Digicam Flash memory recovery

Digicam Flash memory recovery

Here's the problem: A family friend's parents went to visit their relatives in their home country, and brought along a digicam to take pictures- They took pictures of their aunt, and through some tragic coincidence, she passed away a week later.
They returned home, and we viewed the pictures from the camera using the video out cable, on the tv, and everything was fine. They wanted to make prints to send back to their relatives, especially the ones with their aunt.
Then.. I removed the 128M SD card, and when I tried to download the pictures, the card apparently was corrupted, not sure how, and it lost half the pictures, and of course the crucial ones. There's still readable pictures on it, so it's not completely gone, but the important ones don't show any more.
I tried to do an error check with the card reader but it didn't seem to work; directory still shows a whole bunch of screwy file names on it that aren't jpg extensions.
Is there any way to recover data like this?
I know there are places that do hard drive recovery, but are there equivalents for flash memory cards?

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

Lexar has a software program out or coming out ("Image Rescue") that might do it. Many companies offer such services, but I've never had to try any of these.
PC World article on Lexar thing

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

Hmm, that looks promising- I'll look into it, thanks!

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

There may be some usefull info at a digital camera site robgalbraith.com
Go to the Storage Media and Readers forum and search [photo recovery software].
Until you try the recovery software, don't try anything else. It may corrupt the data further.
I hope you get your images back. Good luck.

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

[ QUOTE ]
nekomane said:
There may be some usefull info at a digital camera site robgalbraith.com
Go to the Storage Media and Readers forum and search [photo recovery software].
Until you try the recovery software, don't try anything else. It may corrupt the data further.
I hope you get your images back. Good luck.


[/ QUOTE ]

I looked through the site, and found good press on DataRescue, and it looks like it might do the job! The demo for the program shows the thumbnails for the missing pictures, so I'll get the full version and give it a go- hopefully it'll work out. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Photo Rescue 2.0
Thanks for the pointer!

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

I hope that's not an HP Photosmart 320.

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

No, it was a Gateway, but I have to wonder if the card was zapped from static (though I was careful to stay away from the exposed contacts), or maybe some incompatibilty with my card reader.

The Data Rescue program did the trick though- it was able to recover all the pictures, even though Windows was having problems seeing the directory at all- whew! Bacon saved for another day...

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

I've never experienced losing images yet, but imagine it could happen to me anytime. Thanks for informing us with the results /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

Try this: http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm

Freeware. I use it on my USB jumpdrive when things get messed up (very rarely).

They also have a product for sale called SMART RECOVERY designed to recover from just the errors you describe. It may be worth a shot.

http://www.pcinspector.de/smart_media_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

It was the first time I've ever experienced it myself- I usually use compact flash, which I prefer; I don't know if the SD cards may be just more susceptible. Think I'll be sure to ground myself or wear a wrist strap when handling it in the future- just in case...

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

I just downloaded and installed SmartRecovery and it seems to be freeware as well - not sure - havn't tried to recover anything yet.

[EDIT] it's working now, recovering missing files off of my sony memory stick.

[Edit 2] Download.com confirms that it's FREE!

Re: Help?? Digicam Flash memory recovery

I ran through with Smart Recovery, and it did recover a lot of the missing files, but it didn't seem to get all of them-some of the jpgs that came back seem to have extra stuff appended to it (one picture was 1.4M vs 359K, and another was 265MB vs 624KB). The two pictures look the same, though, so it looks like Data Rescue does trimming of the non-image garbage that might have gotten attached.
The Data Rescue had a higher success rate, but Smart Recovery's still worth a try; can't beat the price.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Really neat how these programs can pull this off! I really didn't expect they would work as well as they did.

Thanks, all! Chalk another one up to the collective CPF brain /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif