I need to format the disk, what???
It most likely has happened to you in the past, if not, well, prepare yourself as chances are it will happen in the future. You put your storage card from your camera into a reader and plug it in to a PC and everything seems fine up until the dreaded message:
[label type=”important”]TIP : Before putting your card into the reader make sure you lock your card so nothing can interact with the card apart from read. [/label]
Now unless you have an Eye-Fi Mobi and backing up as you go, chances are you’ve just swore alot… How many photographys/videos have you potentially lost?
This happened to me very recently, fortunately 95% of the photography on the card were backed up only about 8 taken on my new camera would have been lost. However, even 8 is an unacceptable loss as all it takes is one good photo, or maybe two to be gone forever and a chance of exposure is lost.
Possible Solution – PhotoRec
Now I say possible as really circumstances can differ greatly but, in my case it was definitely a solution. I Googled about found some very overpriced bits of software that might have recovered my card data but one stuck out, PhotoRec.
[blockquote source=”PhotoRec Website”]PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from hard disks, CD-ROMs, and lost pictures (thus the Photo Recovery name) from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the file system and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media’s file system has been severely damaged or reformatted.[/blockquote]
I have to say a donation will be sent to the author as this bit of software is fantastic to say the least. Run the application and you have a simple to use Command Prompt Style GUI. I selected to scan the whole card then selected where I’d like the recovered files to go and proceed.
So happy that this recovered all the photographs on my SD card :). Just a reminder that it’s always good to have some sort of backup strategy in place. Certainly one to bookmark so if this happens to you, you can run it, see if you get the same success as me. Check it out: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec.
Have you used another bit of software you’d recommend? Please comment below :).
*Feature Image by Eric Schmuttenmaer on Flickr
