about to cry...need some help

[momtoejanda]

I have a cannon rebel and have never had a problem until yesterday. we were on vacation and I went to take another picture (had taken a few hundred before that) and it say card needs to be formatted. Is there any way to retrieve those pictures I took before that?

 

[photo_chick]

First... have you tried downloading the card with a card reader? Sometimes that will do the trick. If not, recovery software may help. Set the card aside until you can get some, or take it someplace that offers the service.

 

[disneychic]

Did you format the card? If you did all the photos are gone. If you did not you should be able to put the card in your computer and retrieve the photos that are on there.

 

[momtoejanda]

I didnt format the card.

I tried sticking it in my computer but it doesnt seem to recognize it.

Is best buys geek squad an ok place to take it?

 

[photo_chick]

It depends on the geeks at the Best Buy. Some are good, some are not so good.


And just to note on the earlier comment, it is possible to recover data from a formatted card.

 

[momtoejanda]

is there a better place to go than best buy?

This is five days of vacation pictures.

 

[zackiedawg]

Sandisk makes a free recovery program that I've found works extremely well - it can even recover photos off of formatted cards, as long as they haven't been written over.

Search for Rescuepro...I found one free downloadable link here:
http://www.lc-tech.com/software/rprodetail.html
(I do not know the company or site, or have any affiliation).

It often comes free with any high end Sandisk card purchases - I got one with my CF card years ago as a tiny disk, and loaded it on my computer. Never used it for years, until one time I forgot I had a card with photos that were never downloaded, and formatted the card - realizing almost seconds later that i never loaded the photos. RescuePro retrieved them all with no problem.

If the card is completely fried and won't be recognized at all by any programs, you may be out of luck. If you cannot get the card to recognize no matter what you do, and you've already decided the photos are gone forever, maybe try formatting the card so that it can be read again, then use Rescuepro to see if they can be retrieved. But I'd try rescuepro BEFORE formatting too, to see if you can pull out the photos.

 

[MICKEY88]

If the card is completely fried and won't be recognized at all by any programs, you may be out of luck. If you cannot get the card to recognize no matter what you do, and you've already decided the photos are gone forever, maybe try formatting the card so that it can be read again, then use Rescuepro to see if they can be retrieved. But I'd try rescuepro BEFORE formatting too, to see if you can pull out the photos.

for the most part I agree with this, however I recently had a strange experience,

a coworker brought a card into work and asked If I could work some magic.

the card held the last known photos of her recently deceased mother, her home pc wouldn't recognize the card.

I tried my work PC, no luck, I took the card home popped it in my PC, again no luck, just for kicks I popped it in my laptop and it was recognized, I recovered the photos, and burned them to DVD

I tried again in my home and work pc's and the card wasn't recognized

 

[momtoejanda]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I have downloaded a bunch of the different recovery programs but when I run them they dont even find the drive to look at....

 

[MICKEY88]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I have downloaded a bunch of the different recovery programs but when I run them they dont even find the drive to look at....

are you using a card reader, or connecting the camera

the programs I've used won't work connecting the camera.

ZAR is a free program that I have had luck with

 

[momtoejanda]

I have tried direct from the camera and in 2 laptops. I am going to go buy a card reader....

 

[zackiedawg]

Try a card reader - hopefully that will recognize the card. If that doesn't work - and you've got no other possibilities, then I'd suggest before giving up completely, consider doing a card format, which should hopefully render the card readable by a computer, and then try the recovery programs to see if they can retrieve the photos. Whatever you do, don't take any additional photos on the formatted card, as that rewrites over the old photos. This would be a last resort only, when all else has failed and you've given up ever seeing those photos again...it might actually work. I'd also suggest that you consider replacing the card with a new one, and not using it again - so you don't end up reformatting a bad card, using it, and having the same thing happen next time!

 

[Daisy14'sDH]

It could be the contacts on the card, if the pics are that valuable to you, you could probably rebuild it? Pull the guts and stick them in another? Don't know if that would work or not....

 

[pgowder]

Sandisk makes a free recovery program that I've found works extremely well - it can even recover photos off of formatted cards, as long as they haven't been written over.

Search for Rescuepro...I found one free downloadable link here:
http://www.lc-tech.com/software/rprodetail.html
(I do not know the company or site, or have any affiliation).

It often comes free with any high end Sandisk card purchases - I got one with my CF card years ago as a tiny disk, and loaded it on my computer. Never used it for years, until one time I forgot I had a card with photos that were never downloaded, and formatted the card - realizing almost seconds later that i never loaded the photos. RescuePro retrieved them all with no problem.

If the card is completely fried and won't be recognized at all by any programs, you may be out of luck. If you cannot get the card to recognize no matter what you do, and you've already decided the photos are gone forever, maybe try formatting the card so that it can be read again, then use Rescuepro to see if they can be retrieved. But I'd try rescuepro BEFORE formatting too, to see if you can pull out the photos.

I've had to use this! And it works! Try that.