PSD Image went black

[moblin]

I'm suddenly having trouble with one of my psd files, it's gone completely black and missing all of its layers. No I didn't make it black and flatten it when I saved it. In the thumbnail when you say file>open it looks completely fine but when I open it its just black, even the grey area behind the picture is black.
I'm really annoyed and frustrated cause I was almost finished with the picture...
Has anyone run into this problem before? If it will help I can upload my file to look at.

[Laurynnem]

think the file may be corrupt - however that's just a guess - I could be hopelessly wrong. but if I'm right I don't actually have a solution for you either. I have never had that problem in 10 years - so I really can't help you here from any personal experience. Sorry and I hope it works out for you. I know how it feels to think/know you have lost your design (I have had my photoshop crash on me many times before and had to start all over - its very depressing). I am responding to your post as I am interested to know what it could be. Maybe someone else is the boffin on this subject...?

[Steve]

Why don't you post it just to confirm it's the file and not something on your computer.
I believe the limit for a PSD or a Compressed file is 20MB

[hawkeye]

This won't be solution even if it works (since the layers won't be there), but try renaming the file with jpg extention and see if it will open.

[moblin]

@Laurynnen: My computer has crashed on me a few times while I've been working on it so it could be that its corrupt, but I'm not really sure since I don't usually have glitches in photoshop. I'm just hoping that even if its corrupt it can be saved :(
@Hawkeye: I'll try it.
@Steve: At the moment my internet is too slow to upload it but I've already put the file on mediafire if anyone's willing to look at it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?6p1041jm7vjsxpn

[bugeyes]

Moblin,
I have just experienced the exact same problem and a search on the web led me to your post. Fortunately I do incremental backups so have not 'lost everything' - but it still a niusance and I can't figure out the reason. Like you, I still get the thumbnail view and the file opens up as black with no layers.

[Hoogle]

Well I have just run the file through 3 different types of data recovery programs and nothing seems to be wrong with it all though when it is opened all i get is a background layer that is locked and a black image seems very strange for that to hapen when the file is still over 100mb I wouldnt want to get your hopes up and say it will be recovered because I dont think it can from that. Maybe as you have the original file a program like psd repairer may work

[moblin]

Well I found out when right clicking on the file there's a "restore previous versions" tab. This doesn't save the entire picture but its at least far enough along that I wont have to completely start over. I've saved a copy of that one after opening it but I still have the corrupt one as well.