williamsquire Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Recently my cat Indy passed away after 14 years. I took a few photos of him justbefore he died but there is an issue. The photos as a thumbnail show the original. But when I click to view/previewthem they come up as a totally different photo! Does anyone know how to recover the original file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Which thumbnails where? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamsquire Posted March 29, 2007 Author Share Posted March 29, 2007 Ok I guess I need to put a little more info. So I copied the photos from my digital camera to my computer into a file called indy. I went out a took landscape photos and put them into the same folder. When I went to look at the photos (on my desktop) the thumbnails showed my cat but when I opened up the photo it showed the landscape. when I refreshed the thumbnail it now shows the landscape. is it possible to reverse/recover the original photos? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffs1 Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Sorry to hear about your cat; I just finished shooting a large number of photos of a friend's dog just before he died, too. Your problem is likely that when you copied the landscape shots into the folder they had the same names as the files already in there and overwrote them. The thumbnails are stored in a separate file, so you were seeing the old thumbnail images until you did the refresh. You may be able to recover some/all of the original files with some kind of data-recovery program. I'm afraid I don't have any specific suggestions, but hopefully someone else here will have some experience. It will help if you can minimize the amount you use the computer, so that there's less chance for the space used by the missing files to be re-used for other things. On an off-chance that they're still there, I'd check the "Trash Can" (or "Recycle Bin" - whatever it's called on your computer) and see if the files happen to be there. Good luck. Cheers, Geoff S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Sounds like you put two files with the same name into the same folder and the new one overwrote the file name of the first one. The first thing to do is to do nothing. Do NOT save any more files anywhere on your PC. The original file data MAY still be intact, it's just the index to the files that's been changed. Google "Image Recovery Programs" and go through the links it brings up. You'll find lots of software (some free, some you have to pay for) which will try to recover files. However remember that ANYTHING you save ANYWWHERE on the same hard disk as the lost images may overwrite the image data, so if you can, run that image recoverty software from a CD, a floppy or a different hard drive. I'm going to move this thread to the Digital Darkroom forum in a while, where you might get more advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wigwam jones Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 It sounds as if your photo files had the same file name and they were overwritten when you copied the landscape photos into your directory. Depending on a large number of variables, it might be possible to recover the original photos. In the Windows world, when a file is deleted (including when another file of the same name is copied over it), it isn't 'really' deleted - just the first letter of the file name. It is like tearing the index out of a book. The pages are still there, but now you can't find what's where. The file only remains recoverable until something gets copied over the actual file - taking its place on the hard drive. This could happen at any time. Some programs, like disk defragmenters, can clobber deleted files also. However, I am a bit surprised that your digital camera does not sequentially number every photo you take - do you routinely let the batteries die and then have to start from 0001 again? You might also try looking into your computer's 'waste basket' to see if the files might be there. If you run Windows, there are programs out there that will assist in recovering deleted files if they can be recovered. I don't know how Mac's work in that regard. I hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffs1 Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 I did a quick Google search for "windows data recovery" and found a number of possibilities. I didn't see any that seemed obviously better than the others, so I can't make any recommendations. If you have a local "PC Support" company/store, you might be able to take the machine to them and have them perform the recovery for you. Cheers, Geoff S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Try this: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec It's free and it's effective, but it does run from a DOS Window and it's a bit "geeky". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamsquire Posted March 29, 2007 Author Share Posted March 29, 2007 thank you all I do appreciate all your help. So far most programs cant find the files so I am looking at the recycling bin now to see if I can pull from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamsquire Posted March 29, 2007 Author Share Posted March 29, 2007 also is there a way to restore files to their original self? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 Unless you deleted them they will not be in the recycle bin. If you overwrote the filename you can't get them back that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamsquire Posted March 29, 2007 Author Share Posted March 29, 2007 Bob, I copied the files from the camera to the recycling bin then I deleted them from the camera. does that make a difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roger_smith4 Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 You copied files to the recycling bin? If so go to the bin and select the files and copy them to another folder anywhere on your hard drive. It sounds however from your second post that you overwrote the files and should follow Bob's advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 I'd advise doing absolutely nothing else other than reading up on the subject of image recovery for a while. Every time you copy something somewhere you greatly increase the chance that you have lost the images for ever. In my first post I wrote "The first thing to do is to do nothing. Do NOT save any more files anywhere on your PC." That was not a joke. Fail to follow that advice and the chances of ever recovering the images decreases exponentially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave_reichert1 Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 I'd be looking at the camera's memory card first. Just like your computer hard drive, files that are deleted from the camera are probably still there. Only the directory that tells your camera how to locate them has been changed. Look for an image recovery program, and run it on your camera's card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoff_worboys Posted March 29, 2007 Share Posted March 29, 2007 William, if you did not format your memory card between uses there is a chance that at least some of the files may be recoverable from there. I have had good success with:http://www.pcinspector.de/smart_media_recovery/uk/welcome.htm (or for more control try their other product:http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hugh_croft Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 I have used 'Directory Snoop' on more than one occasion to successfully undelete fotos. It's not free though, but works well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_vincent2 Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 I have used Getbackdata to perform miracles in the past. http://www.runtime.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wogears Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 First of all, the advice to leave your drive alone is very good. Don't save ANYTHING to your hard drive ANYWHERE. Trying to recover the pictures from the flash card (camera card) is also excellent advice. Card makers often offer some software for that purpose--sometimes free! Now to the part I don't quite get. On Windows (and Mac) OS, when you are about to overwrite a file, you get a warning--something like "A file with the name '0001.jpg' (or whatever)already exists. Do you want to replace it with this other file? Yes. No." You would have to have clicked "Yes" with each file, or possibly "Yes to All". Did you do something like that? Open the folder with the pictures. Tell us what is in there. DO NOT open or save any of the pictures. Just tell us what the file names are. Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamsquire Posted March 30, 2007 Author Share Posted March 30, 2007 Les, I did click overwrite only because I thought I was overwriting other information and didnt realize that the photos were named the same. Usually cameras keep a count but mine decided to use the same numbers. P1010080 P1010081 P1010082 P1010083 P1010084 P1010085 P1010086 P1010087 P1010088 P1010089 P1010090 P1010091 P1010092 P1010093 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Ingold Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 William, Once you have resolved this issue as best you can, there is another you should address. If possible, set your camera so that images are numbered sequentially and the sequence is continuous from card to card. Even on a D2x, this feature is optional. This helps a lot to prevent overwriting old files. It also helps to save each batch of images into a separate directory. The combination of file path and file name constitutes a unique identifier. Finally, you should backup or archive your images on a medium that can't be accidently overwritten nor erased - CDs or DVDs. Good luck. You're going to need it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamsquire Posted March 30, 2007 Author Share Posted March 30, 2007 ok, so lets say I find files (photos) that are corrupted, is there any way/program to save them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenPapai Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 This is where a cheap FILM camera is better than Digital. In the wrong hands digital's gonna kill ya; shoot film and not worry about this anymore William. Sorry for your image files loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 "This is where a cheap FILM camera is better than Digital. In the wrong hands digital's gonna kill ya; shoot film and not worry about this anymore William. Sorry for your image files loss." It happens with film too. Imagine my surprise when I got back one of my rolls from the Grand Canyon shoot that I did a few years ago. All frames from that roll were exposed twice. How did it happen? I was in a hurry to change film and the beautiful light was fading fast. Picked out a clearly marked exposed film can and shoved it in. Took the pictures, changed film again and shot some more (this time with unexposed film - thank God!). I did lose some shots that I still think could haven keepers. But that was the only time I have had that misfortune. GR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now