First Corrupt Memory Card

I shot my first wedding this weekend and found out I have a corrupt memory card, I'm a little unhappy at the moment. One of the cards I used is completely blank. I put it in the computer this afternoon to find out that it has 7.8 gigs available (8 gig card). Is it possible to recover any of the images. I have a mac and don't want to pay for any software without getting some he advice first.

Some more info:

I viewed the images on a computer before just to check a few of them. The card was safely ejected. A few weeks ago I was doing some ISO testing with my camera (so wasn't planning to keep the images). I viewed the images on my computer and safely ejected that card. I went back to the card a few weeks later to format it(for the wedding) the images were gone. I figured i just did it after I viewed them the first time. After this happened I'm wondering if the card should be trashed after sorting out the latest problem or if anyone knows what might be causing it. The images weren't viewed on the same computer each time that caused the possible corrupting so don't think the computer contributed (and went through the same process with 3 other cards).

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Some of the utilities here run on the Mac. But it might be easier to borrow someone's PC and use one of the more widely-available utilities that run under Windows.

Are any of them better than others or should I just start at the top of the list and try them all

I've successfully used CardRaider. I even like its minimal interface.

If you can't retrieve the images with any app, check your menu settings for 'Release shutter without card'... hopefully the card didn't choke early and the camera let you keep clicking away without even trying to write to the memory card.

Oh, seeing you have a 7D you're using CF cards.
There have been a slew of posts recently about bent pins in the CF reader, even in the body connector. Check both.

(this makes me think that chimping might actually be a good thing sometimes :confused

always fire off a few test shots one or 2 nights before the wedding, review on camera, and then erase of format card... should do for every card you bringing with you...
it will give you the chance to see if the card already has images you need to transfer somewhere first, and does a quick check that card and body are ok

Kingston

I have had two corrupt memory cards, both of them are Kingston Elite pro 133x Compact Flash. One is 8GB and the other 16GB.

I discovered the 16GB corrupt card during testing, but I lost some (rather unimportant) images on the 8GB card which I could not reclaim using a retrieval program. I returned the 16GB card to Fry's Electronics but, had not saved the receipt for the 8GB card; so I bit the bullet on that one.

Funny thing, I have a couple of 4GB cards of the same type which have been working fine for a couple of years.

However, I will no longer purchase Kingston CF cards.

BTW: besides the Kingston cards, I have Lexar, SanDisk and one no-name card (which has also worked great for several years).

It seems to me that cards will either work well or be corrupted from the start. I have not ever had a card which has been working correctly suddenly fail me.

Sorry you have a card problem. Hope you can find a utility to read it.

I have had only one bad CF card. It was a Duracell 32GB 600x. It was bad out of the box and not in the field. But the rest of Duracells I purchased tested as 400x speed cards. Sent them all back and got a Lexar 32GB 600x.

I had a card bend the pins on my 7D. If you have one bent- Look closely at the plastic seperating the holes on the CF card it self. I had one hole where the plastic was broken and the best I can determine it caused the pin to bend.

I had some bad 16GB Duracell cards, luckily I managed to extract the embedded jpag from the files of most of them with Breeze Browser and returned the cards.