Hi there!
I’ve lost my Sketchup files on my external hard drive unexpectedly due to formatting and I’ve got them back through a recovery program.
Now the files are there and they seem to be ok but when I try to open them it shows “this doesn’t seem to be a Sketchup file”…
Is there anything I can do ?
You could upload one of the files so that @colin might look at it and see if there’s anything to recover. In many cases when recovery applications are used they do permanently corrupt SketchUp files. Don’t hold your breath but think good thoughts.
oh nooo 
Thank you for your quick respond !!
Let’s just hope that I still have some chance…
EVDENEME.skp (1.3 MB)
The file is random data from your hard drive. Look in the same folder for a files with the same name, but with .skb as the file extension. Rename that file to a different name, with .skp as the extension, and see if that opens ok.
A recovery program is worth a try, but there is a high risk that it is impossible to recover the file. The reasons are somewhat technical, so you can skip the rest of this post unless you are interested…
A file on a disk is actually broken up into a collection of fragments that may or may not be placed in sequential locations on the disk. Formatting erases the tables that tell where the fragments of each file were actually placed. A recovery program tries to reassemble the tables based on educated guesses about the placement (e.g. sequential locations are favored by many systems) and about which fragments seem to follow each other (e.g. continuation of text). For anything beyond a small file, there is a good likelihood the fragments are not stored sequentially, especially on modern SSDs that spread the data around to reduce wear (believe it or not, SSDs wear out with use!). And for a binary file (such as a skp) there is no simple logic to tell what fragment should follow another. An expert may be able to reassemble lost files, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task suitable for a forensic lab.
Thank you very much …
that didin’t work unfortunately… I’ve noticed that there are other file formats as well (dxf, dwg, etc.) that are corrupt… although they all look to be fine…
Thank you very much… I really didn’t know that… It seems there is really very little chance to get those fragments in place… interestingly, it’s not only sketchup files that are corrupt but jpegs, dxf and dwg’s as well…
It’s unfortunate that you’ve lost all those files. Going forward you could consider using Trimble Connect for storing backups of your SketchUp and LayOut files.
I will definitely…
Luckily some of them were backed up but not all… It eases the anger…
Thanks all!