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Targon · Jun 2, 2006, 04:40 AM

For some reason unknown to me quite a lot of files on my system are displaying as "Unix Executable Files" in the Finder. Although, many of these fiiles are images, audio, or web archives im unable to open them. The files do not contain a 'File Extension' as such without knowing exactly what file type they are im hesitant to begin renaming the files.

Is there an application or some procedure to follow to to force the system to display the correct file types? This kind of problem is something expected on M$'s OS's not OSX.

Wevah · Jun 2, 2006, 06:37 AM

They most likely have their executable bit (+x) set. You can fix this in the Terminal with 'chmod -x <file>' (no quotes), or with a third-party utility like BatChmod, XRay, or Super Get Info, or whatever.

Hal Itosis · 04:44 PM

Originally Posted by Targon

The files do not contain a 'File Extension' as such without knowing exactly what file type they are im hesitant to begin renaming the files.

Try the "file" command in Terminal:

file /path/to/the/unknown/item

If there's a bunch of them in a folder...
that could be done with wildcarding (*):

file /path/to/the/folder/*

It will look at the header and do some other "magic" to
guess what type the item appears to be. (But, yes... do
the chmod a-x which Wevah suggested as well).

oellen · Oct 2, 2006, 05:46 PM

Hello,
I recently had a hard drive failure. I sent the drive to a data recovery place. They sent back a new drive with my "files". However, they are almost all unix executable files and none of them will open. They also don't have any names that I recognize and tons of extensions that I've never heard of. For example 241119331.3D2. Can anyone help me to figure out how to open these and find my stuff?

CharlesS · Oct 2, 2006, 06:21 PM

Well, what is your "stuff" that you're looking for? Is it text? Word docs? Something else?

oellen · Oct 2, 2006, 06:39 PM

Well here's the longer story. As mentioned I sent my drive away to a data recovery place. They sent back 80 GBs of files on a new drive. They said that all they were able to do was a raw data recovery. Unfortunately there are no names on any of these files. They only have numbers folllowed by an extension. Most of the extensions are meaningless to me. 99% of the files won't open (only a few very small jpgs will open.) Many of the files say unix executable files and many others have the graphic convertor icon, but nothing opens these files. The types of files that I'd most like to recover are all image files. jpgs, psds, etc. There are a bunch of folders that have file numbers with psd or jpg extensions, but photoshop won't open them. Somtimes photoshop says they are truncated. Is there any way to fix all this or have just lost 5 years of work? Also many of my files were very large, but nothing that came back to me on the new drive larger than 2 MB which seems strange to me. I'm so angry at the data recovery place, because I feel like they led me astray and it wasn't cheap and I got nothing back, but that's another story.

besson3c · Oct 2, 2006, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by oellen

Well here's the longer story. As mentioned I sent my drive away to a data recovery place. They sent back 80 GBs of files on a new drive. They said that all they were able to do was a raw data recovery. Unfortunately there are no names on any of these files. They only have numbers folllowed by an extension. Most of the extensions are meaningless to me. 99% of the files won't open (only a few very small jpgs will open.) Many of the files say unix executable files and many others have the graphic convertor icon, but nothing opens these files. The types of files that I'd most like to recover are all image files. jpgs, psds, etc. There are a bunch of folders that have file numbers with psd or jpg extensions, but photoshop won't open them. Somtimes photoshop says they are truncated. Is there any way to fix all this or have just lost 5 years of work? Also many of my files were very large, but nothing that came back to me on the new drive larger than 2 MB which seems strange to me. I'm so angry at the data recovery place, because I feel like they led me astray and it wasn't cheap and I got nothing back, but that's another story.

Try Hal Itosis's suggestion, and if it seems to yield accurate results for you we can help whip up a script that can help you correct these problems in batch by adding the appropriate file extensions. This will only leave you with renaming your files to something that makes sense to you...

oellen · Oct 2, 2006, 09:06 PM

well. I hate being a dimwit, but after opeing the terminal program I couldn't really figure out how to use it. Can you walk me through it step by step?

besson3c · Oct 2, 2006, 10:17 PM

When you open your Terminal you'll be in your home directory. If there is a file in your home directory called "badfile", you'd type in:

Code:
file badfile

If the file in question was in a directory, you'd type in:

Code:
file directoryname/badfile

TETENAL · Oct 2, 2006, 10:28 PM

You type "file " without the quotes into Terminal (but with the space at the end) then you drag the file into the Terminal window and it will automatically add the path. Then press return and the file command will tell you which type the file is of (if it can). You can then give the file the extension for the type and they might open in the right applications.

If this works it might be possible to write a script that does the renaming according to file type automatically. I can't do that though.

oellen · Oct 3, 2006, 02:47 PM

Below is what terminal has to say. The first time I tried dragging the file in after typing the word filenwith a space after it. The second time I just typed the file name in after the word file. What now?

Ellen-Osbornes-Computer:~ ellenosborne$ file /Volumes/G-DRIVE\ Q/\#Root/DTD/117031575.DTD
/Volumes/G-DRIVE Q/#Root/DTD/117031575.DTD: data
Ellen-Osbornes-Computer:~ ellenosborne$
Ellen-Osbornes-Computer:~ ellenosborne$ file 53869897.DTD
53869897.DTD: cannot open (53869897.DTD)

besson3c · Oct 3, 2006, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by oellen

Below is what terminal has to say. The first time I tried dragging the file in after typing the word filenwith a space after it. The second time I just typed the file name in after the word file. What now?

Ellen-Osbornes-Computer:~ ellenosborne$ file /Volumes/G-DRIVE\ Q/\#Root/DTD/117031575.DTD
/Volumes/G-DRIVE Q/#Root/DTD/117031575.DTD: data
Ellen-Osbornes-Computer:~ ellenosborne$
Ellen-Osbornes-Computer:~ ellenosborne$ file 53869897.DTD
53869897.DTD: cannot open (53869897.DTD)

The second is probably happening because you aren't in the right folder... I'd stick with the first technique, I didn't know this was being read off of an external drive.

"data" unfortunately isn't terribly useful info... You should see something like this:

$ file messaging_logo.jpg
messaging_logo.jpg: JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.02

$ file vi.pdf
vi.pdf: PDF document, version 1.3

I'm assuming that the "file" binary is unable to determine what file type these files are. So, unfortunately, your guess is as good as mine.

Have you definitely reached the end of your rope with this data recovery company? WHat they did was definitely not cool...

DO you have a backup solution in place too?

oellen · Oct 3, 2006, 04:10 PM

Well now I have a better back up system, but I didn't at the time of the crash. I use to have everything on my powerbook and on a back up external. Then I purchased a bunch of video editing software and ran out of room on my powerbook. So, since I had everything backed up on the external, I hit myself over the head...I mean I deleted everything from my powerbook. Two weeks later, before I had bought an additional back up drive, the external drive was dead. I tired to get my money back from the data recovery people, but they claimed they had done their job because they had retrieved my data and put it on a new drive. Never mind that the data was ripped up and shredded in the process. They told me if I contested the charges I would loose and have to pay their costs for fighting them. They were very unfriendly. Anyway back to my current problem. I do still have the original damaged drive, but I hate to send it to someone else and throw away another $500. I do have 5 years of work on this drive though. I'm an artist and have lots of digital art on it, plus a personal photo library.... It's all very sad. By the way that company is called DataRecoveryLabs.com. Never use them! Ellen

besson3c · Oct 3, 2006, 04:14 PM

In this state, you can sue for up to $700 through small claims court, and this wouldn't require any lawyers. Have you thought about looking at this? If nothing more, they might become annoyed at the possibility of having to deal with you and simply agree to refund your money.

oellen · Oct 3, 2006, 04:58 PM

Well I had to sign something that said, data recovery is not guaranteed and that they are not liable in the event that they are unsuccessful and they assume no liability for damage of data. I think I might have blown my chances by signing this.

besson3c · Oct 3, 2006, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by oellen

Well I had to sign something that said, data recovery is not guaranteed and that they are not liable in the event that they are unsuccessful and they assume no liability for damage of data. I think I might have blown my chances by signing this.

Were they very upfront, candid, and honest in assessing the probably of your recovery?

These sort of disclaimers are also made for Lasic surgery, but there is an exam beforehand to determine your eligibility.

oellen · Oct 3, 2006, 06:13 PM

Well not in my opinion, but i'm sure they feel differently.

oellen · Oct 3, 2006, 06:36 PM

This is the email that they sent to me after examining the drive.

"I am contacting you to advise you that we have finished the evaluation of your media. It has been determined that the media you have sent in has a physical problem, requires module component to be repaired as well as a logical repair. The good news is that a recovery is possible. The price of this type of recovery comes out to $1489. At this time you will have to make the choice of whether to continue with the recovery process or to have your media sent back to you. If you choose to do a recovery we have a Data Guarantee policy which means that if there is no useable data recovered there is no fee."

I initially told them that I couldn't afford the $1498 and that they should send the drive back and not do the recovery. They then dropped the price to $500. I decided to go ahead with it. Before the final okay, the guy called me on the phone and opened some of my jpgs to prove there was useable data. He did say he he wasn't able to open the photoshop docs, but I thought if the jpgs were okay it would still be worth it. The problem is that the only jpgs that would open are tiny jpgs under 100K and not that many of them. My photo library is lost, along with a lot of art work. Anyway, because a few small jpgs will open they claim that useable data was infact recovered and, therefore, they have fulfilled their part of the deal.