Recovering photos from a corrupt memory card

March 15th, 2006 · No Comments

I’ve had this problem myself, and I’ve know other people who have had it. It’s a problem everyone with a digital camera will face at some point.

You try to pull your pictures off your camera and -poof- nothing. Or you get a few shots that transfer OK, and no more. When iPhoto comes across a corrupt image it thoughtfully tells you, then stupidly stops processing the rest of the images. So if just one is corrupt you could potentially lose the lot.

Personally I solved the above problem by plugging my camera into a PC and copying the whole contents of the card to the hard disk, I got the PC to just skip the corrupt file and carry on copying. I only lost one image.

What if nothing sees the contents of your memory card/stick/disk? Don’t panic. Don’t format. Their is software that can help you. On OS X try PhotoRescue.

And this company had one more thing going for it. They offered a refund. If the demo version of the software promised that it could deliver your files (showed you thumbnails) and the paid version did not deliver those files, then you could get your money back. None of the other software companies offered this.

So out came may wallet, and this morning I was able to successfully recover all my images from the card, leaving the other software in the Trash. Mark, lowenddslr.com

Link Via.