Urgent - Photo Recovery off XD Card

[fadingaway1986]

Hey guys.
I need your help...
... Today at work, we had a customer come in who had left her XD card with us to be put onto a CD. However, when we put the card into the printer - the printer told us the card was not formatted - so therefore it could not read it...

Now, the customer has come back and is accussing us of ruining her card and losing all the photos... (Which she claims are the only photos she has of her daughter - and there is absolutely no one else who has photos of her.... As we offered to her that if she could get copies of other people's photos, we would have them scanned and burnt to CD for her...)

I told her that there is software that you can get that will recover photos on your memory card... however, she didn't want to listen - and insisted there was nothing that could be done and that we have ruined her photos....

... So I need your help - can anyone suggest any software that I can download that will recover photos from an XD card? We are going to give another store a call tomorrow to ask them what they knew about this, because as far as we know - there is no way for our printer to delete photos (unless someone tells the printer to format it when it asks - but if that were the case - it wouldn't be telling us that it's not formatted)...

If you can give me any suggestions, or know of any software, please let me know. She rang back from home after she left the store - and I assume she will call back again tomorrow.

Thanks guys,
Alecia.

[TPF Sponsor]

[Hertz van Rental]

Hmm. Sounds more to me like your customer is trying a scam. You know:
Give you a blank card. You say it's blank. She says you lost her photos and demands compensation.
Have a friend who is a manager at a big supermarket chain. She says this kind of thing goes on all the time.
If you look at the small print at processing places (even Kodak) it says they won't be responsible for loss or damage. If you ask them to process it's on the understanding that things can go wrong and the resposibility is all yours.
You've already offered her reasonable recompense - now tell her to push off. After all, you only have her word for it that there was anything on the card to begin with. And it is her responsibility to make sure she does a back-up of her files before handing the card to you. Did she not load the pics on to her computer first? What has she done in the past. All the signs are it's a scam.

[fadingaway1986]

Yeah, theres not really any way of telling if it's a scam though. She claims that she has used it 4-5 times before - and it has worked...

She seemed pretty upset (she was crying)...

and the worst part is - she is my boss' nephew's girlfriend.... so.... My boss is on holiday at the moment and won't be back for 2 weeks... I assume she will hear about this before she gets back though...

And yes - you're right - our workbags do say that... On the slip we give to the customers...

Thanks for your help

I'm not really sure what to do with this... I found a program that saves photos that you have deleted, But I am not sure if this will work on one that is telling you to format it...

And I don't assume she will give us the card so that we can try it... and if I give her the program to try it herself - she could stuff it up more and then claim thats our fault for telling her to do it...

So... yeah...

[Hertz van Rental]

If you check in the ads at the back of computer mags you usually find ones that deal in data recovery. Perhaps you could tell her to check them out and you would pay for it?
Worth a try. Those guys are pros and have all sorts of magic kit.

[Hertz van Rental]

On a rethink pass the buck!
If she's your boss' nephew's girlfriend let your boss sort it out.
You say: you need to speak to the boss. He won't be back for two weeks but I'm sure he'll sort it out. In the meantime don't use your XD card but put it somewhere safe away from magnetic fields - like tv's and 'phones and such, mentioning the data recovery thing.
Then you write a memo for your boss detailing the situation, telling him what you told the girl and saying you thought it best that he dealt with it.
Then you wil have done all that the law requires of you and neither the girl or your boss can complain either.
Do what I advise and then forget about it.

[kenshabby]

I own a computer store, and I have fixed this problem several times for customers. (including my father in-law)

You need to use Ontrack easy recovery. It works almost every time.

It's expensive - but they do have a free trial that can identify any files that can be recovered.

It's like magic.

www.ontrack.com

[Unimaxium]

There's also another company that does data recovery called DriveSavers. They sound similar to ontrack. But I don't know if it's even possible to recover data off a futzed XD card (or any kind of flash memory), since they store their data quite differently from magnetic hard drives, which is what the companies mainly seem to deal with. But it's always worth a shot.

www.drivesavers.com

[kenshabby]

Ontrack software DOES work with all kinds of flash memory, even if the file system is damaged. (this disk is not formatted).

[mrsid99]

Have you tried reading the card through a card reader with a computer?
It's possible that the printer is saying the card's not formatted because it doesn't recognize the format.
As others have stated though it sounds like a scam to me too.

[fadingaway1986]

Okay,
We gave another store a call today and talked to them about it. They told us that there is no way that our printers can do what we are being accused of...

We also rang Kodak Minilab Hotline, and they told us that it can be done - however, the operator needs to just pull the card out rather than clicking no (when it asks if we want to format it)... However, I don't understand why it was telling us to format it in the first place... We also called the person who put the card in the printer - and she did everything as normal... (pressed no, and took the card out)...

So. from what we can find out - it doesn't appear to be our fault. (Not that the customer is going to listen to us)... But I don't think there is any reason why we should pay for it.

We tried giving her a call - but there was no answer - so we will try again tomorrow - and if we don't get through - we will just have to wait until she calls back...

Thanks for your help... I will check out those sites..

[KmH]

The fricking thread is nearly 7 years old.

You must be SPAMMING if you're digging up threads that old.

[KmH]

2004 thread............................................

Mods. Consider closing all the Urgent - Photo Recovery threads so the recovery software SPAMMERS have no where to post their SPAM.

[Overread]

2004 thread............................................

Mods. Consider closing all the Urgent - Photo Recovery threads so the recovery software SPAMMERS have no where to post their SPAM.

As they get hit we do lock them now