Image retrieval

Rudesing

Rudesing

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Name
Ruth
Edit My Images
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Hi

My mum in law just called as she thinks she has lost a huge batch of photographs. None of the tricks I know will help, does anyone know of anything else she can try?

- Photographs were taken from camera to computer (memory card then reformatted)
- She then cut & paste the photographs from the computer to a CD-RW
During this the computer crashed
- On reboot the photographs are no longer on the computer and she can't access the CD-RW (doesn't even come up with the CDs title on the computer)

Any ideas gratefully received!


Ruth
 
Cut and Paste is usually a copy followed by a delete, so check the recycle bin.
Copy and Paste shouldn't have deleted the files, same goes for drag and drop

Otherwise, you'll need to get some HDD recovery software, remove your mums drive, put it in another machine (aa usb caddy would do fine) then run the recovery software against it.

I found this by googling, I use a different tool from R-Studio, but it's not free.

http://www.stellarinfo.com/download.htm

It's not quick, but you should be able to get something, f not ll of them back.

Oh, and don't use the computer until you've done this, if they have been deleted and aren't in the Bin, using the PC may overwrite the old files.
 
JasonRS said:
Cut and Paste is usually a copy followed by a delete, so check the recycle bin.
Copy and Paste shouldn't have deleted the files, same goes for drag and drop

Otherwise, you'll need to get some HDD recovery software, remove your mums drive, put it in another machine (aa usb caddy would do fine) then run the recovery software against it.

I found this by googling, I use a different tool from R-Studio, but it's not free.

http://www.stellarinfo.com/download.htm

It's not quick, but you should be able to get something, f not ll of them back.

Oh, and don't use the computer until you've done this, if they have been deleted and aren't in the Bin, using the PC may overwrite the old files.
Click to expand...

:agree:
 
Thank you all for taking the time to reply and for the ideas, I'll get on to them.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, since my original post BT had a fault so I lost Internet access (& phone), then my own hard drive failed. Thankfully I have backed up my back up so all OK here.
 
dreameruk said:
do a system restore to when they were there ?
Click to expand...

DON'T DO THIS!!! System restore only restores system files and is very much a last resort as it can corrupt / overwrite current user data files. Any decent recovery software should get the files back as they are not usually over-written, a "file" is just a link to a physical set of data on a disk. The link info gets deleted but Windows doesn't delete or overwrite the data.

Carl
 
CReid said:
DON'T DO THIS!!! System restore only restores system files and is very much a last resort as it can corrupt / overwrite current user data files. Any decent recovery software should get the files back as they are not usually over-written, a "file" is just a link to a physical set of data on a disk. The link info gets deleted but Windows doesn't delete or overwrite the data.

Carl
Click to expand...

correct.
 
Before you open the System Restore console, you may want to save your work and close all programs since System Restore requires you to restart your computer.
 
You're not going to like what I am writing here, but your M-I-L has learned a lesson the hard way. She has discovered the perils of using the copy/cut and paste functions to move photos. A function beloved of photo magazines who have little understanding of the workings of a computer, but are happy to tell photographers to use it to move vast quantities of photos or huge Photoshop layers. Copy/cut puts photos (and other stuff) in to the PC memory. Huge quantities of photos or file, layers etc take up huge quantities of memory. Memory can fall over - easily i.e the PC crashes.

The stuff dumped in to memory via copy/paste stays in memory either until something else replaces it using copy/cut again (be it smaller, or bigger), or until the PC is rebooted. Memory is occupied and unuseable.

If you doubt me, copy or cut and paste something at the beginning of the day, do a day's work then carry out a paste function and it will still be there. Why have so many people not learned that just selecting and dragging a file across between two drives will copy it (as opposed to within the same drive which will move it) without having to put it in to memory ?

And in Photoshop, the magazines tell you to copy a layer then paste it on to another photo, when all you need to do is drag it across between photos.

So, all of you who think copy/cut is the way to transfer photos - learn from this mistake. Or if you don't, then at least don't use Cut.

The second mistake - using a CD-RW for photos. Just.....No. For long term storage CD-RWs are not much more reliable than floppy discs. Burning them has always been a hit and miss affair, and burning via a 'Cut' function was destined to end in disaster one day. CDs or DVDs, but never anything-RW. With the price of discs today there's no need for anything RW. I have some CD-RWs from over 10 years ago. They cost £18 each. This was when a CD cost about £5 - and a burn failure - which happened regularly - brought tears to your eyes.

So, you're now left with the option of trying recovery software. Once that's out of the way, then suggest she looks in to backup options.
 
Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but it should be possible to recover the files from the memory card (unless it was re-used) - There are some recovery programs that do this,
Sandisc Rescue Pro was one, you could also try recuva (http://www.recuva.com/) or undelete plus (I think that one was phoenix technologies)

Would definitely try the memory card before I started messing with the HDD
 
neil_g said:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/systemrestore.mspx

"System Restore does not affect your personal data files (such as Microsoft Word documents, browsing history, drawings, favorites, or e–mail) so you won't lose changes made to these files"
Click to expand...

That's only relevant if the personal data files haven't been deleted, as has already been said.

Since the files have been deleted, System Restore will potentially write the restored OS files into the blocks previously occupied by the photographs thus making recovery of those files much harder.

Also, System Restore wouldn't restore the images, as they're not backed up by System Restore, so this would be a futile exercise.
 
MisterE said:
The stuff dumped in to memory via copy/paste stays in memory either until something else replaces it using copy/cut again (be it smaller, or bigger), or until the PC is rebooted. Memory is occupied and unuseable.
Click to expand...

Not quite right I'm afraid.

We're talking here about copying files on the filesystem. This is fundamentally different to using the windows clipboard, which is what you are talking about.

When you 'copy' a file on the filesystem, a pointer is stored in memory, not the actual file itself. When it is 'pasted' the data is then read using that pointer. It uses a totally insignificant amount of memory.

Now, when you have opened a file in your image viewer of choice, and done a 'copy', it is loaded into memory, in the windows clipboard, and will remain there until you copy something else in there.
 
admirable said:
Before you open the System Restore console, you may want to save your work and close all programs since System Restore requires you to restart your computer.
Click to expand...

DO NOT DO A SYSTEM RESTORE! As has been pointed out by *several* people on this thread already, it will NOT help you recover any lost files.

It sounds like you need to use a data recovery program. For what it's worth I use Easy Recovery Pro....and usually got around 80-90% of files back, even after a format...although they all work the same so it's probably a question of usability.

It's important you run this recovery software as soon as possible, if you continue to use the computer then you will be losing the chance to recover the images as the swap file (if it's not fixed) and other random writes over-write the data.
 
As mentioned, would definitely try the Memory card before attempting to recover them from the PC - On the basis that there has (or seems to have been) some attempt by the MIL to "find" them, the chances of a complete recovery are diminishing. Aside from that, there's probably a whole host of other deleted data that you'll have to weed through as well.
 
Memory card retrieval is the simple way to go. As already mentioned, SanDisk do a very good image recovery programme.
 
Thanks all. My brother in law has some memory card retrieval software so we'll give that a go. Have almost mentioned the concept of 'backing up' and 'copy & paste' to MIL! Unfortunately, as they live the other end of the country I don't think we'll have much luck with the computer.
 
Hi Guys,
My Brother in Law accidently deleted images from his Sandisk SD card...

i've tried the Recuva program to limited success - i've recovered some of the images and movies from his camera, but not them all.

can anyone recommend any better software, or advice on how I can help him recover some more?

many thanks,

Ross
 
big pimp said:
Hi Guys,
My Brother in Law accidently deleted images from his Sandisk SD card...

i've tried the Recuva program to limited success - i've recovered some of the images and movies from his camera, but not them all.

can anyone recommend any better software, or advice on how I can help him recover some more?

many thanks,

Ross
Click to expand...

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/pcinspector.html
 
I paid £150 for this bit of software.

It is very good & worked for me.

Click Me. (right click/save as) 27.49mb
 
thank you both so much for your help guys - i'll give them both a go to see what I can salvage for him.
 
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