elizabeth_f1 Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 I have shot over 50 weddings and am now, after all of these years, having a nightmare become reality. I shot over 7 hours of a wedding: ceremony, getting ready shots, reception, etc. and as it turns out, my memory card failed me on every single shot of the ceremony(i.e. 2 empty folders out of 7 downloaded from my camera). Granted I do have about 500 shots of all the really important pictures that no one else has like the formals and great candids but still...How do I explain this to a bride? Anyone else out there had a similar experience? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik_hornung Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 The images still might be recorded on the card, but not showing up because it went faulty...duh :) Have you tried using some kind of disc recovery software? I've had this similar problem with a card I used while travelling. The sandisk extreme cf card came with data recovery software that was able to recover all the images. I think sandisk might even have it on their website for free. Please post to let us know if you have any luck! Cheers, Erik :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elizabeth_f1 Posted July 26, 2005 Author Share Posted July 26, 2005 I briefly scanned the internet searching for "digital image recovery" and found no reliable looking help. I will check out the sandisk site. Thanks for the tip! Elizabeth F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrison_k. Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 You're shooting weddings digitally and not aware of, or attempted, data recovery? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik_hornung Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Well, she knows now doesn't she? Elizabeth - I took a look myself, and it turns out that the software isn't free as I had initially thought. I've never had to explain this kind of situation to anyone, so I don't know what kind of advice to offer. Out of curiosity, what kind of card were you using? Cheers friend, Erik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c_d5 Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Liz, I use this software, thanks to Marc William. hopefully it will help you out. One of those things that is the best money I've ever spent. http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedding-photography-denver Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 IR (image rescue) is what I use and then there's Lexars recovery program too. Good luck, that is a tough sell if you have to do it, but hopefully she will understand. Did you use two cameras? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedding-photography-denver Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 http://store.lexar.com/index.cfm?category=22&subcategory=22&productid=IR-437&bhcp=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimstrutz Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Go to www.convar.de and download the free PC Inspector Smart Recovery program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Buy any Sandisk media card that includes a copy of their recovery utility on a mini-CD. I got copies with both of my Sandisk Extreme 1 GB CF cards. So far I haven't needed them to recover info from my Sandisk CF cards for my Nikon D2H, but recently I used the Sandisk utility to recover corrupted files from a SmartMedia card on my cousin's Olympus P&S digicam. Not only did it recover the image files, it also allowed us to reformat the SM card in the camera, which we hadn't been able to do. I'm not sure which is the cheapest Sandisk media card you'll need to buy in order to get the bundled recovery software, but it may be worthwhile. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnmarkpainter Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Elizabeth, Don't write or erase ANY Files from that card until you have recovered your Files! jmp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peufeu Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 If you know someone who has a Linux PC you could ask them to make a raw image copy of the card into a file (using dd) before attempting recovery, just in case. And also don't use, or write anything to, or open any file on the card before you do recovery. Just copy everything that's copyable (I guess you already did that). FAT32 is an easy format to recover, so I'd say do as the other poster says and buy a new card with the little recovery CD (you aren't going to use THAT card again anyway ?) and use the program. For next time, have two cards and a portable harddisk thingy and backup your cards to it every hour, using the other card while one is being backed up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Gardner Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Liz....can't speak for sand disk, but lexar you can send it right to them. If it's a Pro card...they'll replace it and retrieve your data. It may be the same with SandDisk. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenPapai Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 It's posts like this that should remind people not to rely on just one large memory card in your camera. There's nothing wrong with using multiple 512MB and 1GB cards in your cameras. I hope Elizabeth recovers whatever, or most of what was lost. GOOD luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedding-photography-denver Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 "It's posts like this that should remind people not to rely on just one large memory card in your camera." Well that is funny, I read an aricle on the DWF not too long ago discussing this. One of the posters was a math major, and after some rather extensive explanation, the conclusion was the opposite to your thougts. At least in terms of calculable risk. I think you should do what you think is reasonable and get the best (read; reliable) media avaliable to do it with. Sandisk is my preference, but to each his own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_harding Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 I suffered a similar problem and used photorescue wizard with total success. The nice thing is that you can download a demo version and try it before you buy it. It was $29 well spent. http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimstrutz Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 And contrary to one of the suggestions above, just because a card failed once, does not mean it is very likely to fail again. I have had this happen twice, with two different cards in two different cameras, and after recovery & a fresh format neither card ever had another problem. Still, I would try it out first by filling it up & reformatting a couple of times to see that there really isn't a physical fault in the card. You never know until you try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaron_lee___minneapolis__m Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 the biggest reason for cards going south is a loss of power while accessing the card. The images are not stored sequentially like on a hard drive, they are stored all across the card with bits from image 1 spread between image 3, 73, 249 and 63 (you get the picture.) If your battery on the camera goes dead while reading/writing the card you will lose the whole thing. Obviously you should never open the door on the memory card slot when the camera is powered on. Hope this helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derrick_morin___fallon__ne Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Regarding Aaron's comment above: I'd be curious to hear from those who have had card failures and if they can identify causal factors such as power failures, opened memory card doors, physical damage, etc. It seems some failures are preventable! I, too, have a SanDisk Extreme CF card that came with recovery software, but I hope I never need it. As long as I keep shooting, though, it is reasonable to assume I'll have a failure eventually. I wish I could afford a 1DMkII with dual slots - that's the best insurance against data loss that I can think of. Elizabeth - did you notice any factors that you could attribute to your card failure? Good luck in your efforts to recover your work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discpad Posted July 28, 2005 Share Posted July 28, 2005 OK, here's the scoop, coming from an engineer at a hard drive & CF data recovery company, relayed to another electrical engineer (me!) at last fall's PhotoPlus Expo: Basically, CF is not a great storage medium for digital photography. The reason is that each bit has a finite number of times it can be "flipped." Furthermore, unlike magnetic material which can be read passively by the head, reading flash memory is destructive, i.e. to read the status of each bit requires the contents to be rewritten to another location. When a bit in a block of flash memory goes bad, the block is marked off as BAD and then the controller inside the card remaps it to another block location. Flash memory today actually has some excess capacity -- Typically 10% or so for the better cards -- so many "failures" are actually masked... Until it's too late. One person wrote above that he had a corrupted file, and when he reformatted he was OK... But, I damn sure would pull that card out of circulation, as it's about to fail more dramatically! If you insist on using flash memory, I recommend replacing them at least once per year: You can dump the used ones on eBay for about 70-80% of the cost of new replacements. Besides eBay, you can check PriceWatch _ http://www.PriceWatch.com _ for good deals. ------------ WHAT DO I USE? I use a pair of 2 gig **Hitachi** MicroDrives, with nary a hitch, in my S2 Pro. The original IBM MicroDrives were reliable but VERY fragile: The head servo mechanism was located at the back (opposite the pins), so when you removed the card and squeezed it a bit, you could damage the mechanism. [Even so, since the data is on a magnetic platter, it can still be recovered in a lab!] I generally don't even remove the MD out in the field -- I get about 150 RAW S2 Pro shots on it -- instead waiting til I get home or to the hotel and simply plug the camera's FireWire into my laptop, using the camera as a high-speed reader. About 2 years ago, Hitachi bought IBM's entire hard drive line, including the MD technology; and the first thing they did was re-engineer the package, adding rigidity at the edges; and more importantly, moving the head servo to the connector side. Sadly, the Chinese (MagicStor) knocked off the old IBM design, and failed miserably, spewing out junk and hurting the MD's reputation. Also, some clowns were opening up certain MP3 players and pulling out the Hitachi OEM MD's, which are intentionally crippled to not meet the ATA 1.4 standard, rendering them useless for digicams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elizabeth_f1 Posted July 31, 2005 Author Share Posted July 31, 2005 To answer some of the above questions: The card I used is a pro model by Delkin Devices. And yes, I have several other cameras that I use as back up during wedding shoots but not simultaneously. While I am searching to find these lost photos I have, in the meantime, contacted the videographer and am having prints made from the video. My hopes are not high in recovering the images but thankfully I have over 500 images of the photos no one else has (i.e. formals, getting ready photos, etc.). Thank you all for you very helpful info! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potok Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 i dont know what kind of Delkin Pro have you used but lets calculate 500 images x 6 (lets say it is at least 6Mpix camera in RAW mode) =3Gb, so the only one you could use would be 4Gb. $Gb card is FAT32 file system one, are you sure your camera is FAT32 and so is your computer OS, what camera do you have, what computer do you have? FAT32 cards will work on newer models, even digital Rebel, but not on original Nikon D1. so that could be problem. Maybe you formated card on your PC? Is it WinXP? (hopefuly OSX, but then...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elizabeth_f1 Posted August 18, 2005 Author Share Posted August 18, 2005 Good news! I have recovered my images thanks to some image recovery software found at pcinspector.com. I appreciate everyone's help, input, and sympathy/empathy where applicable. As for those of you who poured salt in my wound (i.e. not knowing about recovery software) I hope that when you have problems you don't encounter uneccessary comments that make one feel even worse about an already awful situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allan_z Posted December 12, 2005 Share Posted December 12, 2005 Hi everyone. Another place for hope while i keep searching online for media recovery software. My memory card has been corrupted. I can't find software as of yet, that will do it. My mac doesn't even recognize the drive. On windows, i believe PhotoRescue was abble to scan it, but nothing. What can i do??? it's a hitachi microdrive 4gb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discpad Posted December 12, 2005 Share Posted December 12, 2005 Use FlashFixers: They are in the same neighborhood as Hitachi, and a couple people there used to work for them! :) http://www.FlashFixers.com Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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