Home › Forums › Photography Q&A › Memory Cards
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February 10, 2015 at 12:10 pm #9681SarahLeePhotoParticipant
I was wondering if photographers usually purchase new memory cards every so often…just to make sure they are reliable. Do they “get old”? Has anyone here ever had any problems with malfunctioning cards? What brands do you all use?
Also, any software recommendations for recovering deleted images on a CF card?
Any data recovery company recommendations for external hard drives?
February 11, 2015 at 11:44 am #9708Rachel LParticipantI use sandisk memory cards. I’ve only had 1 go bad after about 3 years of heavy use and it gave me plenty of forewarning before doing so. From what I have been told by a wedding photographer, she changes her cards out every 6 weddings to ensure there wont be any image loss for her clients! Hope this is helpful! 🙂
February 12, 2015 at 8:29 am #9709James StaddonKeymasterOh dear, sounds like you are experiencing some trouble with your memory cards?
In short, from what I know, I don’t think there’s any real way to tell when one is getting old. I’ve heard 5 years is a typical reliable lifespan of a CF card. But I’ve also heard that they can last a lifetime. (But perhaps those are for the super expensive ones that have lifetime warranties. LOL)
I’ve had very positive experiences with my CF cards, and I have always used SanDisk. I don’t buy the cheapest on the market, but I also don’t buy the most expensive. So the cards I have I expect to last a while, but do not expect them to last forever. I’ve been using my CF cards for anywhere from 2 to 9 years … and the surest way I’ve lost pictures is by actually loosing the card. 🙂 I was using someone else’s Kingston one time and it corrupted on me, so I told myself I would never buy Kingston after that.
As for recovery, I have had to recover pictures before. I have a friend who owns some software that recovers deleted pictures, so let me see if I can get in touch with him and ask what software he uses. The important thing is to not use the card that has had the pictures deleted off of it! Will get back with you on this….
February 12, 2015 at 7:15 pm #9710Ezra MorleyModeratorRecuva is a free program that you could try for data recovery. (Sorry, I have very limited internet connection right now, so I can’t give you a link.) Just search Google for ” Recuva ” . As James said, just be sure not to use the card in question for anything, it could potentially render it unrecoverable.
February 13, 2015 at 11:18 am #9711James StaddonKeymasterAll right! So here’s what my friend Adam recommended to me after consulting his experience in the area of data recovery:
“For recovering pictures or other files from memory cards, I would recommend Recuva. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/recuva.html This program is free, and in most cases should do just about as good of a job as my professional software.
“Regarding hard drive recovery, I highly recommend http://www.300dollardatarecovery.com/ These guys do a good job and charge a fair price for their work, rather than taking advantage of people that have to get data back, whatever the cost.”
Hope that helps!February 13, 2015 at 4:12 pm #9721SarahLeePhotoParticipantThanks everyone for the tips and recommendations. I think I will update some of my CF cards, although the missing files probably are a result of my own mistake, and not a card malfunction. Unfortunately, Recuva seems to only be compatible with Windows? I use Mac. I did download a few other programs that recover images, but all of the JPGs they recovered are named something like “#MG_5009” and won’t open [even the undeleted images on the card which should be fine], saying “It may be damaged or use a file format that Preview doesn’t recognize.” Tried opening in many different programs with no success, not sure why.
I checked into $300 dollar data recovery. They were very helpful and will take a look at my harddrive and see if it is something they can recover without replacing parts. If not, they can send it to Drive Savers, recommended highly as the best data recovery company in the world, which does more complex data recovery.
A word of advice to other photographers – be extremely careful with how you handle your files, hard drives – and please keep more than one backup!!
February 13, 2015 at 6:13 pm #9722Ezra MorleyModeratorDid you try opening the “damaged” files on a Windows computer with IrfanView? If anything can open it, IrfanView should be able to. Another option would be to try FreeFileViewer It’s made to open just about anything, so maybe it will be able to open them. Just be careful, free software like this often tries to install other “Junk” along with it, toolbars, “PC cleanup” and so on. Be sure to uncheck all “third party offers”.
Oh wait, you’re on a Mac, so that won’t help any!
You really should try Recuva also, maybe you can find a friend that would let you borrow a Windows computer? 🙂
February 14, 2015 at 1:58 pm #9725SarahLeePhotoParticipantI tried Recuva and it recovered several hundred files, but they show the same message when I try to open them. Tried using IrfanView and it says, “Unknown file format, empty/damaged file or file not found.” So I suppose they are pretty much gone.
Thanks for the help!
February 16, 2015 at 7:45 am #9734James StaddonKeymasterOuch. That’s not good. I did inform Adam about the situation and we’ll see if he is able to give any further input . . .
February 17, 2015 at 11:53 am #9741Ezra MorleyModeratorInterestingly, DPS just wrote an article on recovering lost pictures from memory cards! Here’s a link in case you’re interested. It’s basically just a product review for some $59.99 software, but the comments mention some different options which you might be interested in.
February 17, 2015 at 12:11 pm #9744James StaddonKeymasterGot an answer here for you, @SarahLeePhoto. Adam says:
“There may still be some potential for recovery (or even partial recovery) on these files. If they are speaking a flash disk/card, they could mail it to me, and I would be happy to take a look and see if I can recover images using some other software tools. (There wouldn’t be any charge for this. I am happy to help, if I can.) If these are highly important or valuable files, (such as a wedding photo shoot) I would recommend sending it out to a professional recovery service. The important thing is to not do any further writing to the card, as this reduces the chances of successfully recovery.”
If you would like to pursue this further, I can send you Adam’s address via email. Let me know!
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