File Recovery

<p>Does anyone know if it is possible to recover cr2 files from lexar compact flash cards after a few jobs ?</p>

<p>A few seconds' Google gives (among many other useful results), this: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm</p>

<p>For Mac</p>

<p>It's been awhile since I bought a Lexar card - but the last one I did came with free file recovery software.</p>

<p>Lexar also offers it for sale/download. It's available for Win/Mac, and there's a trial version. I've never used it, so no idea how it compares to other offerings.</p>

<p>http://www.lexar.com//products/lexar-image-rescue-4-software?category=2459</p>

<p>In general, these recovery utilities can get back data IF it has not subsequently been overwritten. If you've used the card for "a few jobs" since the data you want to recover, if any of those jobs used a good chunk of the capacity of the card then you may be out of luck.</p>

<p>There is no recovery software on earth that will reliably recover cr2 files from a card on which they have been overwritten (not reformatted, overwritten).</p>

<p>So most likely, you have overwritten <em>at least</em> <em>some</em> of your data, which (if you use Lexar's Image Rescue, or other recovery software) will most likely result in recovered tiffs that may (or may not) contain the original RAW data you are seeking. They may be full images, or half images, or discolored images, or garbled images, or half&half images... Just be ready for some work (if you are lucky)<br>

But now that you know you are trying to recover the data, <em>don't use the card until you have some recovery software running when you plug it in</em>. for example: Windows likes to 'repair' things which will only make <em>more</em> data unrecoverable. Usually your rescue software disables that kind of stuff while it's running.</p>

 

<p>The recovery software works and costs about $40, but every new photo overwrites an old one. So if you fill up the card with new photos, all of the erased ones will have been overwritten, and thus unrecoverable. </p>

<p>Many memory card controllers attempt to even out the usage of the storage cells and don't immediately overwrite recently used ones. This is to prevent cells becoming worn out.<br>

It's quite possible that erased files can be recovered even after a few images have been written to the card. The more images written the less likely it is that the whole file can be recovered.<br>

I don't know about Macs but Recuva is free and works well under Windows.</p>

<p>Henry</p>

<p>Now i'm wondering as a freelance shooter...can I be sued..?</p>

<p>... yes, yes you can.</p>

<p>For your case, Minitool Mac Data Recovery may help you recover cr2 files.</p>

If you have shot, then formatted, the reshot and saved over to the same card, the previous data is being overwritten with the new data.

Each of your jobs, to be honest, should be saved to another device.....external hard drive, laptop, etc., after each job.

Always, always backup.

Two is one, and one is none.