FYI: lost pictures may not be gone for good!

[AlpineLamb]

If you have lost or accidentally deleted photos on a memory card read this:

Near the end of a long day hiking Haystack & Basin with my sister & nephews something happened to my camera...I have no idea? (Pocket erase?) All but the last 9 pictures I had taken (over 90) were just gone. I was deeply upset! On my Skylight trip three weeks later I activated a picture protect feature the camera has for some extra insurance...well low and behold, 5 of the Basin photos showed up! (even though I had deleted all photos on the card at the start of the hike).

So after doing some internet research I discovered that deleted photos are not gone, they are just marked as free space to be written over. As long as I had not used all the space they were probably still there!

After much research on programs for card recovery (there are some free ones, but free is not always free ) I decided to try cardrecovery.com .
With this program I got to try it for free and it recovered all the haystack/basin photos!!! In order to save them I had to buy the program ($40) which was worth every penny for the priceless memories! and I own the program and can use it in the future if needed. It was a quick and easy process.

Just thought I would pass this along.

[DSettahr]

This is why it's important not to just throw away old computers, especially if you have any sensitive documents saved to them (files with social security numbers, bank account information, and the like). Even if you delete these documents before you get rid of the computer, it'd be very easy for anyone who gets their hands on the hard drive to retrieve that information.

A program like Eraser will help to prevent access to that information.

[Trail Boss]

Memory cards are formatted using a Windows-compatible file system. This file system is old as the hills and deletion does not include destruction of the file's data. This is good if you want to recover something and bad if you thought it was erased for good.

The file's data, or more precisely, the memory card "space" it occupies, is simply designated as being available to be used by other files. The chance of successfully "unerasing" a file is greatly improved if, when you discover you've accidentally deleted a desired file, you immediately cease adding new files. For camera memory cards, it means stop adding new photos and proceed to acquire any one of many "unerase" programs available.

This is not an endorsement but simply an example of a file recovery tool from a reputable vendor: http://www.pctools.com/file-recover/

[SendHelp]

Originally Posted by DSettahr

This is why it's important not to just throw away old computers, especially if you have any sensitive documents saved to them (files with social security numbers, bank account information, and the like). Even if you delete these documents before you get rid of the computer, it'd be very easy for anyone who gets their hands on the hard drive to retrieve that information.

A program like Eraser will help to prevent access to that information.

I would add, the best way to prevent access to the a fore mentioned data once you've decided to dispose of your system is:

Remove the hard drive and physically destroy it.

[rockysummit]

And it is fun too!

[rockysummit]

I have had some photos disappear from the card when viewing in the camera. To my surprise they all showed up when I loaded them to the computer. Not sure what was going on there but I was a happy camper.

[MTVhike]

This is one reason I never delete photos from the memory card - cards are cheap enough that I just get a new one. The old one serves as another backup.

[FlyingCow]

Originally Posted by MTVhike

This is one reason I never delete photos from the memory card - cards are cheap enough that I just get a new one. The old one serves as another backup.

I wish I could do that... I'd go through a card a week!