Windows 7 restoring .chk files

[sorriso]

Hi and happy new year!
I found some valuable files of mine (suddenly and luckily) using a linux laptop.
I want to restore them on windows. I saved them on an external hard disk and moved them on Windows 7 laptop but I have no idea how to restore them.
In Linux they were readable and playable but in windows not.
I tried to do it with chkmate but (probably I dont know how to use it) it doesnt help me.
All these files now have .chk extension but normally they are .doc or .avi or .png etc.
Any solution for how to restore them and save them in readable extension files?

Thanks a lot!
friwise

 

[sorriso]

Hi again!
Well, I found the solution on my own (probably not the best one but still effective) and I am happy to present it to you.
Using ubuntu 10.10 Linux I could see the files as .chk but I could still use them as if they were not .chk. Let's say as if they were .png or .avi etc.
So right clicking on them and seeing what is their codec I just renamed them changing their extension to the previous one.
That way now I have them restored and usable in Windows 7.
Since I cannot propose installing Linux on a laptop with Windows 7 I propose to download Linux Ubuntu 10.10 run LIVE CD without installing it and change the extension of your .chk files like this.
It takes you up to 30 minutes to download Ubuntu (depending on your connection) and 5 minutes to run LIVE CD. AND it is much easier than chkmate. I tried it and it is completely disappointing.
I hope I am helpful. Mostly I hope that someone with a faster and more efficient solution replies on this thread sooner or later.

Have fun
sorriso

 

[patcooke]

Just renaming the file from chk to whatever file type you believe it should have been is all you need provided that that original file wasn't too big. What you need to be aware of is that the chk file has resulted from chkdsk discovering one or more "fragments" of a file which has become disconnected from its original fie due t a crash, close error etc. The basic unit of storage on a hard drive is the sector but the file system allocates disk space to a file not in sectors but "allocation units". Depending on the disk size and formatting there may be 1, 2 4 or more sectors per allocation unit. If the segment recovered as a chk file was part of a larger file it is more than likely that it will not contain all of the original data - it may be somewhere from the start, end or anywhere between. If it is not from the beginning then the header information necessary to identify the file type will not be there. The bottom line of all this is that if it was just a small file contained in a single allocation unit or if all the allocation units have been recovered in a single chk file then renaming will deal with the problem. Otherwise it can become a bit of a jigsaw puzzle identifying segments which fit together (great fun!) or you may find one of the many chk segment recovery programs helpful.