Truncated files?

Has anyone experienced problems with only half a file?
Typically the best shot of my new daughter in law in her wedding dress wouldn't open in photoshop (only displaying half the image), As I had transfered these onto the PC and backed them up onto three different drives I had formatted the card so couldn't retrieve the original file.

The image displayed OK in windows explorer so I was a bit dissapointed to find a problem with the file when opening it up in photoshop, is my card on the blink or has something gone wrong during image transfer?.

All was not lost though as I simply opened the file in explorer and hit the print screen key then pasted it into a new file in photoshop, looking at the 8x6 print I think I got away with that quite well

You could probably extract the jpeg image from the file if it's displaying in Explorer, so at least you'd have a full size version of it. Can't remember what software can do this, but I'm sure someone here will.

I had a whole folder of images corrupted on my flashtrax before, couldn't get the PEFs back, but the recovery software came up with the images which I could then save as TIFFs.

Dan

That's not quite true...
It's only when you've overwritten the card with new images that you can't get it back. A format only "hides" that the files were there - it doesn't remove the file data itself. There are a few free pieces of recovery software (like Zero Assumption Recovery) and some other excellent paid-for ones (threads are on here).
I tend to cycle two or three cards in the camera so I extend the time I have to recover any files needed (though I've never needed to so far!)
Matt

are we talking a RAW file here?

DCRAW has the ability to strip out the embedded JPEG from PEF files. I use it for thumbnailing, but the image is pretty good quality and full resolution. It's about what you'd get shooting JPEG on full size 2 stars.

DCRAW is a command line app, I think there's a windows/DOS version, but if you have trouble drop me a PM, I'd be happy to extract it for you.

The image was a jpeg yes I KNOW I should have been shooting RAW what with the contrast problems and all, but I was just glad to get to the wedding on time in the first place (dont ask) so my stress levels were at an all time high and I just left the camera in Av and put myself into point and shoot mode, although I did calm down a bit, enough to start adjusting the flash for fill in at least.
And yes, I suppose I could have rescued the file even after formatting but I had used it again since.

Since My original post I tried opening the file in Windows "Paint" it opened no problem, so I do have access to a very large file, I suppose I'll have to save it as a bitmap then re-open it in photoshop.