I haven't seen the GUI of the latest version. From my last few times I used the program, there is a "Quick Scan" and a "Super Scan" mode.
The "Quick Scan" tends to find the obvious stuff. Things only just deleted. It sounds like this is what you have run first.
The "Super Scan" takes a lot longer and starts hauling out _anything_ it finds. Now, due to the nature of files on the hard disk, the software has no way of telling what the file used to be called. So it is likely to have an odd name in an odd folder. And won't have a nice ".jpg" after the name.
(Note - when you "format" you will of destroyed the "index" for your file system. So you have lots of scattered files on the disk, but no way of knowing what they are called. This is what file recovery software is working with.)
So if you are at the state of having hundreds of "weirdly named files"... then it is time to grab a program like IrfanView or smiliar art package and throw batches of files into the program to see if it can identify them. (IrfanView will spot the JPEG from the info embeded in the file, and the offer to "correct" the extension for you. I think photoshop will happily open dozens of wrongly named files and again offer to "correct" the names where relevant. Try investigating the "Batch processing" option within IrfanView as this should help speed up the process. There is a batch rename in there, but the viewer seems happy to display JPEGs without extensions....)
To be truely techy - you can use a search tool which looks for text within files. Then hunt for the signature from your camera, or the JPEG header.
When I have had to do this with Word files, it is easy to throw batches of 50 at a time at Word and see what it can or cannot open.
It all depends what JPEG viewers you have to hand, and your patience
.
I am sorry to say that there is no "magic fix" for what you have done. but when the photos are this valuable, it is worth the time to work through the heaps of thousands of files to identify them. Use DOS batch files to bulk rename them maybe?
(TBH - I often do the recovery of the files, and then hand over this heap to the client to work their way through. Usually works fine - it's just time consuming.)
If you let me know what graphics programs you have available, I'll see if I can help find you an easier way to find what you want... but ultimatley there is a lot of leg work to do, and dozens of way to get there.
The "Quick Scan" tends to find the obvious stuff. Things only just deleted. It sounds like this is what you have run first.
The "Super Scan" takes a lot longer and starts hauling out _anything_ it finds. Now, due to the nature of files on the hard disk, the software has no way of telling what the file used to be called. So it is likely to have an odd name in an odd folder. And won't have a nice ".jpg" after the name.
(Note - when you "format" you will of destroyed the "index" for your file system. So you have lots of scattered files on the disk, but no way of knowing what they are called. This is what file recovery software is working with.)
So if you are at the state of having hundreds of "weirdly named files"... then it is time to grab a program like IrfanView or smiliar art package and throw batches of files into the program to see if it can identify them. (IrfanView will spot the JPEG from the info embeded in the file, and the offer to "correct" the extension for you. I think photoshop will happily open dozens of wrongly named files and again offer to "correct" the names where relevant. Try investigating the "Batch processing" option within IrfanView as this should help speed up the process. There is a batch rename in there, but the viewer seems happy to display JPEGs without extensions....)
To be truely techy - you can use a search tool which looks for text within files. Then hunt for the signature from your camera, or the JPEG header.
When I have had to do this with Word files, it is easy to throw batches of 50 at a time at Word and see what it can or cannot open.
It all depends what JPEG viewers you have to hand, and your patience
.I am sorry to say that there is no "magic fix" for what you have done. but when the photos are this valuable, it is worth the time to work through the heaps of thousands of files to identify them. Use DOS batch files to bulk rename them maybe?
(TBH - I often do the recovery of the files, and then hand over this heap to the client to work their way through. Usually works fine - it's just time consuming.
)If you let me know what graphics programs you have available, I'll see if I can help find you an easier way to find what you want... but ultimatley there is a lot of leg work to do, and dozens of way to get there.
You put your foot in it there mate! lol hahaha 
