can't recover photos-is it hopeless?

[meyervk]

My mistake was probably a common one. I have a newer canon powershot and was trying to find ways to maximize the use of the memory space on my SD card. I found the "format card" option, and I hit "ok" thinking it would just take me back to the main menu. I failed to notice that all of pictures were gone--they were of my spring vacation while I was studying abroad and they were really important to me. This happened 48 hours ago, but I didn't notice the first 700 were gone until I had already taken about 60 more. I've tried using the program to recover the first batch of photos, but it says they aren't recoverable. I've tried searching this website for any little tricks to try, but no luck so far. Does anyone have any advice?

-V. Meyer

[Augeas]

Ignore the fact that it says unrecoverable. Can you see the pics in thumbnail view? If so, recover them. You could also try the Deep Scan and Scan for Non-Deleted Files options: I don't know if they are relevant to an SD card, but it's worth a try.

[redhawk]

As Augeas says you will need to enable "Deep scan" because by formatting the memory card the filenames are lost.

Recuva in Deep scan mode will check every byte of your card which matches a jpg header and attempts to rebuild each lost file.

Just how many files you can recover is hard to say since you've already overwritten them with 60 new jpgs.

 

If Recuva fails to find anything then I would recommend "ParetoLogic Data Recovery Pro" which the only other data recovery tool I've used that works with a formatted memory card or if it contains damaged partition data.

 

Richard S.

[meyervk]

I was able to recover one picture, but I'm afraid it was too late for the others. Thanks for the advice, though!

-Vanessa