Really old AE file Corrupted. Can I Recover?

[theredheadhenry]

Hello!

I have a very old After Effects file from 2009. It was made with version CS3 I believe. This file was lost on my old laptop (Windows XP) after a system restore years ago. Using a recovery tool (that I used today), I found the file. It currently reads as 24MB, last modified 9/23/2009.

When I go to open this file in CC 2018 or CS5 (on a completely different machine) I am presented with the error messasge:

After Effects warning: Unable to import file "PATH" as project (bad format ot not readable)

I've tried everything I can think of to open this file. Below is what I have tried:

• Made a new project, and tried importing it [Failed]
• Tried opening it in Premiere [Failed]
• Tried renaming the file/copying the file [Failed]
• Tried extracting the data from the file using 7-zip [Failed]
• Tried moving it to a different drive [Failed]

Keep in mind I am trying to open this 10 year old file on a completely new computer/OS (Windows 10). Do we have ANY WAY to somehow extract the data or open the file? I read a rumor that over the years an Adobe Tech person can somehow, take the file and use some sort of magic to allow the file to be opened again. Is this fairytale true? Is all hope lost? Should I give up on trying to recover this file?

Thanks in advance for any help/comments you can share.

[Mylenium]

It would probably be most efficient to provide the file somewhere for download so people can have a look and try to import it on their own machines. Sometimes weird combinations of settings can make it work. If its headers or data streams are genuinely damaged, chances are slim, though. AE has no clearcut way to reconstruct the binary code due to the complex dependencies and historically messy format, so patching up a few bytes might not fix anything.

Mylenium

[theredheadhenry]

I have the file uploaded below. In all honesty I don't think it's possible to recover this file. Did a lot of googling and it seems like this may be a lost cause. Grantred if the file did somehow get opened, all the assets in the library of the file would need to be resynced, and that's fine. What boggles me is if these rumors are true about somone(s) from Adobe who are able to take these corrupt files and make them work, how excatly are they doing that...

http://www.mediafire.com/file/fdl7z3msdhtw7sn/DB_revamp_gokuvs_goku.aep/file 

[Mylenium]

There may be internal development tools to fix headers and some data in the files, but those are not publicly available and you'd still have to know your way around a development environment. Looking at your file, all the data appears pretty jumbled and lacks the typical recognizable formatting for AE. The overall structure seems to match that of a typical AE project, the binary encoding is just completely off. If whatever recovery tool you used offers alternate modes or even has options to "learn" file types by comparing the lost data with intact files there may be a tiny glimmer of hope, but otherwise this may indeed be a lost cause.

Mylenium

[theredheadhenry]

Can you reccomend any software recovery tool that might be good? One that "learns" as you stated, or has alternatitve modes. Thing is, the laptop I'm recovering from is Windows XP. So it would have to be a program that is compatible. Have you ever seen a file this badly scrambled and been able to be recovered? It obviously still has the data in it seeing as it's 24mb. It's just a process of trying to "unscramble" it I'm assuming.

[Mylenium]

I only was involved with EnCase at some point via our IT partnering firm, but that's actually a forensics software that analyses files byte by byte. There are specific recovery tools like PhotoRec that have such "structural awareness" built in already for several image formats, so chances are a derivative may exist that could be used. You might also want to ask around on some IT forums. This could be just some weird encoding that could be fixed by opening the file in an editor and transposing the code to another encoding. The file to me seems salvagable to some degree, but which tools might do the trick is really a matter of endless experimentation and currently I simply don't have access to any of those, so I can't be more specific or give it a whirl myself. Sorry.

Mylenium

[theredheadhenry]

Hello, I'm posting in this thread again because I'm wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction to try and get some help with this issue. If someone knows of a software that can fix my problem, or a specific website/person I may be able to reach out too, I would greatly apprecaite it.

Thanks!