How to recover pics from CF card ?

[Forseti]

Originally Posted by gtirman

One last question.....is there any way of losing the pics or is it pretty much foolproof with good prompts etc?

Yes, both recovery applications are very logical and easy to follow. I would highly recommend starting off giving ZA a run followed by PCI (both links given earlier in this thread) - what one may not recover the other just might.

By the way, I don't know how long you've been using this particular card but if it's been a while don't be surprised to see images being recovered that you'd long forgotten all about.

[OldBoy]

Originally Posted by gtirman

I'll give ZAR a try. [Sansdisk now require $20USD for what was a free service previously ]
One last question.....is there any way of losing the pics or is it pretty much foolproof with good prompts etc?
cheers to all replied and it seems like all agree on ZAR

It's foolproof. It asks you where to put the recovered files, so create a folder on your desktop and away you go.

[gtirman]

It seems that ZAR is definately NOT free. It has recovered 453 pics in which i can view which is great...however it wont let me save them. I started a new folderthen press save and then i open the folder and it is empty.
Their is a 'activate " button at the end of the process and it takes you to the payment checkout.
What gives here? Also one cannot right click on the hi-lighted pics to save them.
Any tips peeps?
cheers John

[gtirman]

forgot to mention....there is not one mention on ZAR that it is a free service.

[Forseti]

I think that you're looking in the wrong place. If you follow this link http://www.z-a-recovery.com/ half way down the page it states "Additionally, a free digital camera image recovery function is available" and if you click on the link given there it takes you to this page http://www.z-a-recovery.com/digital-image-recovery.htm

Simply follow the instructions given there and you're good to go.

[gtirman]

UPDATE THUS FAR.
Tried PCI yesterday.....very slow and not as clear as ZAR to understand. However it did recover the pics.....when i try to open the saved Jpegs they only will show a third of the photo.
So i am back to trying ZAR [the one half way down the page as suggested ] and it again is not as clear as the other version that i tried previously. The previous attempt took one hour with viewing of the Jpegs as it recovered them....great ! Then it tried to make me pay.It would not allow me to save them.
So now on this other version it has been running for 5 hours on something called Volume Analysis [?? ] with no sign of the words "recovery" or Jpegs. It is a third of the way thru...yikes !!!

Am i on the right target?? As it doesnt seem so.

[gtirman]

My PC has now been tied up for approaching 9 hours and i still dont really know if "volume analysis" means that it is recovering pics> ???????????
Anybody?

[Forseti]

Originally Posted by gtirman

UPDATE THUS FAR.

So now on this other version it has been running for 5 hours on something called Volume Analysis [?? ] with no sign of the words "recovery" or Jpegs. It is a third of the way thru...yikes !!!

Am i on the right target?? As it doesnt seem so.

If I remember correctly ZA is attempting to recover data from a 4GB card - yes? If so then it's going to take quite some time - patience is a virtue here I'm afraid.

Here's a little analogy which might help you to understand what is going on. Image you are looking into a Beehive containing millions of cells. When you capture an image it would be nice to think that each bit of digital information appertaining to that image would be slotted into those cells in a logical sequence e.g. starting from top left and working across so that all the bits of digital information were sequenced together leaving no blank cells. That's not the case however, and each bit of digital information relating to any particular image is scattered around the cells in a random fashion.

What you now need is a Bee Keeper with a huge memory who can remember exactly in which cells of the Beehive he can find all the bits belonging to any one image. Now substitute the Bee Keeper for a Fat Allocation Table (FAT) which is an indexing system within the hive and can remember exactly where all the various bits are stored. This table (FAT) is what you build when formatting or reformatting the card.

Now then, since reformatting your card you have essentially destroyed the original table thereby breaking the link between it and where the bits of digital information for any one image are to be found. In reformatting your card you have created a new table (FAT) which can only link to the bits of digital information that were captured since it was built.

What ZA now does is (a) to build it's own temporary table (FAT) and searches through each of the cells in the hive trying to find digital bits that it thinks belong together. The speed in which it can do this is dependant amongst other things upon the processing power of your computer. So patience is the keyword here gtirman - ZA is examining each and every single digital bit stored on your 4GB card, seeing if it fits with the last one (bit like a jigsaw puzzle) and if not putting it back and selecting another bit. Keep with it.

By the way - volume analysis is just that, your card is the volume e.g. drive F or what have you and ZA is analysing it.

[gtirman]

What a great way of describing this procedure to me....really appreciate it !!

It makes sense and i am relieved that Volume analysis is actually doing the job intended as you say.

Two things that confuse me.....
1. For the complete "volume analysis" running it has only been RAW and no mention of FAT which i expected.

2. The initial running of ZAR yesterday took only an hour to recover the 453 pics AND displayed them too.
One would think this ZAR i am running would do the same but hasnt AND taken much more time. I suppose you get what you pay for eh? LOL

Cheers John

[Forseti]

Originally Posted by gtirman

Two things that confuse me.....
1. For the complete "volume analysis" running it has only been RAW and no mention of FAT which i expected.

I take it that you are referring to step 4 in the process? Don't concern yourself about that - this has more to do with the algorithms used by ZA and, as stated in the tutorial, is a fully automatic process anyway.

Originally Posted by gtirman

2. The initial running of ZAR yesterday took only an hour to recover the 453 pics AND displayed them too.
One would think this ZAR i am running would do the same but hasnt AND taken much more time. I suppose you get what you pay for eh? LOL

I might be stating the obvious here, but I assume that you have selected the correct volume for recovery i.e. your card reader and not inadvertently selected your entire computers C drive for example.

Originally Posted by gtirman

However it did recover the pics.....when i try to open the saved Jpegs they only will show a third of the photo.

This is because part of the original image has been overwritten by your reformatting the card and subsequently using the camera again to capture newer images.

If I might be so bold as to offer some further advice LOL. In future download the images from your CF card to your computer and follow this up by making a second backup copy to an external drive. It always makes sense to have a minimum of 2 copies of your precious images. Then check both the original and backup folders to ensure that all the images have been correctly saved/backed up and then, only then, reformat the card.