Walkabout08

Near the end of my just finished South Africa trip my 64gb XQD card mysteriously deleted hundreds of images when I apparently exceeded the card capacity. Using a Z7 shooting lossless RAW. I started reviewing my photos after visiting the SÁ penguins only to find all the prior images were gone. The card shows 120 or so images, all of which were of the penguins. From initial searches it may be that many of the missing images may be recoverable. I would greatly appreciate any recommendations for who or how I can proceed. Also has anyone else seen this happen? I may have lost a lot of my trip and am very upset!

VTMatwood Loc: Displaced Vermonta in Central New Hampsha

I experienced an SD card failure following a recent trip, and "lost" 1200 RAW images. The only software that would recover them was EaseUs. I tried several others in "Free" mode, which simply evaluates what they can recover, but won't actually recover them. It was $70 but worth it to recover all those pictures. I wish you luck.

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

There are numerous recovery programs out there. Just google image recovery software.
I would be interested in your end result. Seems to me if the card was full te images were actually not recorded.
Good luck with your efforts.

Bill_de Loc: US

It could be that the camera created a second folder on the card. Check the menu and look for folders.

---

Rongnongno Loc: FL

That, by far, is the best answer. A camera creates a folder when it reaches 1000 images. Since the size is 64GB that is most likely the case.

CliffMcKenzie Loc: Lake Athens Texas

Like you, I recently experienced loss of images during a shoot (https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-752578-1.html). Working with members of the UHH, Plano Photography Club and Nikon here are the conclusions:
1. When a disk has been formatted (think lost images), the camera writes new images without regard to first and last. As an example, I lost the first 50 to 100 images of my shoot that day but was able to recover 1,700+ of which 237 was from the current shoot. Some of the recovered images date back to April. Yes, I format my disks after every shoot in camera. Software used Wondershare Recoverit.
2. My second drive was set to overflow - what was your setting? Going forward, sporting\fast moving targets will be set to overflow. I am experimenting with RAW backup or Jpeg (yes the J word) for all other work. As an example, I am shooting State Fair of Texas today, I need speed of writing to disk and will use Jpeg as the backup.
3. In my case, a rare set up in Fn2 My Menu which triggered the "format disk". For this to occur, it would have been easier for me to guess the correct 6 numbers in the lottery. Nikon D850, Sony Disk, Sony Disk Reader and my upload process were not to blame.

1. Why are you shooting 64 instead of 128?
2. What is the setting for your second bay? Assumption Z7 has two bays

Recovery software mentioned above.

Walkabout08

Thanks everyone for your insights. Here’s what happened. The good news: when I opened the card on my computer I found two folders, much to my surprise. All the photos I thought were gone were found one of the folders which were not displaying at all when I was reviewing the shots. The pros at Hunts Photo told me that once your frame count reaches 9999, Nikon software then creates a new folder and restarts the shutter count at 100. Hats off to Bill_de for his correct assessment. Cheers!

Walkabout08

FYI my Z7 has only a single card slot.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

Most excellent! What you encountered is not a Nikon or card type thing. ALL camera makers follow an industry standard called Design rule for Camera File system (DCF). Look it up in Wikipedia, I did.This is a relatively old standard, 2010 version current, that ensures all cameras and software can play together nicely regardless of manufacture.

The first step to regain calm is to do what you eventually did. Look at the device with trusted software like Explorer or Finder and see what it finds. Unfortunately this may not be possible in the field. A known place to stumble over issues like this is in Lightroom Classic Import process where they offer the choice of not looking in subfolders. I suppose they offer this for some unusual setup I don’t understand.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

Check to see if there aren't two different folders containing your images. When the numbering system reaches the end (10,000) It creates a new folder and starts numbering them from 0001 then.

Nicholas J DeSciose

Send the card to the manufacture this is absolutely the best way to get images recovered

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

After you verify they are really missing.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

jeff1234 Loc: Kirkland, WA

I had a similar experience at Yellowstone with a Sony XQD card. The (free) Sony software worked perfectly after the one I found online wasted a couple of hours finding the files but not restoring them.

Walkabout08

That was it, thanks!