Help! Images gone!

Shooting a Canon 70D. Using a SanDisk memory card. Took several hundred shots yesterday. They were there, as I reviewed them in the camera several times over the course of the day. I did have images on this card from 3 different dates that I had not deleted, and they where still there. Plenty of space left on card. No formatting/deleting/et​c done with the card.

This morning I took the card out of the camera, put it in a card reader to upload to Lightroom. They are not there!!!! Yesterdays are gone. Images still there from the previous dates. Moved the card back to the camera, not there. Put the card in my desktop computer SD slot, not there!!!

If anyone can give me any insight to what is going on, it would be greatly appriciated!! Again, just yesterdays shots. All others still there!

Thank you!!!!!!

There are data recovery utilities you can download directly from the various card manufacturers.

I had a very similar problem with a set of images just disappearing, and the software found them and copied them to my computer hard drive.

Good luck.

Thank you so much! Off to do that now. Hope it works for me like it worked for you! But what causes it???

The Sandisk recovery software can be found at http://www.lc-tech.com …pro-and-rescuepro-deluxe/. The downside is it will only show what can be recovered, then you have to buy a license to actually do the recovery. Note this info from the site:

What you could do is buy a new Sandisk card at Best Buy, many come with a full version of Recovery Pro that will work for a year. Check the new product, as this may have changed.

You probably would want a new card anyway due to distrust in what you have. A Sandisk warranty may also apply to the old card.

Thanks for responding! I did purchase a software recovery program. It's running now. And yes I am ditching the memory card!

Oh, just wanted to add, no deleting or formatting done yesterday. I only do that when I delete all the old images, then I format in the camera.

another example where a dual card camera would have saved the day....Just sayin

hope you can recover the files

This has happened to me twice in 14 yrs. 2nd card had images each time

It's odd that just one day's worth of image files are gone. Usually I would think corruption would be a bit more well rounded and take out a mix of images across days.

Here is a stupid question on my part... did you use different cards, and those images for one day are on a different card? It sounds like you only have the one card, but my confusion is around why one day's worth of files and nothing else. Doesn't make sense, as corrupt file systems don't act this way.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18881378
It's odd that just one day's worth of image files are gone. Usually I would think corruption would be a bit more well rounded and take out a mix of images across days.

Here is a stupid question on my part... did you use different cards, and those images for one day are on a different card? It sounds like you only have the one card, but my confusion is around why one day's worth of files and nothing else. Doesn't make sense, as corrupt file systems don't act this way.

Not True

my second card failure was exactly this way. I was missing a bunch of getting of getting ready shots, a bunch of formals. and a bunch of reception images on a single card. The 2nd card which was recording at same time Had them. So I had missing images one one card through out the entire day....all said, final count of missing files was just under 300 shots. I didnt bother counting. I had panicked and just wanted to get the files. They were there. Cards can fail as he described. Been there and had it happen

The time i recovered "missing" files I did multiple shoots that day, I was shooting 3-5 locations a day. Only one location was missing.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18881378
It's odd that just one day's worth of image files are gone. Usually I would think corruption would be a bit more well rounded and take out a mix of images across days.

Here is a stupid question on my part... did you use different cards, and those images for one day are on a different card? It sounds like you only have the one card, but my confusion is around why one day's worth of files and nothing else. Doesn't make sense, as corrupt file systems don't act this way.

I was thinking the same thing. Clearly from other, it happens, but I am wondering what the mechanics could be that only one group if images would fail while other are fine. THe software engineer in me just can't figure it out. There is nothing in the card that would compartmentalize a group of shots from others. It almost sounds more like a camera failure, like the card did not seat properly for a specific shoot so the writes to the card didn't happen or were corrupted.

Will be interesting to see if the images are recoverable.

gjl711 wrote in post #18881390
IClearly from other, it happens, but I am wondering what the mechanics could be that only one group if images would fail while other are fine.

I've had the most recent images disappear, with no damage to older ones, when a card started to fail.

sharod wrote in post #18881335
Thanks for responding! I did purchase a software recovery program. It's running now. And yes I am ditching the memory card!

Check the warranty on the Sandisk, no sense paying for a new card if you don't have to!

When i read about Sandisk cards that fail, I see them fail as the OP described.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18881378
It's odd that just one day's worth of image files are gone. Usually I would think corruption would be a bit more well rounded and take out a mix of images across days.

Here is a stupid question on my part... did you use different cards, and those images for one day are on a different card? It sounds like you only have the one card, but my confusion is around why one day's worth of files and nothing else. Doesn't make sense, as corrupt file systems don't act this way.

Could be a corrupt partition table. Memory doesn't get recorded in a linear fashion, but are written in blocks. There's then a lookup table that lets the computer know where to find each block for a particular file. So if the system is corrupt, new data that gets created or deleted might show up as not even being there (as the computer doesn't have the appropriate info to find the blocks to recreate the file).

File recovery apps or something like chkdsk can be pretty good about fixing partition tables if the data is recoverable. I'd certainly also backup your previous files as well.