SD card failure????

[tbfoto]

A friend of mine just called me. He bought his daughter a camera for Christmas (Nikon S51). He said that she shot about 125 images on the SD card. Then when he took the card out of the camera and put it into his computer it said that the card was not formatted and it would not read the images. He put the card back into the camera and it will no longer read the images in the camera either. He does not think the card was formatted before she used it. Are the images lost? If you do not format a card before it's first use will the data be lost. She was able to view the images before removing the card from the camera so it did write the data to the card at some point didnt it? Would a recovery program help pull the data off if it is still there? If so which program do you suggest?

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks,
Tom

[Rocket_Scientist]

Look on-line (google) for digital photo recovery tools. There are some free ones. A friend of mine at work had a similar problem, although it was only a large portion of the photos that were unreadable, not the whole card. He found some free tool that was able to recover most of them.

[freygr]

There are may tools less free now days that a couple years ago. Rule one do not try to save anything to the SD card, Do not format the SD card. Note if none of the file/photo recovery tools can not read the card, you just may be able to do a Quick Format on the card, if the card will not format the card died. If you can see the card after the quick format use the option in the recovery program to recover from a formated card. If you are lucky you will recover the images. If the card is larger than 2 GIG it has to be formated as a FAT 32 volume and some of the older cameras will not be able to read the card. Other wise any card that is 2 gig or smaller should be formated as FAT 16.

[Rocket_Scientist]

Here's a site you can try. My co-worker was able to use it successfully...

http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file...htm?language=1

[another view]

I don't know if this was the case, but never pull a memory card from a camera when it's being accessed (usually a light will be on). Same thing with a computer, and always disconnect or eject the card from the computer before taking it out.

Don't use the card until you try to rescue images as mentioned. From there, format it in the camera (not with the computer). I download all my images and reformat in camera before using them again and it always works. Also, be sure to see the "sticky" about losing digital images at the top of this forum.

[sundquist]

Formatting can read/write to the media or merely reset the file table. SD cards are usually FAT 12 and I'd think your images are still there.

Go to http://www.notsosoftware.com/discove...a_recovery.asp

Discovery Recovery should read the card data without a problem and it has photo recovery features as well. I used it on my camera when I fumbled a button and lost my holiday snaps. Took about a minute!

[jimmyread]

:aureola: Sometimes the Nikon camera would require you to reformat your memory card. It happens so because of virus attack. I know that if you reformat your camera all your photos would be deleted. Does not matter because I have a solution to your problem. Use Nikon Photo Recovery Software. This software would recover your photos that has been deleted due to formatting of your memory card. The good thing about this software is that it works on all kinds of memory card including SD card. This software can works on all kinds of picture and video file formats like MPG, JPG, MPEG, JPEG etc. This software is very user friendly and it does not corrupt any good pictures in your kodak camera. I have used it on my own nikon camera and it has yielded very good results. I would personally tell you to use Nikon Photo Recovery Software which would recover the photos which would be deleted due to formatting.

[conundrum]

You can try using Adroit Photo Recovery Software (http://digital-assembly.com/products...oto-recovery/). It does a good job in recovering photos from formatted sd cards, drives with corrupted file systems. It even does fragmented jpeg recovery.
I was able to recover lots of photos from my formatted usb stick. Certainly worth trying.

[freygr]

Please note: FAT 16 is only good up to 2 GIG! And that is with a very large cluster size! Also with FAT 16 you are limited to 512 total root entries! A subdirectory is a special file so there is not any limits but for free space.

FAT32 is the default with all memory cards. The FAT 32 cluster size is 512 byte, even with 4 gig size card the cluster size doesn't change until T byte size disks. I'm not sure but I think FAT32 limit is something like 4T byte?

Unless the memory card got zapped by static electricity, you should be able to recover the images. You will not be able to recover anything if the card got zapped by static electricity or has been physically damaged.

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

PC Inspector is pretty good. I also use F-Recovery and Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR). If these don't work, then they can't be gotten.

[antony09]

This tool can help you to recover your files from damaged media.
http://www.softorbits.com/flash-drive-recovery

[Rarana]

If the memory card (pen drive) is not recognized in the PC or it is impossible to access the data on it, the controller on the card is damaged. There is only one way to get the data back, unsolder memory chips and directly access their raw data with a programable chip reader. Unfortunatlely software can't help in that case, that is a physical damage. You need to send it to a special service,I found one based in germany, although you have to pay for this it's worth it. But the good thing is, if they are not able to recover the pictures you don't have to pay for anything.picture rescue from sd card

[corrinesherman39]

Hello,
I suggest that you check to see if the memory card has been damaged physically. You can do this by connecting the memory card to different PCs, just to be sure that the issue is not with the PC. If the memory card is getting detected, the best option is to stop using the memory card, and download a good digital camera photo recovery software for retrieving the deleted or lost photos.

[mischataylor]

I feel compelled to let other members know about my experience with a SD card failure which contained photos from our family 4 week European vacation. The message I was getting was "memory card error". Tried everything - downloading onto computer where I could see thumbnails for some of the photos but not all. Took SD card to camera repair shop, they could not recover any. Sent Card to Olympus and their response was that the card was corrupt and only able to salvage 25 photos which I could salvage myself. I was devastated and put the card in a drawer luckily and not the bin. From time to time I googled SD card failure to see if I was missing anything. Stumbled across the following website http://recoverfab.com and decided I had nothing to lose except postage costs from Australia to Germany. I received an email 2 weeks after posting to advise they had received SD card and would advise outcome within 2 weeks. My response came 1 day after they'd received the card to advise they had recovered 467 photos on the card. I just sat here and cried. Don't give up - sure it's not cheap but my photos are worth more than their cost. I just feel that I want everyone to have the same result as me or at least the opportunity. My memories are now intact. I have no personal connection with recoverfab.

[yad99in]

No doubt your memory card has become corrupt. but you can again use it only after formatting it. For recovering your existing photos you can take the help of photo recovery software . As a professional photographer i have purchased www.stellarphotorecoverysoftware.com. Before purchasing try its demo version so you will get know it will help you or not.

[gascash1]

It's possible, but you'll have to pay for a professional recovery service to do it. I have seen pretty miraculous results from Seagate and the like but it's usually a couple of hundred dollars. If you computer won't recognize it then it's down to taking apart the card and using hardware at this point.

[freygr]

It's possible, but you'll have to pay for a professional recovery service to do it. I have seen pretty miraculous results from Seagate and the like but it's usually a couple of hundred dollars. If you computer won't recognize it then it's down to taking apart the card and using hardware at this point.

The problem a Hard Drive has the data recorded on a spinning disk of magnetic meda which can be moved to a different drive assemble, or have the failed electronics or mechanical parts replaced. Do to the way the data is written you can recover data which has been overwritten. There are limits on how many over writes you can recover.


Now the physical recovery from the Memory cards, any data that has been overwritten is gone. Note formatting or deleting a file, only over writes the directory or the file's directory entry (one bit in the directory's entry) not the data space, so the files can be easily recovered. But if you use the card and the system uses the space of a deleted file it can't be recovered unlike a sending a hard disk out for file recovery, the storage physics are so different.

[lenaten31]

Need to recover deleted photos on iPhone, use iphone data recovery tool to do that - windowspasswordsrecovery.com/iphone-data-recovery/

[minion89]

The problem you encountered is quite serious. You can restore. Or see a technician for repairs.
word games

[LCTMichael]

PHOTORECOVERY is a good, easy to use photo recovery program.
Use it in evaluation mode first, before purchasing, to be sure it can find the files you are looking for.