Important Pictures - Changed To *.jpg.mta?

[NegativeSpace]

So I have a few folders of pictures, -very important ones-, that contain some image files that have mysteriously been changed from their original *.jpg file types to *.jpg.mta file types, and their thumb nails show as generic icons. Only some of the pictures have been affected, across multiple folders. I have not been able to find anything useful about .mta or .jpg.mta. I have no idea how this happened. I do have backups of the affected files, but I'm worried that the problem might continue to other pictures which are not regularly backed up, or other files which are not .jpg. Does anyone know how this happens, and if there is a way to restore the original files without dragging out the backup disk? What is the .mta file type?

After looking again, I have realized that .avi files are also affected the same way. Also, some of the files show as *.mta, and some show as *.jpg.mta

Edited September 6, 2011 by NegativeSpace

[Infiltrator]

What happens if you rename one of the affected files from .jpg.mta back to .jpg does it keep the extension or does it revert back?

Edit: I have also found that .mta extension is associated with one of the Microsoft Flight Simulator file.

http://filext.com/file-extension/MTA

Edited September 6, 2011 by Infiltrator

[NegativeSpace]

What happens if you rename one of the affected files from .jpg.mta back to .jpg does it keep the extension or does it revert back?

Edit: I have also found that .mta extension is associated with one of the Microsoft Flight Simulator file.

http://filext.com/file-extension/MTA

I tried changing the extension back to .jpg. It keeps the .jpg extension, but it doesn't correct the problem (see picture)

I have no idea how the files would be associated with or useful to flight simulator. I've never used that before, never had it installed on this machine.

[Infiltrator]

Change the "Open with" with your favorite photo editor or viewer and see if that works. If it doesn't I got something else for you to try up sleeve.

[digip]

Open the mta files in notepad, what do you see. I recall microsoft database files also having something to do with mta, but that was for exchange. Never heard of images getting renamed to mta.

I would backup ALL files you need now though. Sounds like you got either a corrupted file system, or rouge malware hit your system.

[Infiltrator]

Open the mta files in notepad, what do you see. I recall microsoft database files also having something to do with mta, but that was for exchange. Never heard of images getting renamed to mta.

I would backup ALL files you need now though. Sounds like you got either a corrupted file system, or rouge malware hit your system.

I was going to suggest a profile rebuild, before attempting a full system re-install.

[NegativeSpace]

Change the "Open with" with your favorite photo editor or viewer and see if that works. If it doesn't I got something else for you to try up sleeve.

I changed the open with to windows picture viewer. The icons changed, but opening the files just shows white screen with "no preview available"

[NegativeSpace]

Open the mta files in notepad, what do you see. I recall microsoft database files also having something to do with mta, but that was for exchange. Never heard of images getting renamed to mta.

I would backup ALL files you need now though. Sounds like you got either a corrupted file system, or rouge malware hit your system.

Should have thought of this. I have recently got a couple Samsung WiFi bluray players. They are dlna compatible, so i decided to fool around with sharing some files to them. I can't be sure, but it seems as if Samsungs dlna server software has screwed up some pictures. Opening random .mta in notepad yields some xml looking stuff, in the tens of thousands of characters for each file. Some of it from one file included below. So now the question is how do I fix the files. (And what is w3.org?)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!--Samsung video metadata file generated by SMVideoEngine (Samsung Metadata Video Engine) v1.0, June 2009. (http://www.samsung.com)-->

<SEC:SECMeta xsi:schemaLocation="urn:samsung:metadata:2009 Video_Metadata_v1.0.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:SEC="urn:samsung:metadata:2009">

<SpecVersion>1.0</SpecVersion>

<MediaInformation>

<VideoLocator>

<MediaUri>file://samsung_content.con</MediaUri>

</VideoLocator>

</MediaInformation>

<ContentInformation>

<Chaptering>

<ChapterSegment>

<KeyFrame>

[digip]

Yeah, it seems like the samsung software caused this. My guess is 1, uninstall the software or look for a patch/upgrade, also google for problems with the software or such that you bought/wifi player.

You can try a file recovery tool, like http://www.handyrecovery.com/ which I've used their free version and was able to get back pics with it before. Thing is, if this overwrote the data in them with xml, not sure how that will work, but worth a shot to just try the free version and see if you can get back files from specific folders you think they were corrupted in.

Freeware version: http://www.handyrecovery.com/handyrecovery-fw.exe

edit: It spossible that those files were never images, but maybe databse files for the samsung player?

Edited September 6, 2011 by digip

[NegativeSpace]

Yeah, it seems like the samsung software caused this. My guess is 1, uninstall the software or look for a patch/upgrade, also google for problems with the software or such that you bought/wifi player.

You can try a file recovery tool, like http://www.handyrecovery.com/ which I've used their free version and was able to get back pics with it before. Thing is, if this overwrote the data in them with xml, not sure how that will work, but worth a shot to just try the free version and see if you can get back files from specific folders you think they were corrupted in.

Freeware version: http://www.handyrecovery.com/handyrecovery-fw.exe

edit: It spossible that those files were never images, but maybe databse files for the samsung player?

I've uninstalled that garbage Samsung DLNA server software, no change as far as I can tell. Downloaded file rerecovery tool, but not holding out much hope. I have tons of pictures, and most of those affected are the first 4 years of my nephews life, and it's going to be a nightmare to restore them from backup, if the recovery tools fail.

I've gone back and reviewed the affected files, and none of them have duplicate names, so it seems that they actually were pictures that were overwritten with seemingly random xml. It's still a mystery as to why they were given the .mta file extension, and I still don't know if they actually were .mta files or not. I have no idea what the data inside an .mta file looks like. Mysterious....

[Infiltrator]

I've uninstalled that garbage Samsung DLNA server software, no change as far as I can tell. Downloaded file rerecovery tool, but not holding out much hope. I have tons of pictures, and most of those affected are the first 4 years of my nephews life, and it's going to be a nightmare to restore them from backup, if the recovery tools fail.

I've gone back and reviewed the affected files, and none of them have duplicate names, so it seems that they actually were pictures that were overwritten with seemingly random xml. It's still a mystery as to why they were given the .mta file extension, and I still don't know if they actually were .mta files or not. I have no idea what the data inside an .mta file looks like. Mysterious....

You could move those pictures to another working computer if you have and test them there. If it works, just format your hard drive and start from scratch unless you want to keep battling with this one.