Help recovering images from Flash memory cards!

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
I have a 256mb flash card for my digicam. Took 181 pics...burned them onto a cd. Took another 120+ shots and the card stopped working. When I got back to Canada, I went to a photo place to get the pics transfered...and they said that there are no pics on the card...it's as if it was formatted...but my camera can't read it at all.

Does anyone know if there's a way to unformat a card or recover images from one?
I appreciate any and all help!!!

Thanks
deBish
 
The card is most likely damaged.

Perhaps the connectors are dirty, i'd clean them carefully if I could (but AFAIK compact flash cards have those hidden)
 
Luis G said:
The card is most likely damaged.

Perhaps the connectors are dirty, i'd clean them carefully if I could (but AFAIK compact flash cards have those hidden)
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From what little I've seen, flash-based roms are pretty much impossible to recover from. Your best bet is to format it and try taking pictures again to see if its physically damanged or if the filestructure is damaged. Not much else you can do, and the stuff on it is probably long gone. :(
 
Borrowed a flash-card reader...the thing ain't even recognizing that the card's present. Looks like I've lost the last 120-140 pics from my trip to Spain and France :(

CRAP!!!!
 
Professur said:
And thus, we see why digital will never completely replace 35mm.
Click to expand...

Give it time...35mm still has problems with exposure, light-leaks, bad chemical mixes, stuck mirrors etc etc...and *then* you have to scan and upload for editing purposes. Besides...it ain't the camera that I have an issue with...it's the flash card. The camera's still taking nice pics.

BTW.. any input on my particular problem? D'ya know of any local companies that I can take this to?
 
One's and zeros. dude. Either it's good, or it's corrupt. If it was CompactFlash, I could test it on a different machine, but it's not. but you've tried several places, and none have come up, so I'd say you're toast.

don't feel too bad. Dad once won a trip over Mtl in the P&W bird. I was snapping pics like crazy, all over. Only to discover that I'd shot 36 on a 24 roll, and that the advance had slipped, and I hadn't taken a single damn shot all day. I could have cried.
 
Professur said:
One's and zeros. dude. Either it's good, or it's corrupt. If it was CompactFlash, I could test it on a different machine, but it's not. but you've tried several places, and none have come up, so I'd say you're toast.

don't feel too bad. Dad once won a trip over Mtl in the P&W bird. I was snapping pics like crazy, all over. Only to discover that I'd shot 36 on a 24 roll, and that the advance had slipped, and I hadn't taken a single damn shot all day. I could have cried.
Click to expand...

We're talking about a trip to Spain...family shots and a wedding which I took pics of (ceremony/wedding couple/photo opps for wedding),,,

This is the main reason for our trip to Spain...and we missed the majority of it because of JAG's asthma attack. To lose the photos of this once in a lifetime event...MrsBish is already crying over the potential for a loss of photos... the actual loss...that'd be a heartbreaker.

I'll keep hacking away at it...I've got acess to a few card-readers...none of which even recognize that there's a card in there. I was hoping that it was something physically wrong and that the info was still there, if not accesseable.
 
Inkara1 said:
What brand is the flash card?
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I'll have to check from home...I don't have it on me right now. I'm tempted to go to a retailer..but I get the feeling that they'd jsut mail it to the manufacturer...only to be labeled 'malfunction' and having a new one sent to me. It's still under warranty....bloody card!
 
I'm not sure of the brand, but it's a Memory Stick, if I recall correctly. My having bought you a rather useless CompactFlash reader.
 
Professur said:
I'm not sure of the brand, but it's a Memory Stick, if I recall correctly. My having bought you a rather useless CompactFlash reader.
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This is a borrowed stick...I caouldn't afford a 256mb stick, and I didn't have access to a CDR so that I could burn off of my 32mb card. With the number of pics that I was taking...32mb wouldn't have cut it.

Lemme check with the source....

...
...
Sandisk - SD card.
 
I guess I should start taking precautions with my card. I've got a 64mb Kodak SD card in my camera, only because 16mb internal memory just wasn't cutting it.

As for your problem, I don't have a clue. Except to make sure the contacts are clean. Otherwise I can't think of anything else.
 
MrBishop said:
I have a 256mb flash card for my digicam. Took 181 pics...burned them onto a cd. Took another 120+ shots and the card stopped working. When I got back to Canada, I went to a photo place to get the pics transfered...and they said that there are no pics on the card...it's as if it was formatted...but my camera can't read it at all.

Does anyone know if there's a way to unformat a card or recover images from one?
I appreciate any and all help!!!

Thanks
deBish
Click to expand...

It's OK to boil your memory card: official
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Monday 2nd August 2004 13:32 GMT
If you ever want to destroy a digital camera’s memory card, don’t bother putting it through the wash or hitting it with a sledgehammer as neither will guarantee destruction.

According to a Digital Camera Shopper magazine investigation cited on The Beeb, five of the main memory card formats - CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia - will happily hang on to your data despite being boiled, washed, dunked in cola, run over with a skateboard and worse: being given to a six-year old who was instructed to destroy the cards.

The xD card and the SmartMedia card even survived being hit with a sledgehammer and nailed to a tree, although it did take a data retrieval expert to get the photographs out.

Staff at DCS expressed their amazement: “We knew modern memory cards were durable, but had no idea they would be quite so tough." quoth editor Geoff Harris. He suggests that the UK’s 18 million digital photographers should still back up their pictures, presumably in case of the card being struck by lightning during a tornado which has driven a nail through the memory card and thrown it two miles into an inconveniently-sited blast furnace.

The BBC report does not say why the staff at DCS felt the need to abuse defenceless memory cards in this brutal fashion, but we say it is a job well done. ®
Click to expand...


Source


OK, so exactly what did you do with that card again?
 
Professur said:
Source


OK, so exactly what did you do with that card again?
Click to expand...

NIce story...I did SFA to the card..it was in the camera. The camera turned off. When we tried turning it back on..no luck. Thought that the batteries had died. We were at the end of our trip so we waited until we got home to replace the batteries (We used film in the interim).

Got home, changed batteries...no luck. Tried a bunch of things and nothing worked until we took the card out of the camera...then everything was fine. Card inside the camera..nada. No card, or another card in the camera..fine.

Tried DLing recovery programs, but I couldn't even get external readers to recognize the memcard. Picture-developing place told me they couldn't read it. Sent to manufacturer...they said "Sorry" and sent a new card in replacement. No explanations...jsut bye bye pics. :(

Over 250pics -- poof Just like that!
 
I picked up a nice little 7-in-1 reader/floppy combo for $15 yesterday. It's an internal, but I'm mocking up an adapter for external use too.
 
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