBA) corrupt). This type of damage happens mostly in SSD's that are powered on all the time, as odd as this may sound.

This is always problem with corrupt files, is it the actual file data that got corrupted at some point, or is there an underlying cause? It is important because based on what's wrong, solutions will differ (if any solution at all). If you discover this type of damage right after copying files from the memory card, try recovering them from the memory card. If recovered files are good, then something in between the card and SSD is not working correctly. If recovered files suffer from exact same issue, try totally different hardware (card reader / cables). If issue persists, data was corrupt from the start.

If we look at the file you shared, I am able to extract the following:

To me this indicates the corruption is probably at the file system level, we see parts of obviously different files. It may very well be possible the file can be recovered from the original drive rather than the current file being repaired.