Warning - Keep images on card

Graham004

Graham004

Suspended / Banned
Messages
123
Name
Graham
Edit My Images
No
Went to the zoo today in cool damp conditions and snapped many different animals. Loaded CF card via lightroom beta, selected all and imported photos. When this was completed without viewing downloaded pictures I erased CF card. Looking again at Lightroom I was horrified to see that only 20% of photos were visible. I know the images were on the card as I viewed them via the camera viewing screen. I have a newish Lexar 8G card prof 233x and a few weeks old canon 5D MkII. Used Image Rescue4 that came with the CF card but it only recoverd the files that I had already download to my PC. Other file names were showing but were unrecoverable, even tried opening in photoshop that reported file not present. Since then I have taken a few other snaps that have downloaded via lightroom beta. As the images were showing file names on the recovery software I expect the problem may lie with the card rather than lightroom. These were not important photos but could have been someones wedding. So the moral of the story is check, swap cards and don't delete images from CF until confirmed pictures are stored safely on PC and burned to DVD. Wonder if anyone else has experienced this type of problem
 
If you haven't done anything else with the card other than format it then simply get some recovery software and its a simple process of recovery :)

I guess Image Rescue4 isn't that good :shrug:
 
I set the lock to wirte protect before it goes in the reader, then I can't accidentally delete any images.

Find some recovery software and see if you can recover the images. I have tried various in the past with both very good and pretty poor success, so if one piece of stoftware doesn't work try another.
 
dseered said:
I never delete anything off card, it gets formatted next time it goes in camera and card orders are reversed each job.
Click to expand...

Yep, except I'm not so fussy about the order I use them.

I've not had a card fail on me yet in 6 years of digital photography, including the 1GB CF microdrive that I bought with my Canon 300D in 2004.

[touches noddle sharpish]
 
Why are you downloading them with LR BETA - it's a BETA! You should be using LR2 or something else the BETA is just that! Catalogues are not compatible with LR2 or even the final LR3!
 
Fair point, well made.

Though the original CR2 files will still be there and available for re-import into LR2* so you'd still be able to re-process them elsewhere.


* subject to LR3 BETA not accidentally wiping them all (or indeed any other data on the computer) due to a programming error. Hope you keep a regular backup.
 
thanks for the warning i had become a bit blase about it,its allways best to be cautios.
 
levihaynes said:
If you haven't done anything else with the card other than format it then simply get some recovery software and its a simple process of recovery :)
Click to expand...

I think you may find that formatting the card will make it unrecoverable as it resets the FAT file.
 
actually I thought formatting was better than deleting. it reduces the risk of problems when writing to it and unless there is a hardware problem with the card recovering formatted images is possible.
 
petersmart said:
I think you may find that formatting the card will make it unrecoverable as it resets the FAT file.
Click to expand...

should be recoverable - even if its formatted, all that the OS does is exactly the above, it doesnt delete the files so they will be recoverable using the right software... if its been zeroed (every sector overwritten) then you would have been in trouble..
 
Graham004 said:
So the moral of the story is check, swap cards and don't delete images from CF until confirmed pictures are stored safely on PC and burned to DVD. Wonder if anyone else has experienced this type of problem
Click to expand...

an object lesson in learning by mistakes
i really hope you get them back
my technique which will be yours is to use another card for new shots till the other material is safe in the bank(s)...not just the pc

i copy to C: unedited...then to an external hard drive..unedited
only when i can see them in place would i do a reformat of the card...

once again hope you recover the material:thumbs:
 
My standard procedure has always been upload photos to C drive,sort out the dros until all the good stuff is left,copy to external drive.

Then and only then delete from card
 
Feel for the OP, I read somewhere the following work flow and have adapted it.

Copy the contents of cards onto C: or any other local drive on the computer/laptop.

Import the pics in LR, but also selecting to convert them to DNG, the DNG files are created on an attached external hard disk.

So at this point you have'll 3 copies of each file. After the job is done, JPEGs/TIFFs created. I format/delete the cards and the files on the local drive. Leaving only the DNG files on the external disk.
 
That is why i use 16Gb and 8Gb cards. I can shoot 1000 and 500 raw's on each respectively so only need to clear the card when it is about half full. (as i dont really take hundreds of shots in one go anyway)
 
Good lesson for me. Found the Recuva software really useful (tried it on hard disk). I had formatted card so no images found. Didn't really matter as went back to the zoo today and managed to get better shots of a tiger. I understand a lot of people like lightroom but I wasn't keen on it having tried a trial of LR2 and the new beta one. Removed from hard disk now
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top