How to Repair a Damaged AVI File
"Hopefully you can help me with this situation. I have a video file which started out as a .vob file and I converted it to .avi using Super.It was then stored on an 8GB USB memory stick. The stick is of dodgy quality and had a tendency to corrupt files over time. However, the video file played well on both computer and stand alone dvd players (via the USB port)
for awhile so I thought I could keep it there until I got around to burning it to DVD. Then all of a sudden the file stopped playing. I've tried every video recovery software I could get my hands on, but the ones that specialize in .vob files won't recognize the format and neither will the ones that specialize in .avi files. Both Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery and All
Media Fixer aknowledged the file and went through the motions of fixing it although their result is still unplayable. Any ideas?"
All Media Fixer typically does a good job of repairing damaged video files. There are some cases where salvaging a video file from a damaged drive is simply impossible at least in a complete state. There are a other solutions you can try, with the caveat that sometimes the file can be repaired, but you end up losing the portion of the file stored on a corrupted portion of the drive.
Before you attempt any recovery you should make a copy of the damaged file to a different drive. This is so that if your recovery attempt fails, you don't lose the some or all of the original file.
Once you have a copy of the file, download and install Digital Video Repair. Use Digital Video Repair on the copy of your damaged file. The software will attempt to repair the headers on the file and eliminate corrupt portions of the file. If a repair is possible, Digital Video Repair will create a new copy of the file with repairs. When finished, you should attempt to play the file created during the repair process. The file you started with still will not work, but the repair output should play.
