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Loss of Data from Memory Card

nickser

Well-Known Member
Hi folks,
This is a serious problem that my brother in law has encountered with his 256 meg SD memory card and his Pentax 5 meg digital camera. He was on vacation in Dubai in the middle east and happily collecting pictures and reviewing them. The card after a while told him it was full and so he changed cards and carried on shooting. He was able to look at pictures on both cards with no problem but when he arrived home and tried to download the images only the second disc showed anything. The computer asked him if he wanted to format the first card. This he found strange as he had been looking at them the day before. He declined the offer of formatting the card.

Has anyone come across a similar problem and is it a recoverable card, or does he have to go back to Dubai again?!

Paul
 
> Paul,

another trip to Dubai might be nice, but not necessary, I hope. My experience with this gut-wrenching problem is that the card he used probably was not formatted before he started using it in Dubai. do not format the card now!!! go to the internet and download a form of data recovery software for flash card or memory card needs. Bad Copy is one form of just such. Use the software as per instructions to regain the photo images from the card. Remember do not format the card!! You should be able to recover the images. The software has worked very well for me. Essentially what happened was that the card he used had not been formatted by the camera before he started using it again. It was still using pathways created by the card reader from the last time he downloaded to his computer, printer, etc. Oh yes, it does matter! Always download all images from card to storage and then reformat the card in the camera before using again. This will eliminate most image acquire/recovery problems involving data cards. If you have been only partly downloading and or reusing data cards without reformatting you have been living on the edge! as I was painfully made aware with my own 'digital bad habits'! If the images were shot on RAW mode you may have to send the card to a business that provides multiple platform data recovery. Pixel Rescue in Massachusetts, US, operated by Ted Dillard, is an excellent source and does the job very well. They can be found on the internet. It will be far cheaper than a return trip to Dubai.

my
 
if he can see the pictures in the camera, he can recover them by hooking the camera up to the computer and downloading them. IF he can't see them at all, they were either erased, or the disk wasn't formatted correctly. Depending upon what software you use, you should be able to recover the images if you still see them in the camera. if not, it's back to dubai
 
Hi folks,

I am running two different recovery programs on it at the moment, but not together!. The first says nothing to recover, and the second is going to be a 24 hour session at least 'cos it's so thorough. I wil lpost any sucess or failure.

Paul
 
Hi again, I have finished running the programmes, Badcopy Pro and PhotoRescue PC. I ran them on a Win XP machine and a Win 98 machine and there is no retrievable data on them.
So all in all it looks like another trip to Dubai, shucks!! I wonder if I could tag along and look after his camera for him?

Thanks all,

Paul
 
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