Images Recovered from Corrupted SD Card

[PrestburyJack]

The SD Card in my Nikon "Point & Shoot" digital camera has become corrupted. Whilst using the camera the batteries died. Upon replacing them, suddenly the camera shows "Card Not Formatted", and I cannot view any of the images that were on the card (which was quite a lot!). I never removed the card when the batteries died, just replaced the batteries, albeit they died whilst the camera was mid-use (lens open, it only shut again when new batteries fitted). The card had previously been in a Pentax "Point & Shoot" camera, not sure if this contributed to the problem, I was under the impression that SD cards could be swapped around between cameras, is this not the case?.

 

Does anyone know please, is it possible to recover the images that were on the card prior to it becoming corrupted, or have I lost everything - unfortunately / stupidly I had not got round to printing the images or saving them elsewhere!

[Buhar]

There are some data recovery utilities you can download, but I couldn't recommend any particular one. I suspect they're a mixed bunch and some may work better with some cards than others. If the images are really important you could try one of the firms that do this. Geek Squad springs to mind (just think how much you'd pay for processing that many pictures 10 years ago).

[tebee]

First I would try is plugging it into a card reader on a PC - cameras sometimes get confused by minor errors a PC recovers from.

 

If it's still unreadable then any of the programs that are used to recover data from a corrupt PC disk should work on the card. The card is formatted the same as a disk although it is a solid state device. If you have not got this sort of program any good local PC repair shop should have programs to recover it.

 

99.9% of cameras and other devices use the same format so moving it from one to the other should not cause problems. Modern digital camera have a small computer inside that runs the cameras functions and controls the card. It's possible there are inconsistencies in the way different cameras handle things like errors though as the computers are not always that powerful and each manufacture writes their own version of the protocol to read and write to the card.

[SRman]

I would agree 100% (or more!!) with tebee. Try a card reader with your computer - if you don't have one they are not very expensive.

 

I recently had to rescue just such a corrupted card for one of the Assistant Principals at my school. I was able to recover around 95% of her photos with the remainder being unreadable. After saving the good ones I reformatted the card and all was well again.

 

It also made me appear clever in her eyes, a good thing when one can impress the boss!

[Glorious NSE]

I was under the impression that SD cards could be swapped around between cameras, is this not the case?.

 

It is, but i'd reccomend formatting it or at least deleting the contents between camera's as they may well use slightly different file formats.

 

The problem you have is more likely due to it being half way through updating the files when the batteries went, so the camera now can't tell what's there & what isn't however, rather than the CF card not liking being used in different devices or developing a fault.

 

If that's the case then all the info apart from the image that was being saved when it shut down will probably still be there.

 

First thing to do is not to panic!

 

Second thing to do, do not use (in either camera) or format the card yet - writing images to it as if it was a fresh card could over-write your lost images obliterating them (you will not get those back) - and formatting makes it harder to recover and impossible to find them images by any normal means (You can recover images from a card where they have been deleted or the card has been formatted, but that definately needs a specialist program)

 

I'd agree that looking at the contents on a PC card reader is definately a good first step, if that gets you to the images (they are probably in folders on the card) that's fine, copy them off (and ideally back them up somewhere!) - format the card and you're good to go again.

 

If not there are various recovery programs on the net, see if you can get a reccomendation for one from a photography site ideally just to make sure you aren't downloading some dodgy program.

 

unfortunately / stupidly I had not got round to printing the images or saving them elsewhere!

 

Take it as a learning point then - i'm sure we've all done similar stuff, I know I have - there's a reason that I know you can recover some images after formatting the card ("Hmmm - if the new card for formatting is sat there on the desk, which card did I just format....!!")

 

I'd reccomend:

 

1. Don't use the camera as your storage device, get it nicked or leave it somewhere and all your pics are gone - transfer pics to a more secure/permanent storage location ASAP

2. If your storage location is a PC think about an external hard drive as a backup device, hard drive failures do happen and if it happens to you again you lose all your pics.

3. If you take lots of photo's and need to get them off your PC hard drive then consider two external drives, one to back the other up - that might sound extreme but it's a drive that can fail just like the PC.

 

External drives have plummeted in price - one of mine (750gig) was purchased for less than £40 in the WH Smiths sale - so keeping those images safe isn't neccesarily the expense it once was.

 

 

[Adrian]

If you can hook the card up to a computer then see if there is any data viewable, if not then I can recommend PhotoRec for recovery of the lost data. It's a free bit of software and I have used it sucessfully on a number of occasions for people in the office.

 

There is a complete step by step guide here http://www.cgsecurit...ec_Step_By_Step

 

More info here : http://www.cgsecurit...g/wiki/PhotoRec

 

Finally a review here : http://jaypeeonline....eware/photorec/

 

Good luck

[bertiedog]

Recuva is a free program that will recover the shots, almost however corrupted, even from formatted cards, as long as new shots have not been taken, even then some shots still exist in memory.

 

I have used it on most media with 100% success, it's interesting seeing peoples shots on cards they have formatted, supplied with cameras from Ebay. ........if you want total removal use a proper data scrambler program, formatting memory does no removal work whatsoever!!!

The problem is the final file closure for the last frame has not been written properly,(experts turn away at that description).

 

Use either the camera with the USB lead attached to read the card, or a simple card reader, and the missing file will be viewable, and the other images are sorted out, and can be transferred within windows, one at a time, or by batch.

 

It is not good practice to swap cards with camera makes, the cameras may be set to different numbering methods etc., and although it seems to work most of the time, problems can arise.

 

If after recover and formatting the card on the reader, the camera fails to respond, try switching off and on several times, and see if the factory default setting in the menu will engage, most makes restore at this point.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Stephen.

[PrestburyJack]

Thank you everyone who has replied with very some positive info, seems all is not lost after all, hopefully I will be able to recover the pictures as suggested.

 

I've also learnt what to do and not to do in future, thanks also for the tips regarding storing pictures on a PC.

 

Cheers

 

Gary

[PrestburyJack]

I've managed to get back approximately 80 - 90% of the images, the remainder are partly viewable, but partly obscured by plain grey, and in some cases the image is a montage of 2 or 3 images so also not viewable.

 

I assume that the corrupted images are permanently corrupted?

 

At least I managed to get most back, thanks for your help.

[tebee]

I've managed to get back approximately 80 - 90% of the images, the remainder are partly viewable, but partly obscured by plain grey, and in some cases the image is a montage of 2 or 3 images so also not viewable.

 

I assume that the corrupted images are permanently corrupted?

 

At least I managed to get most back, thanks for your help.

 

It's possible the missing bits of those images are still on the card and whatever program you used to recover then could not work out were they where or what belonged to what. It's therefore possible that if you have the time and the skill to manually examine the internal contents of the card - or the money to pay someone to do this for you - you could recover some more.

 

It's also possible you could spend time and/or money doing this and be able to recover nothing or very little, it all depends on how valuable you consider the missing photos whether it's worth while trying.

 

 

If you want an explanation of how these things work internally I can find one or give you one, but it's not altogether what you would call simple!

 

Tom

[bertiedog]

It may pay to try another recovery program, there are several on the market free, but the more expensive paid for versions are better at sorting the still scrambled stuff. They can give temp identities to the sections and sort the files out. I have found most that are overlaid will sort, but banded ones may be to corrupted, with only the visible part recoverable. If the program can display it it is savable is the rule.

 

Stephen.

[Foulounoux]

Just think yourself lucky it could have been much worse

 

Colleague went on honeymoon with new camera and new card

 

Got back nothing was on the card - was complete no go

We tried all sorts of things but appeared to have been a completely fried card.

So photos from his honeymoon gone forever.

 

Since that episode I tend to take laptop with me and download at earliest opportunity

 

Colin

[k9-70]

Thanks for the heads up on Recuva disc recovery programme.

Just recovered 41,562 railway images from an old hard drive that crashed last year.

It took just over an hour to complete, but am I glad as I thought I'd lost for good the digital railway images I had made between 2007 & 2009.

 

Just got to burn them to dvd once I've sorted them out.

 

K9-70

[stewartingram]

Similar theme, does anyone have a suggestion for CD recovery? Basically for some time now I've been putting pics onto CD from various sources (slide scans, neg scans, downloads etc, as well as digitals from my own camera). I've split the CD's into subject categories. Occasionally I go back to a CD only to find it won't load up in the PC. This appears not to be a scratch or dirt type problem. Also over the years I have rebuilt the PC a few times (old hammer, new handle & head but same hammer comes to mind here). Sometimes the CD will open up on a new drive. Any chance of recovery of these? Oh, and btw, the CD's nowadays have been backed up elsewhere, but I have kept the faulty ones just in case.....

[bertiedog]

Recova will work with any files normally accessible with windows, so works with CD-R/RW, but don't forget some corruption on CD is physical damage, and may put the file beyond proper recovery. Also with commercially recorded CD's the security systems can interfere I am told.

I have used it with CD/RW for data and MP3 files.

 

Stephen.

[k9-70]

Similar theme, does anyone have a suggestion for CD recovery? Basically for some time now I've been putting pics onto CD from various sources (slide scans, neg scans, downloads etc, as well as digitals from my own camera). I've split the CD's into subject categories. Occasionally I go back to a CD only to find it won't load up in the PC. This appears not to be a scratch or dirt type problem. Also over the years I have rebuilt the PC a few times (old hammer, new handle & head but same hammer comes to mind here). Sometimes the CD will open up on a new drive. Any chance of recovery of these? Oh, and btw, the CD's nowadays have been backed up elsewhere, but I have kept the faulty ones just in case.....

 

If your cd/dvd drive can't read your discs, then it's most likely that the programme you used to transfer the files to cd/dvd has corrupted some or all of them during the process.

This happened to me last year when I used my sister's computer to transfer railway images I made while on holiday to the Uk.

The images copied to cd's without a problem, but when I placed the cd's in my dvd drive, many of the images where unreadable.

 

K9-70

[tebee]

For cd's that have errors when when you try to read the actual file I've used Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier

 

If you can not see what files are on it, that normally means the directory is corrupted or has errors. I've used Active File Recovery to recover hard drives in this condition in the past, not tried it on a CD , but there's a free download version if you want to try.

 

Tom

[beast66606]

Thanks for the heads up on Recuva disc recovery programme.

Just recovered 41,562 railway images from an old hard drive that crashed last year.

It took just over an hour to complete, but am I glad as I thought I'd lost for good the digital railway images I had made between 2007 & 2009.

 

Just got to burn them to dvd once I've sorted them out.

 

K9-70

 

Backups - vital in the digital age, as you now know !

 

 

Whether more is (easily) recoverable from the SD card is very dependant on exactly what happened when the batteries died, the chances are the intact files have been recovered and now you are into mix and matching file fragments - if the lost pictures aren't important then it's time to move on, time and money will start increasing rapidly if you're not careful.

 

 

For CDs try a different machine, sometimes slight difference in alignment of the lasers can make a problem CD readable elsewhere.

[SRman]

Beast beat me to it ( ) - try a different machine. If you can read it on that machine, check the CD to see if it has been closed; that is, the file system has been closed and the CD cannot be written to again. Some CD burning programs leave the CD open for further writes to take place and these open CDs may have difficulty being read on other systems.

 

Another possibility is that your older system may have used a different CD file standard - a few older ones I have were written on Windows 98 (many moons ago!) and needed an add-on to make them readable on Windows XP.

[Welly]

Yesterday afternoon I was using my DSLR with a brand new 8G SD card at a family get-together and the SD card failed!

 

I had taken about 60 pictures without any problem but when I attempted to take another picture my camera came up with an error screen indicating that something is wrong with the SD card and would not let me look at the images already on it. The camera would not even let me format the SD card!

 

I plugged the card into my PC but it was not recognised as a drive. I found this thread and downloaded both recovery utilities suggested earlier and used them both but neither of them worked because they rely on the SD card being recognised as a drive!

 

Anyone else had the same problem with their SD card?

[SeanNeedham]

Anyone else had the same problem with their SD card?

 

 

Try plugging your camera directly in to the computer with the USB (or if you are using the camera, try a card reader). Most of the time when people have problems with cards not being recognised, it is most likely the card reader that is at fault.

 

Also, if it's one of the new whizzbang SDHC, older card readers don't recognise this format, as they are to old to be tuned for it as well; and I find with the photography forum I'm on, this catches a lot of people out.

 

<div><br></div><div>EDIT - What I forgot to say, is that if you are having trouble with the card not being recognised as a drive, regardless of if you plug your camera in to the computer or use a card reader, is place that card back in the camera, and format it through the camera menu (trust me on this, I've done it purposefully and accidentally many times).  Then plug the camera back in to the computer using the USB and run a recover package on it.</div><div><br></div><div>The reason why this works is when you format anything, unless you are using a secure format algorithm, is the format only modifies a very small part of the disk, the information header to tell the device what the block size is, the drive 'format' is, nothing more.  All the data is still there on the disk.</div><div><br></div><div>Also, as a photographer by trade, one tip to anyone reading this, is every time you have downloaded your images to your computer and made a backup (a portable USB hard disk isn't a lot of cash compared to having the loss of your photos), put the card back in the camera and format it.</div>

[beast66606]

Sean - the error was originally with the camera, it doesn't recognise the card. To use a technically expression Welly, it sounds like the card is "flipped" Buy a new one and move on.

 

BTW - If it's a Sandisk you can get it replaced for postage, check their website for details, I've had two replacement cards from them

[SeanNeedham]

Sean - the error was originally with the camera, it doesn't recognise the card. To use a technically expression Welly, it sounds like the card is "flipped" Buy a new one and move on.

 

BTW - If it's a Sandisk you can get it replaced for postage, check their website for details, I've had two replacement cards from them

 

Seconded for the Sandisks, it's the only brand I use, but buy them direct from a reputable camera shop (Jessops, London Camera Exchange), as a lot of places on the net (Ebay in particular) sell fake Sandisks. Also, what I do, being of the old film way of thinking, is to buy 16GB but in 4GB cards, so if one card does go down whilst you are out taking photos, then you don't lose all the photos from that day, and never completely fill the card at the same time.

[bertiedog]

As it seemed to accept the first shots, it was writing files, and it may be worthwhile trying to format in another camera. I had the same problem with a large capacity 4 gig card that the software in a Pentax compact was not set up for.

 

 

Windows and the recovery program saw no drive in the same way, and the reader had the same problem, but then I tried formatting in another camera and the drive was then recognized, and Recova then worked to get at the images on the computer.

 

Just in case you or any other reader has problems like this do check the original makers specifications for the max SD card value the camera is designed for.

 

I am not saying this is behind this particular issue, but some models simply cannot handle the larger cards, the software in the camera cannot handle it..

 

Earlier designed Compacts are especially prone to this, particularly Pentax, funnily enough a Ricoh compact I also have accepts any SD card without limit.

 

I think part of the problem is the Pentax display and menus have no way to display the higher capacity figures!!! .. they were designed before the large card came out, and the software simply does not handle it.

 

With a DSLR you are far less likely to have the problem, but some models do take ages to process the shots with the very large cards, and several forums on photography report the large capacity cards are not so reliable as the smaller cards, which generally are very reliable at 2 gig now.

Stephen.

[Welly]

Sean - the error was originally with the camera, it doesn't recognise the card. To use a technically expression Welly, it sounds like the card is "flipped" Buy a new one and move on.

 

BTW - If it's a Sandisk you can get it replaced for postage, check their website for details, I've had two replacement cards from them

 

Aye Beast, I've also concluded that the card has flipping flipped!

 

The brand that flipped on me is "Transcend" - now I'm reluctant to get this brand again so 2 more Sandisks are on order and a refund for the flipped card is being organised.

 

It's a blessing in disguise, my father and I are set to go on holiday later this year and we purchased an 8Gb card each for our cameras so I'm glad it's flipped yesterday rather than when it has 200 odd pictures that I won't have another chance to take!

 

Edited to add:

 

Stephen - I have a Nikon D40 but didn't mention it as I did not believe it was a make specific problem. The failed SD card was inserted into my father's cameras ( both Samsungs ) and both stated "Memory Card Error" as well so no chance of reformatting the card using another camera.

 

At your suggestion I checked the manual and the maximum recommended SD card size is 4Gb but my D40 actually recognised the 8Gb card by stating 2.2K images free ( Each image is 3Mb )