Formatted memory card (help!)

heidig · Oct 24, 2009

Does anyone know if and how photos can be retrieved from a memory
card that has been formatted? Please if anyone can give me some
advice.

Overread · Oct 24, 2009

Ok first off have you taken any shots or done anything to the memory card since it was formated? If you have done nothing then there is a chance the shots can be saved, but if you have written to the card since then I am afriad the shots are going to be lost.

There are data recovery programs on the net for this - I know Sandisk memory cards come with a lost data restore on CD but I don't know the best programs to recomend to you - so I will leave it to others - just don't do anything to the card till they get here

apertureman · Oct 26, 2009

There is a chance, but I would recommend finding a computer geek and have them use their software to restore data. IF you formatted the card right in your camera then it was most likely a single-pass format, in which case data can still be restored. I know someone who is an IT and he does 35-pass erase on the company hard drives to make sure all data is wiped out.

KmH · Oct 26, 2009

apertureman said:
......he does 35-pass erase on the company hard drives to make sure all data is wiped out.

There is no erase. There is only overwrite.

Sep · Oct 26, 2009

First of all dont use the memory card for anything. In the sense dont write, read anything from it.

In most cases a format doesnt actually get rid of your date, in most cases it erased the file allocation table which is a list of where everything is. It's much easier to erase this than to go and erase each individual bit of the REAL data. And the thing that you must know is, you're not really erasing, you're just writting over it. When you get programs designed to "erase" data, they usually go over the entire disk writing "0".

With a recovery program (which usually takes a long time) the program forcingly reads the entire memory card/storage device and rebuilds those files virtually for you, then you chose what you want to save and it makes a copy to where ever youre saving it, or it restores it by putting it back on the file allocation table.

Anywho, I dont know if you shot in RAW or not. I dont know if this works with raw or not. Hopefully it will. Give it a shot.

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