How to un-append 600 pictures from a now single file?

Just copied about 600 pictures into a folder that didn't exist, expecting Windows to create the folder:

copy *.jpg C:\2jpg

Now I have a single file containing all the pictures. How can I separate this file back into individual pictures?

I've tried a lot of different attributes but this approach doesn't work.

J1N5

Posted 2015-01-01T01:19:12.773

Reputation: 11

Are you sure that’s what happened? How big is the file? – Daniel B – 2015-01-01T01:21:53.283

@DanielB yeah that kind of thing can happen when the copy command doesn't know if the destination is a file or a directory. Why don't you try it then you would see C:\blah>copy *.jpg .\asdffd – barlop – 2015-01-01T01:42:13.947

1can't you copy them again? it'll be not that easy to split them up(though no doubt some could do it easily).. firstly the copy might not have combined them correctly, for that you need copy /b, and secondly it'd have to split by whatever bytes mark the beginning of a jpg file. it's probably easier to copy them again. – barlop – 2015-01-01T01:42:36.923

The reason I'm asking this question is because I lost the originals.

There is only one file with no file extension, in windows it looks like a white piece of tile. No it's not a word document, in the properties it states it's a file. just a 'File'

Might have exaggerated in pictures but it's 1.44mb of non-high res. – J1N5 – 2015-01-01T03:37:36.853

Answers

If you still have the originals, then the easiest would be to copy them over again the right way.

If you no longer have the originals, it might be easier to go back to the SD card and try some photo recovery tool such as PhotoRec to get them; however, if the SD card has been used since the files were copied off, then there's the chance that the file data have been overwritten.

If you truly want to split the single file you have, you could probably use PhotoRec on the file itself to get it to detect the JPEG files inside it.

I never used it on Windows if it's even available, but worst case you could boot a Linux live CD such as Ubuntu or Trinity Rescue Kit, quickly install PhotoRec if it isn't already available (something like "sudo apt-get install photorec" or "sudo apt-get install testdisk"), and then run the tool from there.

From what I recall, the PhotoRec tool will probably require admin/root access if you're working from physical media such as a hard drive or SD card, but if you just have your "2jpg" file, then you should be able to run it as an ordinary user.

It'll go through your 2jpg file and dump all files it can recognize into separate, individual files.

jia103

Posted 2015-01-01T01:19:12.773

Reputation: 415

First of all, if you used the COPY command without the /b switch like:

copy /b *.jpg C:\a_large_file

you won't end up with a large file containing all the JPEGs. So make sure that the file you have does indeed contain all the JPEGs slammed into it.

If the size of the file you have isn't as large as you'd expect 600 JPEGs to be, you've lost your photos and there isn't much you can do other than try to salvage the original photos from the storage media using PhotoRec or similar data recovery software.

However, just in case you ended up with a large file, you can use binwalk to extract the JPEGs:

binwalk --dd='jpeg:jpg' file.bin

However, binwalk doesn't work well on Windows, so I'd suggest using Dragon UnPACKer. What you want to use is the built-in HyperRipper tool.

Start the program and press Ctrl+H or Select File → HyperRipper
Select JPEG from the Formats tab
Load the file in the Search tab and hit the Search button. When search is complete, click OK
You should see the recovered JPEGs in the preview pane. Select the ones you want and extract them like so:

Vinayak

Posted 2015-01-01T01:19:12.773

Reputation: 9 310

VERY USEFUL!!! THANK YOU!

Unfortunally I ran with the same problem with only a few flash files, around 10 .sfw Would you also happen to know the fix? – J1N5 – 2015-01-15T02:20:14.257

Could you be rephrase that? I didn't understand what you were trying to say. What problem did you run into and what do you mean by flash files and .sfw? – Vinayak – 2015-01-15T05:05:48.767

Copy *.sfw C:\sfw Same problem but with flash files, just 10. Nothing worth fixing, bet is faster to find them than to fix the file composition. – J1N5 – 2015-01-18T20:17:43.057

The extension for Flash files is usually SWF. You can't use Dragon UnPACKer to extract SWFs because the Hyper Ripper component of DUP doesn't support detection/extraction of SWF. You probably can use binwalk for this purpose though. – Vinayak – 2015-01-18T20:38:57.507