Partial / Incomplete MKV

[WillyMk]

I have a UHD disc that rips OK for about 99% and fails with just over 1 minute to go. Before it fails I made a copy of the incomplete MKV file. Is there anyway to "repair" this file so that the 99% that ripped can be played?

[dcoke22]

I'm not aware of any way to do what you're asking.

Why does the rip fail? Maybe copy & paste your MakeMKV log into here.

[WillyMk]

It's a read error. I think the disc must have a scratch somewhere though I can't see it. I believe recovery should be possible. Particularly if you have another mkv that was formatted the same way (such as a TV series) to use as a reference. I've seen it done with MP4.

Its pretty rough to only have 1 min left of ripping and have an unusable file.

[segfaulted]

There's a decent chance you may be able to salvage an incomplete mkv rip from MakeMKV. Open the mkv in a hex editor (I use HxD) and see if the data starts with "This file was not properly finalized"

If it does say that, you can copy-paste this byte dump...

Code: Select all

1A 45 DF A3 A3 42 86 81 01 42 F7 81 01 42 F2 81
04 42 F3 81 08 42 82 88 6D 61 74 72 6F 73 6B 61
42 87 81 02 42 85 81 02 18 53 80 67 01 00 60 00
00 00 00 00 11 4D 9B 74 44 7D 4D BB 92 53 AB 84
15 49 A9 66 53 AC 88 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 83 4D
BB 92 53 AB 84 16 54 AE 6B 53 AC 88 00 00 00 00
00 00 05 15 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

and replace the first 112 bytes of the mkv by pressing Ctrl-B (or right-click and "Paste write"). Make sure the cursor is at offset 0. Refer to the screenshot below for an example.

The mkv file probably won't play, but that's fine. You should be able to load it into mkvtoolnix's multiplexer to rebuild a working mkv file.

[WillyMk]

There's a decent chance you may be able to salvage an incomplete mkv rip from MakeMKV.

Thank you I will try.