Data Recovery

Ever had that sinking feeling when you get home from a good shoot and you go to transfer your shots from your memory card to your PC etc and find that there are no pictures to transfer AGGHHHH !!!
Touch wood this has not happened to me, but my friend Dave had just been on a once in a lifetime Safari only to discover that the memory card that had most of his shots on had some how been corrupted !!
So what do you do in a case like this ?
First thing is don't panic there is normally a way to recover your lost treasures.
Ideally if you are on the ball with PC's create an image of the card before you do anything else, that way you always have a safety net, mount the image you have just made and do all your data recovery attempts from the image, this way you don't touch the original card.
OK next stop is the card makers website and look for support, most of the manufacturers have free recovery software available that will (unless the card is totally fried) recover your files.

So you download and install the software point it at the image, failing that use the card, the software will then ask you to select a few bits and bobs and then run a scan of the image / card, if you have set your PC/ Laptop to sleep after xx minutes disable it, you do not want to interrupt this scan !! even if it looks like the scan has stopped let it run to the end, if it crashes try again.
Once the scan has completed it should list all the files available for recovery select them and a destination and away you go.

Preferably before you tackle the dodgy card format one of your other memory cards and do a dry run to see what you can recover form a good card, just so you don't make a costly mistake with the dodgy card and lose your data completely, that's why working from an image is safest.

It is surprisingly difficult to lose data, even if you format a card all the images will still be there, when you format a card all you do is remove all the flags and pointers that tell the controller what areas of the memory contain data.

What do you do once you have recovered your precious pictures from your card ?
Well obviously you will lose confidence in the cards ability to record data accurately, I mean you wouldn't want to go on another important shoot and use that card right ?
Before you bin it format it in the normal way and then fill the card up with data if it is 32Gb write 32Gb worth of files to the card and then try to read them back to your PC, do this several times to test the cards integrity.

Its then up to you what you do with the card based on the results of the test, personally if it performed the test flawlessly a number of times, I would use it again but not on anything crucial to start with.

Finally if the above recovery procedure doesn't recover your files most manufacturers provide data recovery services for their cards, some charge some don't depends on the card type age etc but its a good last resort.
Even if the card is totally unreadable by the likes of you and me, they can pop a card open and bypass the memory controller and read the memory direct.

Fingers crossed it will never happen to you but if it does I hope the above may help you to recover your files.

The Beast From The East

Well its too bloody (windchill -7) cold for me too go out birding, so I just kept an eye on the back garden and there has been lots of activity, plenty of Blackbirds, Blue Tits, Sparrows, Starlings, Dunnock, Wren, Robins, Magpies and a solitary FieldFare which has been in the garden for the last two days now.

 Shot through the double glazing so quality is not as it should be.

Far from being a social bird this FieldFare has been guarding the bits of apple that I put out as if its life depended on it (and well it may), as soon as a Blackbird or Starling went anywhere near the apple he was on it fighting off all intruders, the only company he would tolerate was the Sparrows as I assume he knew they were not competing for the same food.
The only time it took flight was if I stepped outside to top up the feeders or if the Magpies dropped in.
The Wren was busy looking under the coping stones on my Barbi wall and frequently found a juicy morsel.
Blue Tits checking out the bird box and feeding on the sunflower hearts.
Starlings were giving the fat balls some welly, Blackbirds were attempting to pick up the bits from the fat balls that the Starlings were dropping but the FieldFare was relentless in scaring them off !