Help! I think I erased all of my Christmas photos!!

[talulabelle]

I posted this on the community board, and it was suggested I head over here to ask the experts....I will copy my previous post ........

I don't know why I got out of bed today.

I was trying to download the pics from Christmas off my digital camera. My husband recently got a new computer, which has a different picture program that I am not used to. I am admittedly VERY challenged in this area, but I can usually download them.

This time it didn't prompt me to download, and I started trying to figure it out....all my pics were showing on the screen, and I accidently clicked and dragged a pic into this thing at the top of the screen that said "new folder" I clicked on the folder and the pic was in there...so I started clicking and dragging all the pics from the card in there. Once they were there, I still couldn't see how to name the folder or save or anything and I got a little frustrated and thought ," I will just unplud my camera so that my husband can figure this out when he comes home and at least the pics are still on the picture card."...well, you guessed it....the card says "no image"
now. Gone. I have searched everyway I know how on my computer to see if I can find the folder that I was dragging them into....but I don't see it...I do see the icon that looks like it and it says "new folder" but when I click on it it says "folder is empty" I guess when I closed the program out they weren't saved adn they are gone.

I thought it was REALLY hard to delete a pic, my old program would propmt before you deleted anything and ask a second time if you were sure. It would also leave the pics on the camera card but would ask you if you wanted to delete the card after the pics were successfully transferred, this didn't ask me squat. They are just gone. I am so bummed. All the pics of my babies faces on Christmas morning when they raced sown the stairs to see the gifts.

Does anyone have any tips for me? Is there anyway they could be retrieved off the camera?

 

[orchjoe]

It might help to know what program you were trying to use and on what system (IE windows with vista or mac)

 

[MICKEY88]

DO NOT USE THE CARD !!! as long as you don't over wrtie the files they should be retrievable, there are many programs out there for doing just that,

I have a program called Recover my files, I used it to recover over 10,000 photos from a hard drive that had been accidentally formatted and had windows reinstalled on it..

there is Image rescue, and many other programs ,


as for uploading pics to the computer, I prefer having total control of the process so I use a card reader, I attach it to my pc, then open windows explorer, from there I copy the files from the card to a sub folder in my photos folder

 

[talulabelle]

Ok, I haven't reused the card....I will see what I can do about getting a program to recover the files.

I was using windows photo gallery.

Thanks for the help. At least I have some hope.

 

[garate55]

If you have Vista you can search for the modified date up in the "search" box top right and find the changed folder that way. One thing though you need to be in the C: drive on your computer If you search format the date by 1/07/2008. This should pull up everything that was modified on the day you uploaded the pictures.

Hope this helps.

Your search bar should look like this...

 

[talulabelle]

THanks for all the advice!!!!!!!!!!! You guys are all the bomb!!!!!!!!!

Next time this happens - I'm totally armed with info, and by doing these things, I actually learned more about my computer. However, here is the update...I checked all avenues suggested here and on the community board with no luck. Everything came up empty....I had not tried downloading software to retrieve the pics from the card yet however..that was going to be my next step.....then DH is looking at it and sees that the camera is saying the card is erased, sticks it in the card slot on the harddrive (whcih, I don't know why he did that because a spring had been broken in it and it didn't allow the card to go all the way in and be read, so we had been using a cable ot download) anyway, he does it anyway and THANKS TO THE LORD the card pops in with now prob (spring is now working) and reads the pics off the card!!!!! I am so relieved!!!!!! Downloaded all the pics!!!!! Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My dh said "I wonder why that is?" and I screamed "I'll tell you what that is!, that is the power of prayer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Camera is still working fine , card still shows as erased on the camera though. I don't know what happened or what the explaination is.........but I am just happy to have the pics....I love when God smiles on me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[iluvmickeytown]

Wow i'm so happy for you. I can feel your relief.