a jpeg segment marker length is too short

[Steve Martin]

Very weird thing happened. I was cleaning out a computer for a friend by
removing spyware/viruses, etc. Everything was fine. Before I finish, I
defrag the hard drive. I was doing this and then for no real reason, the
wallpaper of this friend's kids disappeared. So I went into the display
properties to see if I just need to re-add this as the wallpaper and it
still shows this image as the wallpaper. So, I search the drive for this
images name and I find it. I try to open it and I get the error: ...a jpeg
segment marker length is too short... I then looked at a bunch of other
images in the pictures folder and there are a ton (about 1 1/2 years) of
pictures that won't open and give this same error. I have tried moving some
pictures to another computer and I get the same thing.

So, First, does anyone know what might have caused this?

Second, does anyone know how to fix this?

If it hadn't been for the wallpaper suddenly disappearing, I never would
have known that the pictures had been corrupted.

One more thing. When I first boot up, the images shows up for a second or
two as well as when I shut down. Very weird.

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

Very weird thing happened. I was cleaning out a computer for a friend by
removing spyware/viruses, etc. Everything was fine. Before I finish, I
defrag the hard drive. I was doing this and then for no real reason, the
wallpaper of this friend's kids disappeared. So I went into the display
properties to see if I just need to re-add this as the wallpaper and it
still shows this image as the wallpaper. So, I search the drive for this
images name and I find it. I try to open it and I get the error: ...a jpeg
segment marker length is too short... I then looked at a bunch of other
images in the pictures folder and there are a ton (about 1 1/2 years) of
pictures that won't open and give this same error. I have tried moving some
pictures to another computer and I get the same thing.

So, First, does anyone know what might have caused this?

Second, does anyone know how to fix this?

If it hadn't been for the wallpaper suddenly disappearing, I never would
have known that the pictures had been corrupted.

One more thing. When I first boot up, the images shows up for a second or
two as well as when I shut down. Very weird.

I hate to say it, but you may have just discovered why a full backup is
recommended prior to a defrag... ;-(

-michael

Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

 

[Chuck]

You might try irfanviewer. It sometimes will open damaged .jpg files. If it
opens the file, you can usually save it in a correct format.