Lost Photo/Recovery

[Lensmeister]

Hi all,

Hoping someone can help.

ALL my photos from 2000 to 2011 have disappeared.

I have tried using Zero Assumption and UndeleteonClick to recover them. But at this point to no avail.

Can any suggest free software that I can use to recover the photos.

The photos were on a 500GB External drive and I am using Windows XP home.

Thanks all.

[donoreo]

You need to define "disappeared"? did everything on the hard drive go, or just the photo directories? Did you accidentally delete them or you do not know what happened?

[Lensmeister]

Disappeared .... Well the 500GB HDD is working fully and all the other directories are on it. Just the photo folders are missing ...


They seem to have disappeared ... posibly deleted ... no idea how though.

[jet_kit]

First of all. DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING to this drive until you get it sorted out.

There is plenty of software available to recover missing files/folders. Some better than others.

The files are still there, but the Directory Sector has 'forgotten' where they are and if you write anything to this drive you could easily write over the files you want to recover. Directory recovery software will interrogate the drive and list all the 'Deleted' files that it finds. It will then ask you to tick all those files you want to recover. Unless you know the name of each missing file it's probably best to select the lot, then go through the painstaking task of deleting all the rubbish again.

Alternatively, you can take the drive to a pro and have the directory re-constructed. But he probably won't do any more than you can do with propitiatory software.

Good luck.

[jet_kit]

Just had another thought.

Is it possible that your Photo Folder is hiding in another folder?

This happened to me recently. I can't remember what I was doing, but somehow a folder got dragged and dropped into another folder. Have a look in ALL your other folders to see if it's there.

[donoreo]

Originally Posted by jet_kit

Just had another thought.

Is it possible that your Photo Folder is hiding in another folder?

This happened to me recently. I can't remember what I was doing, but somehow a folder got dragged and dropped into another folder. Have a look in ALL your other folders to see if it's there.

I was just going to post this. Look around, you may have dragged and dropped by accident.

[Cathus]

try doing a search for a filename for one of your recent photos, presumably you still have photos on your memory card from the last time you loaded stuff off it, do a search for one of those filenames, or indeed for any jpgs or RAW files, whichever you use.

[2Beers]

I have used a program called getdataback to recover lost or deleted file from a hard drive

try it to see if you can find your files before you purchase it

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

[Lensmeister]

Thanks all for the help.

The External drive usually sits on my desktop but I was using my laaptop to look for a photo when I realised my photos (all of them) were missing.

I searched for the word photo (I never realised how many things with photo in the title I had) but none of the photos themselves. So I knew a couple of file names so I ran a search fo r those too. Alas nothing.

Last night (quite late I installed Zero Assumptioon on to the desktop PC (where the External usually resides) and ran the Zero Assumption over night.

This morning THE PHOTOS ARE THERE

BUT

It looks like there so many I will have to go and buy another 500GB or a 1 TB External drive to copy them on to. At least I know they are there and I can recover them ... They are all going to need renaming, sorting in to the correct dates and in the correct order.

Moral of this is: If you use a external drive and you cannot find the files on one PC .. try it on another .. you may find them there!

I can VERY much recommend Zero Assumption as it is FREE for image recovery.

[Lensmeister]

All,

Got a reply regarding just the ZAR program. If you want the image files only you need to do this:

Click ROOT so it is highlighted.
On the right, under "Find or select multiple files" enter "*.jpg" without quotes for JPEGs
click "Select" button.

Repeat for all file types you need.