Heartbroken - lost photos

[tntmommy]

My husband thinks I'm crazy!

Ok -
- just got back from 1st trip for our family to WDW (husband and I were deprived as children)
- children are 3, 4 and 5
- we did the "Family Tour" and spent such special time with "surprise" at end (super great pictures taken)

Now to cut to the chase-
Our memory card in our camera can't find any of the almost 300 pictures taken. I did talk DH into buying 3 photos taken by cast members so I do have some proof of trip.

I feel the need to take another trip asap JUST to get pictures of the kids at this stage - they believe EVERYTHING they see is real. (I am a scrapbooker and am really have trouble dealing )

We do have another trip planned with step-mom and all my sibs in Feb. 2006.

Just how insane is this!

Michelle

PS - Anyone know of ANY way to get pictures off a "dead" memory card???

 

[toystorymom]

I don't think you're crazy at all! And I can certainly understand your pain.

When we were there in November we were leaving Epcot one day just as the character bus stopped in front of us. We got pictures of our 3 boys with so many characters, including some of the most popular and harder to find ones. Anyway, when we had our film developed, that entire roll was missing! I was practically in tears. It must have been left behind at the World.

But wait, it gets better...we called Disney lost and found and couldn't believe they had our roll of film. Found at our resort, the day we checked out, same brand, exposure, speed, everything. I couldn't believe it, I told everyone about the amazing recovery of my film. They mailed it to us and I was so thrilled, I spent about $15 to have it 1 hour developed. Well, imagine my surprise when the kid presented me with my pictures...of another family!! It was such a letdown, back to being in tears! I felt ridiculous but I wanted to see those pictures so badly!

I'm a scrapbooker too, so pictures are so important and fun!

Looking on the positive side, it is definitely incentive to plan another trip.

 

[BrerMama]

Try taking your memory card to a photo processing place (Wal-Mart has them) and see what happens. I had a similiar problem, but when I took it to Wal-mart and gave my card to the ladies working behind the counter, they were able to put it in their camera and download the pictures to their computer. From there they could print them. I can no longer download directly from my camera to the computer (I think maybe the connection inside the camera was damaged) so I purchased a card reader that is permanently connected to my computer.

As a fellow scrapbooker, I'm feeling your pain and hope that you can recover your pictures. I'm leaning towards taking both my digital and some film on our trip so if either one is erased/gets lost/ gets damaged, I'll have pictures using the other option.

 

[HollyJoy]

Kim had a great idea. Something could be messed up with your camera or the connection to the card. I'd take it to a place like Ritz camera and see if they can help. Ya never know! I'm a fellow scrapbooker as well, so I, too, know your pain. I'd freak. When we go to Disney this December, we plan on bringing our laptop computer so that we can empty our memory card right onto the computer. We did this when we went on vacation this past summer and it worked great. No doubt we'll fill up our memory card in one day (or less!) I wish you all the best of luck. Let us know what happens!

 

[BrittnTylersMom]

Hugs to you, I know the heartache all to well.

When my hard drive fried last August (actually had a burn mark on it!), I lost over 4000 pictures! Most of them being pics of my kids of course, and having used only a digital camera since my son was born..I lost every pic I had of his first 2 years of life.

Hopefully what BrerMama suggested will work to retrive your pictures, but if not, there is another possibility.
I asked the man who looked at my computer and replaced my hard drive, if their was ANY way possible for me to get my pictures off the fried drive, he told me there are labs and speacialists who CAN do it, but that it would be very expensive. Not sure if it would be as expensive for a camera card as it would be a hard drive, but I felt a whole lot better knowing it is indeed possible, and that I will most likely have my pics again someday!

Do a Google search for- Camera Card Data Recovery - this will show you many different sites which offer those services.

This is just one of them, randomly selected: http://www.recallusa.com/camera_card_recovery.html

I hope knowing that your pics may not be lost forever will put your mind at ease some, as it did for me.
Lock the camera card and put it in a safe place, Don't try to use it!

Wishing you the Best of Luck!

 

[safetymom]

There is software that you can use to "find" those pictures. I had to do that recently for my son's digital.

The software cost me $29.95 but it was well worth it!!!!

 

[Tamickey]

I think I am photo superstitious. I always take more than one camera. One could be digital or those 1-time use cameras, along with a 35mm. I like the 1-time use cameras because they're lightweight and you don't panic if they get dropped. This comes from having a new camera malfunction at Disney. Fortunately we had a couple of disposables along because those were the only pics we had.

Also, I always take my film in for developing almost 1 roll at a time. My family hates this. Reason is that one time I was at the photo place when a very sad person discovered that all their film was lost. I never turn over the whole lot anymore.

I agree - try different ways to recover your pics. Software is a tricky thing and I wouldn't be surprised if you were able to get your pictures somehow.

 

[safetymom]

That's also a good reason to use more than 1 memory card when you are taking pictures. Don't buy the largest card. Buy several smaller ones and switch off when out taking pictures during the day. If there is a problem you haven't lost all your images.

 

[2gether]

I can certainly sympathize....DW and I did a trip last year in September (just us...our first arrives in August!)

Imagine our suprise when we got our pictures back and they were all fuzzy and faded! We'd gone to Walmart, so at first I thought it was just faulty equipment on their part (I've had that happen before), but it turned out the scanner at the airport had fried the film!

WARNING! DO NOT LEAVE ANY UNDEVELOPED FILM IN ANY OF YOUR BAGS ON YOUR WAY BACK FROM YOUR TRIP! THEY WILL GET WRECKED! You can keep it out and ask them to hand inspect...they will gladly do so. As for DW and I, she was devastated....it was our greatest vacation ever. Fortunately. we'd also taken the digital AND the camcorder, so we got SOME pictures.

All the other folks have good advice about recovering your pics....it might also be worth taking the camera to a specialty store and having it checked out. They may be able to correct your problem!

In any case, pixy dust on your pictures!