Need help with Memory card

[Octoberbride03]

Just got back from the Eastern cruise and starting to upload pics to my computer. Got the first set done NP. But gotta dilemna with the second card. It stopped shooting pics on PIrate night cause we think the 4MP was too high a setting. Wouldn't let us fix it without reformatting the card. But there 300 pics on it including the ones from Nassau and what have you.

Now we can't find a way to to get the pics off the card. OUr computer tells us the card needs reformatting. Do that and the 300 pics on it are gone. Anybody got any ideas? Its a 1GB SD card that we got onboard ship when our 2GB that i brought along turned out to be too much for our Kodak EasyShare 310. So says the ppl at Shutters anyhow.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

TIA

 

[AndrewWG]

There are many file recovery software programs that will help with this I think. I can't really help with any recommendations of any that are good since I haven't needed to use any, but many people on here have used them. You will get many answers. I think that it would even be ok to re-format if it were done accidentally and still get the pics off the card, but you couldn't take more pics on it before getting them off there. Anyways, don't re-format. I'm just saying that I think the programs can even get photos from a formatted card.

 

[Groucho]

Just got back from the Eastern cruise and starting to upload pics to my computer. Got the first set done NP. But gotta dilemna with the second card. It stopped shooting pics on PIrate night cause we think the 4MP was too high a setting. Wouldn't let us fix it without reformatting the card. But there 300 pics on it including the ones from Nassau and what have you.

Now we can't find a way to to get the pics off the card. OUr computer tells us the card needs reformatting. Do that and the 300 pics on it are gone. Anybody got any ideas? Its a 1GB SD card that we got onboard ship when our 2GB that i brought along turned out to be too much for our Kodak EasyShare 310. So says the ppl at Shutters anyhow.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

TIA

Hmm... I'm not aware of cameras having problems with any 2gb cards, but I suppose anything is possible. Generally, it's 4gb and higher cards that many cameras can't work with. I'd be surprised if a camera could work with a 1gb but not a 2gb card.

As for "4mp too high a setting"... I'm not sure what you mean by that. The card shouldn't care what settings your camera is at, and you'll always want to set your camera to the absolute highest settings for megapixels and quality. The only reason to set them lower is if you absolutely, positively have to squeeze more photos onto a card. Setting it higher will definitely not damage the card or make it any more likely to go corrupt.

 

[MICKEY88]

I highly recommend ZAR-{zero assumtion recovery}

it works great for recovering pics from memory cards,, the photo recovery part of the software is free

I would try it before formatting the card, if it doesn't work, then format in camera, then run the recovery software..

 

[zackiedawg]

You also might try using a different way to download the photos off the card. Are you using a memory card reader built into your computer? If so, try leaving the card in the camera and hooking the camera to the computer using the USB cable that came with the camera. Using a different method to load the photos might solve the problem. If you don't have a USB cable, you can buy them nearly anywhere - it's a very common cable (typically called a mini-USB to USB cable...but show any store the camera and they can get the cable for you). You could also try a different card reader. You can buy a cheap card reader, or go to a camera store and have them try to download the photos and drop them onto a flash key or CD for you.

Also, when loading photos from either the memory card reader or the USB cable, you may want to try bypassing the automatic downloading software that typically triggers on your computer to load photos. Instead, go into your 'explorer' menu or folder menu if you have an Apple machine, and look for an extra drive letter other than A, C (your harddrive) or D (typically a CD slot)...often the card reader or USB connection will show up as a drive 'E' or 'F'...you can then click open the folders on your memory card...you may have to look around in a few different folders...until you find where the actual photos are stored (they will be the files with the extension '.jpg'). You can then try simply highlighting them all (right-click, choose 'select all'), then dragging them over to another folder on your harddrive. Sometimes this may allow you to copy photos over that a card reader or software was hanging up on.

Whatever you do, don't format the card until you've tried a few different methods!

 

[Octoberbride03]

Thanx for the info. I've been working this weekend so haven't kept up on the boards really.

My computer does have a card reader and we do have a USB cable that pulls the pics from the camera. Tried reading both ways. Got same answer, card needs formatting.

My DH downloaded a program yesterday from a site that apparently read the card and said that the card has a corrupted file somewhere. He didn't tell me the name of the program though. But its photo recovery download is $30 if we buy it.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

But its photo recovery download is $30 if we buy it.

The ZAR program recommended by MICKEY88 will allow you to recover for free. Probably wouldn't hurt to download it and see if it works to find the files.

 

[MICKEY88]

I've used ZAR several times, I've even recovered files from a card after formatting and using several times...obviously any files over written wil no be recovered, but formatting doesn't make recovery impossible...

of all the programs I've used, ZAR worked best for me...

I have an 80 dollar program that recovers all types of files, and ZAR outperformed it with photo recovery..



if you decide to try ZAR, ignore the price on their website, because you can download the free trial, and the photo part will work without paying for a license, they actually explain onsite that they chose to keep that part free

 

[Octoberbride03]

OK, so I'm mostly finished with the ZAR. Way quiker than I thought it would be considering I'm on dial-up. It recovered 338 pics. Which is about what we took give or take.

Now I just need some help getting htem copied into a file. It tells me to create a file name, but i don't think I'm doing it correctly cause the photos haven't started xcopying yet. So any help there would be great

Thanx again

 

[Octoberbride03]

Never mind. Figured it out on my own. Pics copying now.

Thanx for the help everybody. I very much appreciate it

 

[MICKEY88]

OK, so I'm mostly finished with the ZAR. Way quiker than I thought it would be considering I'm on dial-up. It recovered 338 pics. Which is about what we took give or take.

Now I just need some help getting htem copied into a file. It tells me to create a file name, but i don't think I'm doing it correctly cause the photos haven't started xcopying yet. So any help there would be great

Thanx again

I'm confused.. dial up has nothing to do with recovery...

oyu install the software to your hard drive, and run it from there..

 

[Octoberbride03]

i was just surprised at how quick it took to download the program to my computer. Everything seems to take longer these days cause they expect you to have a broadband connection. And I'm on turtle dial-up.

From start to finish was less than an hour including getting everything copied from the recovery. I thought it would take longer than that.

Now if only my picture taking was as good as the recovery program, it'd be great.