JeffDavidson Loc: Originally Detroit Now Los Angeles

If you remember the approximate date of you photos, do a search on your PC. You may have accidentally copied them to a different folder than you thought. Just an idea!

PW4GDF

Just another after the fact thought, any pictures that are to be special, use two cameras or a least your phone as well. Equipment failure does happen.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Not so sure. If all you do is “delete” the files, they are still there. You’re just really “deleting” the “directory”. The files, themselves, are still there, until you “write” over them with NEW files. Even one single new file may end your chances of recovering anything. But when you “reformat”, you’re wiping the SD card clean, including the directory. Unless I’m not understanding how that all works.

Best case scenario, if files were only “deleted”, no new files added and the SD card was not reformatted, then there’s an excellent chance to recover ALL the files. This very thing happened to me about six years ago.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

When we go on cruise vacations, for example, anything taken with the digital camera or the iPhone gets transferred to a flash drive and/or the laptop, or both. I learned the hard way on our honeymoon cruise six years ago. It was late at night, my wife had gone to sleep, and I was standing outside the stateroom, going through the camera deleting the “bad” photos that I didn’t want and I must have made the wrong selection. I wanted “Delete this file”, but instead it was “Delete all files”, and I went and hit “OK”. A few seconds later, the screen showed “No files”. WHAT????? Horrors!!! This was near the end of our cruise and ALL the photos were GONE! Now I had to go into the room and tell my new wife that I just lost all of our honeymoon photos. BUT, my (limited) knowledge of computers came in handy. I knew that the SD card is like a floppy disk or a hard drive in the computer. As long as you don’t write any new files onto it, there is a very good chance you can recover all of your “lost” files or, at least, most of them.

The very next morning, I went to the “Photo Desk” and told them what happened. The guy said he might be able to get back the photos, but it would take overnight and they would charge $10. FINE! DO IT! YES! The next morning, went back to the Photo Desk and he not only was able to recover ALL of the photos, but put them on a CD for me. My marriage was saved!

NOW, on every trip since then, at the end of each day’s shooting, I transfer everything to the computer, in a folder marked “Cruise Pix” (or whatever) and also copy THAT folder onto a flash drive — just in case.

Also, bring extra SD cards because even the cards, themselves, can fail. If you have extra cards, at worst you’d lose only that day’s photos.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Yes, once the card is reformatted, it is essentially “wiped clean” and is as if it were a brand new card with no data on it at all, other than the formatting parameters.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Maybe, but your chances of a full recovery are greatly reduced, once you’ve reformatted the card. You might get something, likely won’t get everything, but it’s always worth trying.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

The “photo guy” on the cruise ship (when I thought I’d lost ALL of our honeymoon photos) was able to recover all of them and put them on a CD. Charged me $10. No problem at all, thank you very much! So, even $15 is a small price to pay to get all of your photos back.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

I’ve had that happen once or twice, where at some point I realized that the film wasn’t “winding”. Yes, if you are good at loading the film, you can crank out as many as 39 (but not one more!) exposures on a “36”-exposure roll. If you try for “40”, you’ll tear the film. When I’d load film, I would make sure to turn the take-up reel just enough to get tension, and then squeeze off a couple of “shots” just to make sure the film was being wound. If you don’t do that, you run the risk that the film could come off the reel.