Tip #4432 - Recovering Data From Your Memory Card
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Recovering
Data From Your Memory Card
It seems like
everyone has a digital camera these days. More and more people are
using them to record the wonderful moments of their lives. But, it
also seems as if digital pictures are easier to lose over traditional
film, because digital cameras have a useful, yet dangerous Delete
button feature. A simple mistake could instantly delete one or all
of your pictures. When that happens, do you think your valuable pictures
are lost for good? Well, they aren't! There are a few things you can
do to recover them in most cases.
Digital cameras
store the pictures you take as separate files on a flash memory card
(also known as "digital film"). Memory cards have many different
types as well. For example, SD, CF, xD Picture Card, SmartMedia, Memory
Stick, MMC Card and more. Each card type also has a different brand,
including Sandisk, Lexar and others. They have different sizes, capacity
and appearance, but they are all the same when acting as a storage
device to hold your pictures. When you delete a picture from your
camera, your camera locates the picture's file on your memory card,
marks it as "deleted" and then frees up the space it was
using. In most cases though, cameras don't delete the picture's file
body, which makes it possible to retrieve them back after deletion!
Okay, let's begin!
To recover a deleted picture, you need to connect your camera to your
computer (usually via a USB cable). If your camera doesn't appear
as a drive letter under your My Computer icon, an
external USB card reader is necessary. You can find those at local
computer stores and they're very cheap. They're very useful not only
for data recovery, but also for photo retrieval. When you insert your
memory card into the card reader and connect the card reader to your
computer, it will appear as a drive letter under My Computer,
which will allow the software tool to access the data on your memory
card.
Once you have
your camera or card reader connected, you may download the picture
recovery software, CardRecovery, right here.
It's a small download and you may get it in less than two minutes.
Run the downloaded executable file and follow the instructions to
install it on your computer. Then simply launch it. It has a wizard
style interface and it's very easy to use.
Click Next
on the welcome window and it will bring you to step 1. In step 1,
you may specify the drive letter of your camera or card reader, as
well as other options, including the file type to retrieve, the location
of where to save the recovered pictures and so on. Click Next
to go to step 2 and the scan will start. Depending on the capacity
of your card, it may take several minutes for the software to fully
scan your memory card. When it's done, the found pictures will be
listed for you. You may preview the detected pictures as thumbnails
in step 3 and you can then choose the deleted pictures you need to
save. After that, click Next again and the CardRecovery
program will save the selected pictures to the location you specified
in step 1.
Your deleted
pictures are now recovered and back again. It can't be easier or faster
to do!
More Tips
1.) Don't take
more pictures on your memory card if you find you have deleted a picture
by mistake. Otherwise, it may cause overwriting and make them unrecoverable.
2.) Use a USB
2.0 connection if available to connect your camera or card reader
to your computer. It may make the scan go a lot faster than a USB
1.x connection.
3.) CardRecovery's
evaluation version can scan your media and find your lost files for
free. On the other hand, the internal preview feature allows you to
view and check the recovered photos before you purchase the software.
The software can be unlocked to a full version on the fly after purchasing
it (it usually costs $45). You don't need to exit or reinstall the
program to get the other versions. Keep in mind though that the free
version will do most of what you need.
Happy picture
saving!
~ Zahid H. Javali
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