Help! My entire SD card just got erased

[jdong217]

Holy crap. I have a macbook pro and it has no trouble reading my Kingston 8GB card. I used the 16GB today and when I tried to load it in iPhoto, it took a while. Then I get this system message telling me I need to restart because the computer encountered a problem. Basically, everything locked up so I had no choice.

Once I restart there's nothing on the SD card except gibberish 0 KB files. I check it on my camera too and nothing. I googled and came across a program for iOS called CardRescue. It seems to be working but I have no idea since it's estimating another 60 minutes before completion. And it doesn't recover the files as it goes - it makes a list of everything it can save then you can save them at the end.

Is it possible this 16GB card is too big for my comp to handle and I need ana adaptor? Though part of that doesn't make sense to me since CardRescue is able to read the card.

I'm sure all you pros have encountered this before so what did you do?

 

[rk1041]

Try to use this. It is very useful I have ever find,"Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery".

 

[joealcantar]

Whatever you do , do not take another image , basically set it aside and only use the recovery tools.
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Shoot well, Joe

 

[MTVision]

With a recovery tool you should be able to get back most if not all photos. My mom deleted my memory card with the pics of my newborn on them and I got all of then back except 5. I've also lost all the pictures on a cd once and recovered them all as well. It was a couple years ago so I dot remember the name of the programs but I found then from doing a search and reading reviews. I do remember they were free!

 

[bazooka]

Try "Photorec".... it's free and I've used it to recover deleted files several times.

 

[jdong217]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Well, it turns out CardRescue worked really well. The only thing is I had to pay for the full version. I was desperate but oh well, all 300 photos saved!

Just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I had put the SD card back in and taken a picture? I was actually planning on trying that before I started CardRescue

Edit: Also, is there a program that would restore the actual photos to my SD card? The program I used pulled the damaged files and put them in a new folder not on the SD card. If possible, i'd like to salvage that too

 

[joealcantar]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Well, it turns out CardRescue worked really well. The only thing is I had to pay for the full version. I was desperate but oh well, all 300 photos saved!

Just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I had put the SD card back in and taken a picture? I was actually planning on trying that before I started CardRescue

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Just like a computer , it has to make room for that image. If it has to format/delete data from that certain sector , that old image may be deleted totally. So I have been told or explained to me.
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Shoot well and glad you were able to recover the data, Joe

 

[cgipson1]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Well, it turns out CardRescue worked really well. The only thing is I had to pay for the full version. I was desperate but oh well, all 300 photos saved!

Just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I had put the SD card back in and taken a picture? I was actually planning on trying that before I started CardRescue

One of the most common issues that cause files on SD cards to be inaccessible, is a corrupted FAT (File Allocation Table) table. While it is corrupted, the card is usually in a unusable state, until the table is fixed, or the card is formatted. You can sometimes use the Drive Error Checking function built into windows to fix these also. The specialty programs are safer though, if the contents are valuable.

I would highly recommend a full in camera format of the card, after you pull off the images.... (never format the card on your PC and then use it in your camera... not a good idea! ) Hope that helps...

 

[table1349]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Well, it turns out CardRescue worked really well. The only thing is I had to pay for the full version. I was desperate but oh well, all 300 photos saved!

Just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I had put the SD card back in and taken a picture? I was actually planning on trying that before I started CardRescue

One of the most common issues that cause files on SD cards to be inaccessible, is a corrupted FAT (File Allocation Table) table. While it is corrupted, the card is usually in a unusable state, until the table is fixed, or the card is formatted. You can sometimes use the Drive Error Checking function built into windows to fix these also. The specialty programs are safer though, if the contents are valuable.

I would highly recommend a full in camera format of the card, after you pull off the images.... (never format the card on your PC and then use it in your camera... not a good idea! ) Hope that helps...

While I agree, I would suggest that since the OP was trying to load the photos via iPhoto, the machine was probably not a windows machine.

 

[jdong217]

Thanks. I'll format it to be safe but I'm almost positive the issue was me powering down while iPhoto was still trying to read the images off the SD. The same thing happens if you pull a memory card from a gaming console while saving, etc

 

[cgipson1]

Thanks. I'll format it to be safe but I'm almost positive the issue was me powering down while iPhoto was still trying to read the images off the SD. The same thing happens if you pull a memory card from a gaming console while saving, etc

Yes.. that is one of the most common ways that the FAT table and file structure can get corrupted... on any type of media.

 

[cgipson1]

While I agree, I would suggest that since the OP was trying to load the photos via iPhoto, the machine was probably not a windows machine.

oops.. missed that! Its those darned Macs.. that's the problem! <j/k>!

 

[KmH]

Help! My entire SD card just got erased

Flash memory cards have no way to 'erase'. All that can be done is over-write old data

cjipson1 mentioned the FAT (File Allocation Table) can become corrupted. Plus, when you 'delete' a photo, all that really occurs is that the FAT gets updated to indicate the range of memory locations that were used to write the data for that particular photo are again available. The photo data is still there though.

Formatting a flash memory card card re-initializes the FAT. Any photos that were uploaded are still there on the card, but the FAT now shows all memory addresses on the card are again available for new data.

Format your memory cards in the device (camera) that will be writing to the card.

 

[Village Idiot]

Now boys and girls, can anyone tell me why it's better to use multiple smaller cards than one large card?

 

[cgipson1]

I believe the thought is "don't put all your eggs in one basket"... if one goes bad, you don't lose every thing.

personally I would rather run two large cards, with mirroring of the images between them.

Having to work with thumb drives, SD cards, CF cards, etc.. daily for years as an IT pro, I have never had one fail (if it was taken care of in a reasonable manner). I have had to recover data from a lot of them that lost the FAT, or got corrupt.. but have had very few that didn't have recoverable data. The ones that weren't recoverable were due to abuse or stupidity ... not much one can do there.