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How to Fix Grey Box Over Pictures on PC | 6 Ways 🏅

Sometimes, distortion - a grey box over pictures appears in our pictures due to technological issues. If you want to know more about the causes behind the problem, you come to the right place. Let's learn 6 ways to fix grey boxes over pictures on PC by reading this post.

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Table of Contents

Reasons: Why Are My Pictures Greyed Out

Have you recently found that your photos have become wholly or partially black or greyed out? Despite trying various remedies, have you been unable to figure out how to fix the grey box over pictures on PC? Like the user looking for help from Microsoft Community -

Content in Pictures Libraries does not appear in Windows Live Photo Gallery. I imported photos to the Windows photo gallery from my Samsung cell phone. The images seemed at first but were then hidden by grey boxes. How can I fix this?

From Microsoft Community

Don't worry! This post reviews the 6 best fixes for pictures with grey boxes or completely black images. Before that, let's go through the potential causes of the problem. Check and determine which solution for you to take!

  • 👾Your photographs being damaged or corrupted is one of the leading causes.
  • 🛑Interruptions while the photographs are being transferred.
  • 🧩Files were not wholly transferred or copied.
  • 🛠️You have logical or physical corruption on your storage medium (hard drive, SD card, CF card, memory card, etc.).
  • 😨Additional factors include a sudden system shutdown, interrupted transfer, corrupt storage, dangerous photo editing software, etc.

5 Solutions: How to Fix Grey Box Over Pictures on PC

There are numerous ways to fix grey box over pictures. The destroyed inaccessible material can be recovered using a file repair tool, or the photo can be repaired with the help of a built-in program. We have included the top 6 fixes for the grey box over the pictures to make it simpler for you to solve it.

⛑️Remove Grey Boxes by Fixo Photo Repair Works in every situation within 5 minutes
🔙Restore Original Pictures from Backup Works only when the pictures are previously backed up
✂️Open Pictures with Grey Box in Image Editor Only when the image's source isn't corrupted
🧹Fix Grey Box Over Pictures with Sfc/scannow Requires Command Prompt skill
💿Repair Storage Devices by CHKDSK When the picture is stored on disks
🔢Fix Grey Box Over Pictures with Hex Editor Requires skills in editing hex

📍Method 1. Remove Grey Box Over Pictures by Fixo Photo Repair

As mentioned in the first reason for the grey box over pictures, the images will appear like that if they are corrupted or damaged. Try using an EaseUS Fixo Photo Repair tool is the most recommended method. Besides repairing corrupted photos, this file repair software can also fix various other broken files, including most file types of documents and videos.

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Why you should choose EaseUS Fixo:

  • Quickly fixes the bulk of images at once
  • Extracts thumbnails from badly damaged photographs to preview corrected images
  • All sorts of cameras and storage devices are supported
  • Available on both Mac and Windows PC
  • Supports various file formats: PNG/JPEG repair, PDF/Word repair, and MOV repair

Download this utility and try the following guide:

Step 1. Launch Fixo on your computer. You can choose "Photo Repair" to repair photos that cannot be opened, partially missing, etc. Click "Add Photos" to select corrupted photos.

add photos to repair images with Fixo

Step 2. You can repair multiple photos at once by clicking the "Repair All" button. If you want to repair one photo, move your pointer to the target photo and choose "Repair".

select photos to repair

Step 3. You can click on the eye icon to preview the photos and click "Save" to save a selected photo. Choose "Save All" to save all the repaired images. Click "View Repaired" to locate the repaired folder.

save repaired photos in Fixo

This is the most straightforward and effective method to repair grey boxes over pictures. After that, let's learn the other 5 ways to solve the problem. Don't forget to mark this passage by sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, or SNS.

 

📍Method 2. Restore Original Pictures from Backup

Maintaining a backup is recommended for any circumstance involving photo loss or damage. The proper photographs from your backup folder on your PC, flash drive, SD card, memory card, etc., will be kept if you follow it. In that case, you can recover the source picture files from your backups.

You can restore deleted photos on Windows 10 from backup files if you have previously created a manual backup or enabled the Windows backup feature. There are various methods for recovering deleted files from backups:

1. Manually restore from a backup by copying and pasting the backup's images onto the original storage device where you lost them.

2. Restore from software backup: In the event that you utilized backup software to create a backup image of your images, use it to restore the backup image and retrieve your missing photos.

 
Recover Deleted Files Without Backup

How to Recover Deleted Files Without Backup in Windows 10/11

How to recover deleted files without backup in Windows? This guide covers 4 Efficient methods to restore deleted files without backup on Windows. Read more >>

📍Method 3. Open Pictures with Grey Box in Image Editor

It is possible when you try to fix the pictures with grey boxes by opening the pictures in image editing software. Open the photographs in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or another photo editing program if they are partially or completely greyed out. However, this method only works when the image source is not severely harmed.

The specific steps are:

Step 1. Open the corrupted picture by Photoshop or other image editors.

Photoshop

Step 2. Replace the original photo with the modified version

Step 3. Choose "Save As" the images to the same destination path.

As it writes the missing data in the photo file, which can be absent in the original photo, this approach has sometimes helped users fix the issue with partially or completely greyed-out photographs.

📍Method 4. Fix Grey Box Over Pictures with Sfc/scannow

⚠️Warning: Before you start scanning, make a copy or backup of the pictures. Do not run the command on the original images.

The Command Prompt feature in Windows can be used to address small corruption issues with picture files. Although it doesn't guarantee photo repair, you could attempt it.

How to use Command Prompt to fix grey boxes over pictures? Here is the full guide:

Step 1. Select the "Start" button, and launch the Command Prompt window by typing cmd into the search box.

CMD

Step 2. In the search results, the Command Prompt option will appear; right-click on it and choose "Run as Administrator" from the menu.

Run as Administrator

Step 3. Now enter the command sfc/scannow into the Command Prompt window.

SFC

Step 4. Wait for the scan to complete; once it does, all of your issues might be resolved.

Check your photos next to see if the issue has been resolved.

📍Method 5. Repair Storage Devices by CHKDSK

Photos may appear as gray boxes if the storage device on which they are stored is destroyed. Follow the procedures below to repair corrupted hard drive:

Step 1. Insert your flash drive or other storage device into your computer.

Step 2. Type cmd into the start menu's search field and press "Enter". Right-click the "Run as Administrator".

Step 3. To fix your corrupted disk without formatting, execute chkdsk /X /f sd card letter: or chkdsk sd card letter: /f. For instance, chkdsk /X /f G: or chkdsk h: /f.

CHKDSK

Remember that this method works only when the problem results in disk corruption, not the image itself's damage.

📍Method 6. Fix Grey Box Over Pictures with Hex Editor Tools

The Hex Editor might be well-known to the majority of us. This application enables one to modify the corrupt file's binary data. Many of us might know it from its previous incarnations as HxD, Hex Workshop, Cygnus, or Byte Editor. Consequently, you can resolve the issue with the grey box over pictures with this.

However, this process is highly difficult; even a small byte error can ruin a picture. Therefore, if you don't fully comprehend the tool, you are not advised to try it independently.

Step 1. Download and install a trustworthy hexadecimal editor. The two tools that are advised are HxD and Hex Workshop. To download them to your computer, go to their website.

Step 2. Open the picture that needs fixing in the editor.

Step 3. Carefully look at the file's hexadecimal coding. You can modify the file's code from the header. It can be any number between 0000 and FFFF.

Step 4. Save the edited picture file to your computer by making a second copy of it.

0000 and FFFF

Conclusion

That's all about the 6 solutions for the grey box over pictures on PC. We hope this article satisfies you perfectly. You can support us by sharing this post on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and SNS.

By all means, image repair is unlike Photo recovery. Repairing the half or complete grey boxes covered images is a little bit difficult. Nevertheless, using the EaseUS Fixo Photo Repair can make things easier. Additionally, it can quickly and easily fix hundreds of photographs and other types of files while being safe to use.

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Grey Box Over Pictures FAQs

Here are 4 additional questions about fixing the grey box over pictures. Check here for the answers.

1. How do you fix grey photos on iPhone?

You can attempt to restore gray iPhone images by opening them in an image editor like Photoshop or Paint. Save the greyed-out images to the same location to replace the original file if they display properly in the image editor.

2. Why are my pictures greyed out on Android?

  • Photos on the storage device are corrupted or broken.
  • The images are distorted.
  • There was a partial transfer of the photos.
  • The photo has been corrupted as a result of unsafe data recovery software.

3. Why are my Google photos have grey boxes?

Recent changes at Google may be the origin of the very recent grey boxes on photos.google.com that show up while using an old machine and an out-of-date browser. However, you would typically need a clear warning such as "your browser is no longer suitable" or something like that.

4. How do you tell if a photo is corrupted?

When a photo is corrupt, it may not open. If it does open, it might overlay some of the images with gray, black, or arbitrary colored bars. Obviously, any level of corruption is terrible, especially for graphic designers and professional photographers.

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Updated by Jaden

Jaden is one of the editors of EaseUS who lives and works in Chengdu, China. She focuses on topics concerning PCs and Mac data recovery. Jaden is committed to enhancing professional IT knowledge and writing abilities. She is always keen on new and intelligent products.

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