Ask DLS: Recovering photos from a corrupted flash card
Digital cameras are great, you can store the equivalent of a dozen rolls of film at a time, delete bad shots immediately and download the photos to multiple devices. But like everything else, there can be a dark side (no pun intended) to digital photography: flash card corruption. Many of us have experienced that first hand, where a card that was working normally suddenly appears "empty" or refuses to mount on your system or starts reporting really strange error codes in the camera. If you haven't recently downloaded the photos to your computer, this can make a person positively apoplectic. And let's not discount user error; say, while taking photos, you accidentally format the card instead of deleting that one shot, wiping out Little Granty's trip to the Apple Store (don't worry, that was just an example, we got the pictures for a future Squadcast) in seconds. Whoops.
Of course, with the right software, more often than not, some or all of those photographs can be recovered from both corrupted and reformatted flash cards. A reader wrote in asking for the best options (he wanted free, we try to balance price with "actually working") and here is a list compiled for various operating systems.
Windows
Unsurprisingly, Windows has the largest selection of recovery tools. If you just want to focus on retrieving files from a flash card, photo CD or thumb drive, here are some options:
- BadCopy Pro ($39.95 for single license) - BadCopy Pro can recover data from CD, DVD, Zip disk, floppy disk, flash card and USB flash drive. It can recover information from both formatted disks and disks that are actually corrupted/unbootable. The program is $40 but you can use the trial to see if you can actually recover the files you need before paying for the software. I can personally vouch for the usefulness of this program and have used it on many occasions in my former life as a PC technician. I was once able to successfully recover files from a PhotoCD that was not recognized by either the camera (it was one of those old Sony Mavica's) or Windows.
- ZAR: Zero Assumption Recovery ($49.95 for single license, photo recovery tool works unlocked on the demo) - ZAR is aimed at being a multi-purpose file recovery tool, but the reason it's on the list is because the evaluation mode includes full access to the ZAR's digital image recovery tool.
- PhotoRescue ($29.95 for either the Wizard or Expert variations) - PhotoRescue has been around a long time and earned a good reputation. Again, this isn't freeware, but you can try the program out to see what it can recover before spending $30.
- PhotoRescue ($29.95 for either Wizard or Expert) - DataRescue makes an OS X version of their software too.
- CameraSalvage ($49.99 on CD, $39.99 for download) - SubRosa, the makers of the popular (and useful!) FileSalvage tool for the Mac also makes a digital image specific program. If you are interested in this program (you can try it to see what it recovers before buying), you might just want to buy the full version of File Salvage. It's $40 more but will recover other file types and device types.
- CardRaider ($19.99) - CardRaider is a very easy to use app that will recover RAW, JPEG and many movie formats and sends the recovered photos straight to iPhoto. You can demo the program to see what it will recover before buying.
Other stuff to keep in mind
- You might not always be able to use software to recover files from your camera. A USB card reader is much more effective. Some cameras will appear as a disk drive, but others require some sort of software interface.
- If you accidentally erase a card, do not continue using it if you want to attempt data recovery. You may still be able to recover some photos, but it becomes much more likely that the old files will become overwritten with the new photographs.
- If you have a corrupted card and you are able to recover all the data, you might be able to continue using that card, however, be sure to buy a replacement for important events, just in case.
What tools have you used for digital image recovery?
