Canon S3/ Kingston 1 GB Problems--HELP!

[JzeroT1437]

Okay, so I went on a trip to San Francisco, took about 300+ pics on my Kingston card, then the batteries died. Afterwards it said that the card was full, yet when I tried to review the photos, the buffer light would flash for a while before returning with "No Images". Looking through the format option, I found that it recognized 890 Mb currently being used. I DID NOT format.

Now that I'm home, my computer won't even read the card. When I insert it into my computer's SD slot, the autoplay buffer box comes onto the screen, then nothing. I try exploring it only to find that it doesn't recognize the card to even be present.

Anybody have help/suggestions?

[Photo-John]

That's scary. I would try another card reader and see if it can see the files. If that doesn't work, then I would invest in some photo file recovery software. Both SanDisk and Lexar give that software as part of the package when you buy their professional cards. And I've used the Lexar software to recover photos deleted from a card before. That's your best bet.

Good luck. On Monday I accidentally deleted two major directories from one of my computers. So I feel your pain. And recovering from a hard drive is wayyyy worse than from a memory card.

[JzeroT1437]

Nothing will read the card. Not USB card readers, internal card readers, or USB through the camera itself. What are the chances of data recovery after formatting? Is it 0?

[Photo-John]

Nothing will read the card. Not USB card readers, internal card readers, or USB through the camera itself. What are the chances of data recovery after formatting? Is it 0?

No - I believe the chances of recovery are actually very good. As I understand it, formatting just removes all references to your files. It doesn't actually wipe out the files. File recovery software will look for all the files on the card and let you access them again. If you've used the card again the camera may have rewritten over some of the data. That's the only way you will actually lose your images. At least that's my understanding.

I have successfully recovered images from memory cards multiple times and just had to recover some stuff from a computer hard drive. That was much worse and less successful than recovering from a memory card. In any case, I think it's worth the effort and the investment. It may happen again and you only have to buy the software once. Buy a pro SanDisk or Lexar memory card and the software is inlcuded. Everyone needs another memory card. Give it a shot. You've got nothing to lose!

[rylan]

thats unfortunate, i deleted a whole card worth of pictures by accident last week. i had some really good bird shots on it
wish you all the best in getting your photos