Learn from my mistake (Page 3): I've had trouble both with cards and images on the hard drive -- losing images on both media owing to neglect and viral issues. I'm just wondering, with...

AlanD Loc: TC, MN

I've had trouble both with cards and images on the hard drive -- losing images on both media owing to neglect and viral issues. I'm just wondering, with the cost of media these days if it might be a solution to just buy new cards in order to archive the images on the old rather than reformatting. This may work until the media changes again (thinking old floppy disks).

jackpi Loc: Southwest Ohio

If you buy a Lexar SD card, the package includes a code for free download of an SD card file recovery tool. I have successfully recovered all of my photos from another vendor's SD card with this tool after I had reformatted the card.

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

Mark-VA wrote:

I think just about everyone has a file loss horror story. This shortcut may help prevent what happened to you: to select all files in a folder highlight one file then hold down the CTRL key and press the A key. This selects all files in a folder. I haven't used it on a Mac so I'm not sure if it works there, but it's been in Windows for a very long time.

Providing its the first or last file selected and all are contiguous. On a Windows machine, selected 1st file then hold down the shift key and then select last file. If there are ones you want to deselect after all are selected, release the shift key and hold down the Control Key while deselecting individual files, this by the way works both bays for non contiguous files.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

AlanD wrote:

I've had trouble both with cards and images on the hard drive -- losing images on both media owing to neglect and viral issues. I'm just wondering, with the cost of media these days if it might be a solution to just buy new cards in order to archive the images on the old rather than reformatting. This may work until the media changes again (thinking old floppy disks).

Changing technology is rarely a problem. You think the old 1.44 floppies can't be read:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1489134&CatId=287
Any medium that is popular is going to be readable for a long time to come. There are even 8 track players available for the diehards!

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

speters wrote:

Well, I'm sorry but I think you're out of luck. If you just had deleted them ok, but you formatted the card and that means they are not retrievable anymore.

Only true if a low level format was done. Otherwise, as already stated, just the directory is cleared.

RichieC Loc: Adirondacks

Digital cards are not considered good for permanent storage. They are rewritable... therefore subject to change, they degrade over time. BUrn a CD to store- get a good make like Taiyo Yuden, and they will outlive you. THEY are cheap!

Reformatting is important because the cards have bad sectors right out of the factory. In fact every media made has bad sectors, hard drives, CD's, RAM, everything! This is normal- the software scans for these sectors, and simply avoids them.. This info is in the directory as well as all the blocks used to store any file/image, It is also how you computer takes advantage of erased holes on a disk or card... every heard of a hard drive that is fragmented? too complicated for this.. know that reformatting simply declares which blocks of memory are available to write to- this is over the top of whatever is there in the first place, they remain until overwrtten-... See- you don't every erase anything, you simply tell your camera it can write to an area. A deep reformat- like Hillary tried to do, actually writes 0's and 1"s in waves over these areas, scrambling anything that might remain... BUt apparently if you have the right technology, you can find forensic traces of what was there... OH well- that's another story.

Re-formatting is an excellent practice as it ensures you are only writing to healthy sectors, The the sectors are available right in a row rather than fragmented by you removing some photos and not others ... and sectors on re-writable media does go bad from time to time... but the images should mostly be intact if you didn't continue to use the card for new photos. When you recover these images using recovery software, you may find images you took years ago... They are still there, you just never over wrote them.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

You can recover them from the formated card. There are plenty of programs out there that do it. If you happened to have purchased Lexar cards, they all come with a code so that you can download a recovery ap directly from the Lexar website and use the app to recover files from a formatted card. I've used it twice and it works great. If you have not used the card and capture more pictures on, you will probably recover all the pics, but if you have used the card, you might recover some of the pics. I did just that. I formatted a card that had pictures of a family gathering at my dying brother's house because I thought I had downloaded the images already. To my surprise, I had only downloaded the jpg's, not the raw from the other card.

It's a slow process for the app to recover the images, but an hour or so later you'll get em back.

Bluetick wrote:

Here's one that I made recently that I'll bet no-one in the group has ever made. I attended a friend's 75th birthday party a couple of weeks ago and took quite a number of images. Was intending to make him a photo album. When I got home I went thru the normal saving of the images to my computer and supplementary external hard drives. I checked the computer to see that the images had been saved and having confirmed that, proceeded to reformat the card. The next day I decided to work on the file to do the customary deletion of near duplicates, some enhancements, etc. Then, about 1/2 way thru the exercise I realized that a significant portion of the images were missing! Horrors! Double horrors! What had happened to them? I had seen them in the camera. Where are they now? Going back thru every card I have produced nothing. So, I surmised that I had made the grievous error of highlighting only a portion of the images when I went to copy them from the card onto the computer. That portion was transferred successfully but I obviously left the others behind only to bite the dust when I reformatted the card. At the moment I am frantically trying to determine if the images can be retrieved using a special scanning software designed to restore lost photos, documents, e-mails, etc.. Nevertheless, what was the root cause of the error you ask? Remember I said I checked the computer to see if the images had been saved? Well, I apparently didn't scroll thru the entire file to assure that the entire group of images had been saved. I had the computer set on large icons and having seen that some images were there, proceeded to assume all were there, which they were not. The rest is history. So, I learned an important lesson the hard way. Always assure that ALL images are saved to multiple hard drives before reformatting your memory card. Sound perfectly simple and basic doesn't it? I've been into digital photography for over ten years and have never done something so #@$%& stupid. Well, yes - I did back in 1972 with film but that's another story.

Here's one that I made recently that I'll bet no-o... (show quote)

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

Bluetick wrote:

Here's one that I made recently that I'll bet no-one in the group has ever made. I attended a friend's 75th birthday party a couple of weeks ago and took quite a number of images. Was intending to make him a photo album. When I got home I went thru the normal saving of the images to my computer and supplementary external hard drives. I checked the computer to see that the images had been saved and having confirmed that, proceeded to reformat the card. The next day I decided to work on the file to do the customary deletion of near duplicates, some enhancements, etc. Then, about 1/2 way thru the exercise I realized that a significant portion of the images were missing! Horrors! Double horrors! What had happened to them? I had seen them in the camera. Where are they now? Going back thru every card I have produced nothing. So, I surmised that I had made the grievous error of highlighting only a portion of the images when I went to copy them from the card onto the computer. That portion was transferred successfully but I obviously left the others behind only to bite the dust when I reformatted the card. At the moment I am frantically trying to determine if the images can be retrieved using a special scanning software designed to restore lost photos, documents, e-mails, etc.. Nevertheless, what was the root cause of the error you ask? Remember I said I checked the computer to see if the images had been saved? Well, I apparently didn't scroll thru the entire file to assure that the entire group of images had been saved. I had the computer set on large icons and having seen that some images were there, proceeded to assume all were there, which they were not. The rest is history. So, I learned an important lesson the hard way. Always assure that ALL images are saved to multiple hard drives before reformatting your memory card. Sound perfectly simple and basic doesn't it? I've been into digital photography for over ten years and have never done something so #@$%& stupid. Well, yes - I did back in 1972 with film but that's another story.

Here's one that I made recently that I'll bet no-o... (show quote)

One thing I do that you might consider is even after I've looked through everything I've uploaded I do not format the card until project is finished and I know everything is safe. I'm sure you'll want to do this or something similar in the future... because you can't be too careful. Sorry this happened.

xptom Loc: Concord, CA

Can you use Lexar's program on other manufacturer's cards?

Jackdoor Loc: Huddersfield, Yorkshire.

boberic wrote:

I have never made a single misteak in my entire life.

Georgews Loc: Wellington, New Zealand

When you open the photos on the card and see them on your computer, hold down the Ctrl key and press A. This key combination will select ALL files (photos) in that folder. ThenCtrl + C to copy and then paste them into a folder on your hard drive Ctrl+V.
BTW we do not "highlight" files, but we "select" them for correct terminology. I have lots of fun with my students when using Word. Highlighting just colours the text but selecting allows you to do something with it. Just being a bit pedantic!
The Ctrl combinations are for a PC - on Mac use the Apple button or whatever it is called now
Cheers

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

boberic wrote:

I have never made a single misteak in my entire life.

I thought I made a mistake once. Turned out I was wrong.

No sign of Bluetick since the original post. Hope he/she is not out filling up that card with new images and missing out on all the excellent suggestions!

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

I had something like this occur. However it was while I was shooting.
I was in a hurry to get the next shot and accidently turned off the camera WHILE the buffer was "dumping" to the memory card. The result was evident when I turned the camera back on.... The message that popped-up stated that I needed to Format the Card... Uh! NO! I did not do that. Instead I took out that card and put in another to finish the project at hand.
Later - at my motel room - I remembered a program I have bought about a year previously = "Card Recovery" (I think it costs 40 bucks).... I took the bad card and put it in a "Card Reader".... Ran the program, and waited till the "Card Recovery" finished with the recovery cycle and saving the files that it found on the card.
To my surprise not only did it recover all of the photographs from that morning - the folder with the recovered files had recovered Many Other photographs from the past that I had before..... Even that I have formatted this card many MANY times before... I still am wondering as to the why these other old assumedly deleted photos were recovered..... Totally amazed by this.

You might try giving this program a go for it..... Here is the link to get the program. I do Highly Recommend it to recover your lost images:::

http://www.cardrecovery.com/?rid=google&kid=cr0102

Hoping for the best for your "lost" image recovery.

elee950021 Loc: New York, NY

xptom wrote:

Can you use Lexar's program on other manufacturer's cards?

Yes, I have used the program for a wide variety of memory cards. Ed

Skitch Loc: Las Vegas, NV

I learned - by trial and error, fortunately not this grievous - to NOT delete the image from my card until I have completed editing. Yes, this means I have to go back to the camera and delete the images individually, but a smal price to pay!😃😝😂😱