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SD Card Data Recovery? :(

mulletman13

mulletman13

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 1, 2004
505
0
Los Angeles.
Hey guys,

Just got back from my trip to California and had a GREAT time, however my friend ran into a problem out there.

He kept a TON of photos on his SD card from about January, and when he deleted them, he did it through the in-camera system. In any case, now the card does not show up when plugged into a PC or Mac... and the camera gives a read error whenever it is turned on with the card in.

We are currently looking at a few Data Recovery services, but it is a 1.0gb SD Card and the places that I have seen want about $125 for this. This is a lot more than I was expecting, and I'm curious if anybody can offer some advice. Other services, or any other cheaper alternatives.

Thank you very much,

Ken
 
So the images were never downloaded to the machine?

You may be able to recover the image files with TechTools or another application, but the cost is similar to what you have been quoted.

Always, always, always:

Burn a CD or DVD of the contents of your CF or SD cards before you do ANYTHING else.

Saves heartbreak, guaranteed.

Good luck.
 
You can also use DataRescue for that: it is designed to recover data and unlike DiskWarrior, only reads of the damaged volume. I've successfully recovered image files from a memory card with it.
 
The nice thing about Data Rescue is that it's the best data recovery tool for the Mac out there, bar none! It is not limited to memory cards and recovering images and has saved my bacon on two occasions. It's well worth the money!
 
I use PhotoRec Its free but a bit disconcerting to use at first but does a suprisingly good job. I always end up recovering more than I was expecting. You will find the original filenames are gone so you have to manually sort it out, but at least you get everything back :)
 
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OreoCookie said:
The nice thing about Data Rescue is that it's the best data recovery tool for the Mac out there, bar none! It is not limited to memory cards and recovering images and has saved my bacon on two occasions. It's well worth the money!
Click to expand...

I can only confirm: just killed almost 100 pictures when "playing" with an SD and my iPad. Thanks to DataRescue 3 I was able to recover all accidentally delete pictures. Great tool!
 
jammiefreerider said:
I use PhotoRec Its free but a bit disconcerting to use at first but does a suprisingly good job. I always end up recovering more than I was expecting. You will find the original filenames are gone so you have to manually sort it out, but at least you get everything back :)
Click to expand...

Ditto.
 
Be patient. If you're using a program that supports deep scanning at the cost of a slower recovery process, use it. The speed of this type of scan depends on your system's CPU rather than its I/O, as most of the work involves matching file signatures and checking for false positives. If you're in a hurry, run a deep scan using the fastest machine you have access to.

Other solution is: Try Viboosoft Card Data Recovery, Google it.
 
Last edited:
Hylimasda said:
Be patient. If you're using a program that supports deep scanning at the cost of a slower recovery process, use it. The speed of this type of scan depends on your system's CPU rather than its I/O, as most of the work involves matching file signatures and checking for false positives. If you're in a hurry, run a deep scan using the fastest machine you have access to.
Click to expand...

The OP asked the question in 2006... so I expect that patience is no longer the major issue.

BTW: Despite my tongue-in-cheek response... your advice is good. ;)

For those who have not run across this issue... I recommend using "mirrored mode" if your camera supports dual SD cards. I also recommend backing up your pictures to a computer nightly... and not erasing SD cards until you know everything is imported and backed up. For me, this happens at the end of a trip once I am home, and everything is saved on my iMac.

/Jim
 
I had the same problem, and used Klix from Joesoft (now Prosoft) after trying a bunch of free tools. Klix worked perfectly and recovered all the files.

Good luck.
 
Many 3rd Party Softz are there for this task. Your work is to just find the right one. Just search a bit.
 
jammiefreerider said:
I use PhotoRec Its free but a bit disconcerting to use at first but does a suprisingly good job. I always end up recovering more than I was expecting. You will find the original filenames are gone so you have to manually sort it out, but at least you get everything back :)
Click to expand...
Just used PhotoRec and it was awesome. The command line interface may seem daunting, but it doesn't require any coding. Just navigate the menu with your arrow keys. Worked beautifully!
 
When you plug the SD Card in the Mac, it didn't appear on Mac? Data Recovery software are all basic on computer. If the software doesn't find the SD card, then how to scan the SD card?
 
Chloec said:
When you plug the SD Card in the Mac, it didn't appear on Mac? Data Recovery software are all basic on computer. If the software doesn't find the SD card, then how to scan the SD card?
Click to expand...

When you're looking at the list of directories, check the instructions that are on that page. There was details about expanding the list, so you could see more files/directories. I didn't see my SD card at first, but followed the instruction and the rest of the directories appeared. Hope that helps!
 
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