Lost photos on card?

"jollyroger99" Check for a PM as I just sent you a SanDisk activation code. It is a few years old but I've never used it. Please report back on your experience.

RDKirk wrote in post #19355897
I don't see how the software can know when you purchased the card, but only when it was activated.

Right, makes sense. However, the other possibilities also don't make much sense.

On the package of my last purchase it said "Visit www.(web address) today and use the following serial number: RPDxxxx...". So I guess the 2 year clock starts to run when you download the product, or maybe activate it. All one has to do is wait until there is a need to recover files and THEN do the download. You are not going to need 2 years to recover the files, so the 2 year part is nonsense.

And as John illustrates, these codes can be sent to others to help them as needed.

jollyroger99 wrote in post #19355309
As I have nothing to lose, what program did you use to recover yours?

Late to reply, but I've had the best luck with a program called GetDataBack by runtime software. It has various versions at different prices, but it's even recovered a broken RAID for me.

PhotoRec just saved some eagle pictures for me yesterday. I viewed the pictures on the back of my camera & everything looked fine. I then stuck the card in my card reader & opened LR & tried to import them, but LR didn't recognize that there was anything in the card reader. I tried a different card reader, same thing. Tried a 3rd one, nada. I then put the card back in my camera & my camera wouldn't turn on! I had to take out the card, remove the lens & the battery & wait a bit & then my camera worked again. (with a different card). I figured all was lost, but I tried Recuva & it acted like it was finding things, but eventually said 0 files found. So then I tried PhotoRec & it found all my recent photos & a bunch of older ones too. So for free, it's definitely worth a shot! They weren't important photos in the grand scheme of things, but I had been bummed that a bald eagle had landed in a tree right in front of my house & I almost lost the pictures!

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …0200448-2-XL.jpg&lb=1&s=A

smallpotatoes wrote in post #19356072
PhotoRec just saved some eagle pictures for me yesterday. I viewed the pictures on the back of my camera & everything looked fine. I then stuck the card in my card reader & opened LR & tried to import them, but LR didn't recognize that there was anything in the card reader. ...

Thanks for the tip. I downloaded PhotoRec 7.1 and will stash it away in case I need it in the future. This, even though I've never had a read problem in 16 years of digital photography. But it's good to have options just in case.

Do you have any idea of what might have gone wrong? Is there any chance you pulled the card when a write was happening? Static electricity maybe? It seems most card failures happen between the camera and the computer. There must be reasons, but I realize that it must be hard to pinpoint the cause in most cases.

Archibald wrote in post #19356102
Thanks for the tip. I downloaded PhotoRec 7.1 and will stash it away in case I need it in the future. This, even though I've never had a read problem in 16 years of digital photograph. But it's good to have options just in case.

Do you have any idea of what might have gone wrong? Is there any chance you pulled the card when a write was happening? Static electricity maybe? It seems most card failures happen between the camera and the computer. There must be reasons, but I realize that it must be hard to pinpoint the cause in most cases.

This was the 1st time I have ever had a problem. 15 years shooting digital for me, so I guess you just never know.

I have no idea what happened. It definitely wasn't writing to the card, as it was several hours after shooting. There's a slight possibility I left the camera on & the battery died. I know the battery was low and that was my 1st thought when my camera wouldn't turn on. But a fresh battery didn't help. And it would be pretty unusual for me to leave my camera on. I'm usually pretty darn good about turning it off when I'm done. I did notice when I 1st put the card in the card reader that the Avast pop up window kinda glitched. It flashed & then was real choppy looking. So I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or if it was the card reader or what.

Thanks to everyone who replied, and for the offers that helped, along with the info about the free Rescue program, and help via a private message.

Unfortunately, as I was so happy to see my pictures show up in the RescuePro program (obviously never had this happen before), I had also reached out to their tech department last night, and was told I needed to purchase the program (I bought the $39.99 program) which has a one-year use. I hope I never need it again, and am going to check to see if I can get SanDisk to replace this card as I'm afraid to use it again since I have no idea why it crashed/corrupted.

As I've been a regular user of SanDisk for the past 20 years, I'll obviously look to see if that RescuePro offer is still included and save it when I buy my next card/s.

The pictures I was recovering were this wreck in San Bruno, Calif. where a passenger Caltrain hit two Hi-rail crane trucks working on the new electrification system last week. Fortunately nobody was killed, although one of the crane guys was seriously burned. fire ensued on both the locomotive and the passenger car, both will probably totaled. The #503 was a switcher they brought in, of which I've not been able to get a picture of before and was really happy to see it, until the card crashed..

Roger

Looks like we both got stung, glad to hear that program worked for you, as did this one I used. It actually recovered the photos to raw, which was quite helpful for me.

Just making a comment about my very recent SanDisk card.
It was new, recently purchased and I put it in the camera and took a lot of photos of a snow event here.

That day the card couldn't be read away from camera. Camera showed photos, laptop said error and card needed formatting.

That took me on same search as this thread is about.
The program found all the files very quickly and recovered them.
All saved to hard drive.

Took card out, put in camera, error message.
Put card back in laptop similar.
Card back in camera and formatted card.
Card back in laptop. Error message.
I gave up on it.

First time in ages I'd used SanDisk as been using Samsung Evo.

Wasn't aware of warranty!
Don't think I've got the receipt so just put down to one of those issues we face.

I've never had a issue with Samsung but this is second SanDisk card failure.

Ouch, sorry to hear that Richard, I've almost exclusively used Sandisk for 20 years and honestly, probably 1 million shots. Lost a couple individual shots on a Lexar card, but this was a first time for Sandisk and to lose a bunch.

What I found interesting was RescuePro not only recovered the 40 or so shots I lost, but also all the pictures (1,000+) that had been formatted over.

When I see threads like this, addressing issues of “lost” or “unrecoverable” images on memory devices, I often wonder if the card is being extracted when the camera is powered on. I always power down, and unconsciously wait 10 to 15 seconds before removing a card. I have only needed Rescue Pro once, and I remember at the time that I thought I extracted the card while the camera was “ON”.

John from PA wrote in post #19356393
When I see threads like this, addressing issues of “lost” or “unrecoverable” images on memory devices, I often wonder if the card is being extracted when the camera is powered on. I always power down, and unconsciously wait 10 to 15 seconds before removing a card. I have only needed Rescue Pro once, and I remember at the time that I thought I extracted the card while the camera was “ON”.

I can't say with 100% certainty that my camera was turned off when I removed my card. It was for sure several hours after shooting. I took the pictures in the morning & went to download them that evening. But I've been shooting digital for 15 years (and was shooting with an SLR since the early 80's) and there has literally only been maybe 3 or 4 times where I've picked up my camera & been like "Oops, I left it on!".

It was a 2 year old SanDisk that I used in rotation with 2 other cards, so not old or used extensively. I always formatted in camera after downloading to my PC. I don't know what happened in my case.

But I can't recommend PhotoRec enough! It found all the new photos, plus over 500 old ones that had been formatted over. They're RAW files too. The only thing was that it changed the naming of the files, but that's no biggie at all. And I'm pretty sure there was a way to re-name them yourself, but that part was over my head!

smallpotatoes wrote in post #19356398
I can't say with 100% certainty that my camera was turned off when I removed my card. It was for sure several hours after shooting. I took the pictures in the morning & went to download them that evening. But I've been shooting digital for 15 years (and was shooting with an SLR since the early 80's) and there has literally only been maybe 3 or 4 times where I've picked up my camera & been like "Oops, I left it on!".

It was a 2 year old SanDisk that I used in rotation with 2 other cards, so not old or used extensively. I always formatted in camera after downloading to my PC. I don't know what happened in my case.

But I can't recommend PhotoRec enough! It found all the new photos, plus over 500 old ones that had been formatted over. They're RAW files too. The only thing was that it changed the naming of the files, but that's no biggie at all. And I'm pretty sure there was a way to re-name them yourself, but that part was over my head!

Well the one thing I can say with certainty is that I never switch my cameras off! Not for changing lenses, changing memory cards or changing batteries, not in the 15 years I was using a Canon dslr or for the 2 years I've been using sony kit and, touch wood fingers crossed etc, I've never had a corrupt card or lost images any other way than me deleting them incorrectly! And it's extremely rare for the memory card to ever be formatted once they've been used the first time. Just me?

By the way the indication from the OP is that the purchased version of RescuePro is only good for a year after installation. So first and foremost is when you buy a Sandisk product that includes the paperwork for a free year of the full blown version, save the offer details and don’t install until such time as you need it. Secondly, you have to dig a bit to find out that RescuePro is only good for one computer, but there are very specific ways to “export” the package should you get a new computer or perhaps replace a hard drive. See https://www.lc-tech.com …p%20old/English​/rp_07.htm for the details; scroll down for the details of moving the product to a different computer.

sidknee wrote in post #19356503
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Well the one thing I can say with certainty is that I never switch my cameras off! Not for changing lenses, changing memory cards or changing batteries, not in the 15 years I was using a Canon dslr or for the 2 years I've been using sony kit and, touch wood fingers crossed etc, I've never had a corrupt card or lost images any other way than me deleting them incorrectly! And it's extremely rare for the memory card to ever be formatted once they've been used the first time. Just me?
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No, Sidknee, it's not just you.

I don't bother to turn my cameras off, either, as I see no need to do so. . I don't even turn them off when changing lenses with the IS turned on. . And, like you, I have never had any kind of problem result, even after 16 years of shooting and well over a million images, and after an average of 10 or 15 lens changes each day that I shoot.

I think a lot of people are very careful about things that they don't really have to be careful about.


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