Error Message that Files Cannot Be Imported -- Are My Files Lost?

Question

Hi all --
Here's my sad story: I was importing a whole slew of files from my Canon PowerShot A520, everything appeared to be going swimingly, when iPhoto appeared to freeze up. After a force quit, it became apparent that the pix had never made it into iPhoto. (Oh, by the way, yes I checked the box that deleted them from the camera's memory card, so I don't have the originals to work with here. Never make that mistake again, but that's of no help now, of course. I should have waited until I was certain that the import was successful before I ever messed with the originals, but I digress.)
I thought at first that I had lost all the photos forever, but then I located the pix (they're .jpg files) in Finder (they're in my "pictures" folder). They're apparently on the computer, just not in iPhoto. Somehow they had made it after all, or so I thought.
Here's the bummer, while I can see the pictures just fine in preview, when I tried to import one as a test case into iPhoto I got the following error message and the import was not allowed:
The files could not be imported (they may be an unrecognized file type or the files may not contain valid data.
Based on the foregoing, I suspect that the files somehow got corrupted during the initial (aborted) attempt to import them. The file type (.jpeg) seems ok to me. I'm assuming that corruption and "not containing valid data" are roughly synonymous.
So, what I'm wondering is, am I doomed to forever only being able to view these pix in preview or something like that and to never being able to import them into iPhoto and edit and slide show them, etc? Is there nothing I can do to fix whatever's wrong with these photos and get them to successfully import into iPhoto? What about printing, is that possible?
Like I said, these (possibly corrupt?) .jpg files are the only copies I have to work with, since I foolishly deleted the originals from the memory card.
Is all hope lost?
Any and all help will be appreciated more than you can know.
Thanks.
Brief Addendum: I just tried to open one of the pix using Graphic Converter and it worked just fine.
-- JDee

Answer 1

Lori --
What can I say, but thank you, thank you and thank you!
Your timely response saved the day -- it was a little hairy there for a while, with .jpg files all over the desktop, but after resorting to pen and paper (still necessary at times) and recording the numbers of all files, I am now good to go.
The little green star and the bogue award of 10 points doesn't begin to convey how helpful your post, but it's all we're given (plus these words, of course).
To briefly sum up -- This morning (after the debacle last evening that started all this) I was trying to reconcile myself to the fact that my photos were lost for good and that I had only myself to blame.
Now, I have all my photos back (more than 200 hundred, some of them really kind of cool, if I do say so myself) and all are now sitting nicely in iPhoto waiting to be manipulated, edited and otherwise toyed with.
All thanks to you, Lori.
Not that I wish the heartache I just went through over the last 24 hours on anyone, but I do hope that I get the chance to help someone out as much as I was helped out today. Good Karma and all that.
This site flat out rules!
Thanks again.
-- JDee