Why do SD cards delete stuff?

[Kooldino]

Seriously.

I had an SD card full of stuff. I popped it into my digicam. I took 3 pics. Popped it back into my SD card reader on my PC. Whammo. Everything was gone except for the new pics.

WTF?

Why does this happen? It's happened to me with multiple cards on multiple readers in multiple cameras.

[az]

It shouldn't, but it's probably the cam doing that. Which is of course no help to you. Most of the data can be salvaged by software, because only the FAT has been altered.

[Kooldino]

Got any freeware that can get my data back?

[az]

No, but do a search on data recovery freeware. I think Lexar also bundles some recovery software with their cards.

[gt40]

O and O has 30 day evals available.
Great if you only need to use it once.

[Kooldino]

No, but do a search on data recovery freeware. I think Lexar also bundles some recovery software with their cards.

Yeah, that's not working out so well. I keep finding useless programs.

Hopefully someone can recommend one to me?

[Evildead666]

Its still rather strange that the camera wiped the stuff without any input from the user.
Any cards that I have used which were in the wrong format, or formatted in FAT32 or other, the camera always refused to use it, and says "Card full" or "non formatted card" and then prompts the user to format the card, with a Yes/No prompt.

You might want to try and repeat the process, and when validated, ask the maker of the digicam what the hell he thinks about it...

edit :I've used "Badcopy Pro" before, works wonders on HDD's and all types of digital media, even CD's...
Pretty sure there's an eval version...

http://www.download.com/BadCopy-Pro/3000-2248_4-10463101.html?tag=lst-0-1

Cnet link for download.

[gt40]

O&O disk recovery, download as a trial version.
http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/p...odiskrecovery/

[Evildead666]

O&O's Disk defrag with 3D screensaver is great to sit and watch...I bought it just for the screensaver...

Looks a (very little bit) like the Matrix Screen Saver with the green text...

edit: looks like the data recovery tool is quite good with 350 file types...
BadCopy only has maybe 50 to choose from, but they are the most common...

[Gurm]

SD media, like USB drives, can get zapped if the device isn't "done" with it when you remove it. I've done it a couple times.

[KeiFront]

Free and small, works perfectly for fat and ntfs: http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html

[ND66]

SD media, like USB drives, can get zapped if the device isn't "done" with it when you remove it. I've done it a couple times.

To me it happened just by accidentally bumping the media door open while the camera was saving picture.

Rule #1, once you use the media to take more pictures, chances of recovery are very slim.

You should try PhotoRescue, has a trail, will not let you save the recovery but should be enough to see if it can help you.

If it’s the xD card, chances of recovery are slim to none. I was experimenting with it and just deleting the pictures using the camera itself, you cannot recover anything with any software, period.

O&O software wasn’t able to help me at all. PhotoRescue was able to fix some corrupted photos already transferred to my hard drive. But that goes only for xD media.

Good luck.

[Evildead666]

All the Flash cards can easily get the data back. (unless completely fecked)

the way the solid state flash cards work is to use the next cell and then the next and then the next...
When you delete files, they are still there until you have re-written over the full capacity of the media. the cards FAT index is just modified. And yes, AFAIK, even that is stored "on the go" multiple times.
Each cell has a certain number of Read/write cycles that it is capable of.
The cards have internal programming for this, to prevent the first cells being used loads, and the card being dead in a matter of weeks. It spreads out the usage of individual cells, so some are not used more than others.
it spreads out the usage of ALL the cells on the card, so the maximum life-span is gotten out of it.

xD cards are "special". the early ones up to 1Gb had big problems, that no-one would admit to officially.
The FAT can be corrupted, and the images on the xD card are multiplied by 2 or 3 or 4.
i.e. you have a 256Mb xD card, and when you look at it in a PC Card reader, it states that there is 1.5Gb being used on the card.
None of the data is lost, there are just multiple identical file names. The FAT thinks these are new files, when they are just a name. copy the whole contents of the card to a desktop folder, and click "replace all" when it bitches at an identical named file being copied. that is the only known hardware bug to date for xD cards.
Happened primarily on the xD Type "M" cards. But not all were concerned.

Where I used to work, i had the pleasure of recuperating data from dozens of cards, even ones that had been left in the sun in a car for 5 hours...all different types of card.
The only ones where the data was irrecoverable, were completely undetected by Windows, or just crashed the reader and seized it up.
i.e. Completely dead.

Jez

edit : AFAIK, not sure about the FAT, but how else could it be stored...?

[Kooldino]

Its still rather strange that the camera wiped the stuff without any input from the user.
Any cards that I have used which were in the wrong format, or formatted in FAT32 or other, the camera always refused to use it, and says "Card full" or "non formatted card" and then prompts the user to format the card, with a Yes/No prompt.

You might want to try and repeat the process, and when validated, ask the maker of the digicam what the hell he thinks about it...

I agree with you 100%. However, this is happening on my Canon camera just like it used to on my old Kodak.

edit :I've used "Badcopy Pro" before, works wonders on HDD's and all types of digital media, even CD's...
Pretty sure there's an eval version...

http://www.download.com/BadCopy-Pro/3000-2248_4-10463101.html?tag=lst-0-1

Cnet link for download.

I'll give it a shot.

[Kooldino]

SD media, like USB drives, can get zapped if the device isn't "done" with it when you remove it. I've done it a couple times.

Good point, but I'm pretty sure the camera was off when I pulled it. Hmm.