deleted the pics from my memory card!

Hey guys,

I'm freakin' out! I had 233 pics on my memory card and rather than cutting and pasting them from the card to my computer, stupidly I created shortcuts and put them in a folder, then deleted the pics from my card. I obviously wasn't thinking! Is there any way I can get these pics recovered?? Please help! Priceless pics and short movies! Family stuff!

 

There is, but it will either cost you, or will take some time to fix. See http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=279509&highlight=recover+files+from+sd+card Hope you did not try to save files to the SD card, when this happened.

 

My card isn't corrupted. I saved the photos I took over a period of time, 233 photos in all, to the card. They weren't saved in the memory of the digital camera, but rather directly to the card. Some were short movie clips. When I went to save them to the desktop, instead of what I usually do (which is cut/copy paste from the card to a folder on the desktop) I stupidly saved the photos as shortcuts to the card, then deleted the photos from the card. So, of course, when I went back into the folder and attempted to access the pictures, I noticed my mistake, and the shortcuts went nowhere. Stupid, stupid mistake.

 

Photorec, though not the easiest to use is extremely thorough in recovering data. Download from http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/testdisk_photorec.html
A usage guide can be found here.

 

If you have a computer running XP (Vista, 7 and 8 are not supported)
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/pc_inspector_smart_recovery.html

Info: http://www.pcinspector.de/smartrecovery/info.htm?language=1

 

You could try this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/free_file_recovery.html

 

plodr already posted that info.

 

No, she didn't.

Three links, three different recovery suites.

 

I only saw the first and last part, due to the site kills most of the links, you do not know. We need to start stating the link name info with the bbcode.

I never place my cursor on the links posted, so I never noticed it, until you corrected me.

 

Thank you all for your responses!

I tried pcinspector and it didn't work. I tried photorec and another program I couldn't quite understand it, photorec recovered 70 photos and the other data recovery program recovered 133 photos of the 233 and put them somewhere on my directory. Don't know how to navigate it. So I took the card and placed it into a better computer and used Undelete 360, and it recovered over 400 pics, all the pics and avis I wanted to get back plus some stuff I had deleted in the past. However, there is a free and paid version and I am guessing the paid version, which has more options, would likely work better than the free. Options such as "keep folder structure", "use smart recovery", "retain original dates/times", and "recover alternate data streams", which to be honest, I have no clue what they are, but there are other perks for the $40 it costs for the paid version. What say you experts?

 

Do a search for the file name in Windows (ie *.jpg) and that should find any file names that end with that file type.

 

You should, and so should everyone for security sake - always, before clicking on any link. Most browsers will reveal the full address where that link is really pointing to when you hover over the link with your mouse cursor - thus ensuring the legitimacy of the link, and the poster.

"Trust, but verify" is essential in this anonymous forum world we frequent.

As for file recovery, I like, use and recommend Recuva from the makers of CCleaner.

However, regardless the recovery program used, any use of the drive after the files were deleted will greatly reduce the chances of recovery as storage locations marked free during the delete process will be used by new data - obliterating the old data underneath.

 

We should post that as a flashing banner...

 

Yeah, it would be nice if the drive's brains would use new space before reusing and overwriting old, but that would result in a lot more fragmentation issues - and performance problems on traditional hard disks.

What this really illustrates - and what phoenixrebornrising is likely kicking himself for now - is that backups serve a purpose.

Here's another banner candidate: ALL drives WILL fail - eventually. Have a backup plan - and use it!

 

The software on the device, that the SD card is inserted in; would be what needs to watch how the card is being used. Of course there is only so much space, and the fact that most devices like cameras actually use a version of DRDos.

It can be done if someone engineers the software properly, and you would have to use Linux. Writing the program in Assembly is about the best way to go, if you want to keep the program small in size.

 

Sure, it can be done but I don't believe the overhead (system resources/performance) is worth it, or practically a good idea - if for no other reason than some users will take that as some sort of excuse to not keep a current backup and frankly, there is no excuse. Everyone knows they should backup the data they don't want to lose, but sadly, most still don't - thinking it will not happen to them. Just not true.