recovery deleted CF data

[gina]

Hi,

Has anyone info or experience with recovery from accidentally deleted photo's on Compact Flash cards??
Memorex 256 Mb
Canon G3

Thank you
gina

[d_kendal]

Well I haven't been in that situation before, but I did find some software which promises to do what you need. here's the site:
http://www.mediarecover.com (don't know anybody who's used the software before, but the user testimonials look promising..)

- David

[Doug Nelson]

If it's just FAT formatted, Norton or any other unerase might work (as long as nothing has been written to it since the file was deleted). My MP3 player uses FAT, but I can never remember what type of card it has.

[gina]

Thanks for the information David and Doug,

Rudi is checking the website and the information on it out. I don't have a card-reader though and if connected to the computer the info doesn't show up as a new hard drive as for instance Sony has.
I download my files via the canon zoombrowser software.
So it remains to be seen if it is FAt formatted.
We're gonna check out more things with a friend of us tomorrow and come back if I have found a solution (or not)



gina

[catia]

Gina,

I think they are all FAT.

I used the software at the site Dave listed and it worked for me. In my case I was able to recover most of the photos; but, unfortunately the CF card still will not work in the camera.

I have a card reader. You might want to consider investing in one. The download times from your CF card will be a lot faster. I think a card reader is worth the $20 just for that.

Catia

[gina]

Hi Catia,


thanks for the info but are you telling me that after you used the software to recover your pictures you can't use your CF card again?? And this is due to what? It is a 256 Mb card and I don't want to jeopardise it for the recovery of a few pictures I could perhaps make again.
Is it due to the card reader ? Can't you reformat the CF card again? If possible expand a little on this


thanks

gina

[chris h]

Theres no damage to the CF card all the software does is relink the deletions to the contents table of the card.

[gina]

thanks,


one of our friends is bringing a cardreader over so we'll check it out

gina

[catia]

Gina,

Sorry. Did not mean to imply that the sodtware damages the CF card. The CF card went belly up on me while I was on a photoshoot. I was able to recover images from it by using the software. I have to date not been able to get the CF card to work. The format function seems to work on it and when in my card reader, my operating system reports it as a functional device. However, after loading in my camera and taking one shot, I get an error message.

At this point I don't think I would trust the CF card again even if I get it working in the camera.

Catia

[gina]

thanks for the reply Catia. I got the cardreader now and tomorrow we will try to rescue what we can.
It sure is hell if you're trusting that something you'll need isn't working properly. Those things aren't cheap either


weel see ya

gina

[gina]

recovered!

thanks for the interest and the info eveyone

Firstly : we bought a card-reader (30 euro's/ dollars? ). Then rudi cautiously tried some things out with the 32 mb card that came with the camera. Then he started to phone around with some workmates about further info. It seemed they had a program he could use to try to undelete the files.
Well he's been trying a lot of things to assure that nothing would happen to the 256 Mb card first. Eventually he used ONTRACK Easy Recovery Professional Edition 5.1 to undelete the files. It worked allright!! So thanks you all for the extra info.

My CF cards are formatted FAT16 and 1 kb /cluster by the camera Canon G3.
I was afraid that Canon would use a slightly different encryption or something but even Raw files and movies did ok.
They are readily readable in the card-reader and files can be put from the directory to the camera and be readable there too.

gina

[jeaniesa]

Thanks for posting your solution Gina! This is really good information to have should I experience such a disaster in the future.

Jeanie

[gina]

ok jeanie.

I forgot to mention perhaps THE MOST IMPORTANT thing : after deleting and as soon as you realise what's happened : DON'T use the CF or drive to put something else on it, not even the recovery program! Use another drive, another partition or some recovery programs run from floppy. This is really the most important thing because if you put something back on the drive or CF card it possibly makes the data or part of the data unreadable.

gina

[jeaniesa]

Got it!

Jeanie