Recovering 'deleted' files on flash media - a challenge!

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I've hit a wall here. Very annoyed having apparently lost some vital work following Picasa's 'fail safe' import protocol. Below is the problem and a response as posted on the Picasa help forum. I'm no closer to solving it and hope to dear god sombody here may shed some light on it otherwise I am up sh!t creek...

Thanks for looking


Discussions > Picasa Basics: How do I? > Import problem - Picassa lost images due to drive space error

1. Solnyhko


Picasa imported the contents from my memory card but ran out of HDD space in the process - unfortunately it was set to "safe delete" and it wiped my memory card even though only a handful of images were imported at the time. Are the rest lost? May Picassa have dumped them elsewhere (on another drive that did have space?) is there anyway of recovering or reversing a safe delete - could they still be hidden in a drive cache - it's a disaster if I have lost them

2. Don Lind

from: Don Lind
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:17:46 -0800
Local: Sun, Mar 11 2007 12:17 am
Subject: Re: Import problem - Picassa lost images due to drive space error



This sounds very damning to Picasa's "Save Delete" feature.
Safe Delete *HAS* to be safe. These are our photos.

You can see, during a normal import, where first, Picasa gets the
thumbnails pretty quickly, and then it starts bringing the photos over
*somewhere* to the hard disk (I'd guess some temp space, but I haven't
had to ever look). When you click the "import all" button, it
finishes pretty quickly... I've figured it was pretty much "renaming"
the photos into whatever directory I'd specified.

I just did a test to see if Picasa really did "stage" the photos... it
does...

Look in your normal "Save Import Pictures In:" directory... that is,
look in your the normal place where your photos get imported... Look
for a directory called temp_1. You may find your photos in there.

Although I can't imagine how it could successfully copy the photos to
the temp_1 directory and then fail to rename them...

You *might* be able to use some "undelete" programs on your flash
memory card. That is, there may be some utilities that can recover
deleted photos... Be really careful with the flash memory card until
you figure this out... Definitely don't take any more photos on it --
that would pretty much guarantee that the photos on there won't be
recoverable...

Let us know what happens...

Don


3. Solnyshko

From: Solnyshko
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 01:43:57 -0000
Local: Sun, Mar 11 2007 1:43 am
Subject: Re: Import problem - Picassa lost images due to drive space error


Hi Don

thanks for your considered reply.

As you suggest there may be some hope if the files were not physically
overwritten - I suppose this largely depends on the form of algorithm
Picassa employs in "Safe Delete". If the content is just renamed, and
the drive not reformatted I may be able recover my work. As things
stand Windows reads the drive as empty but the file system folders
used by the camera (a Canon EOS 300D) remain in the root directory.
Any suggestions on where to look are most welcome (I'm not aware of
any software that can undo deletes on flash media or HDDs and a
cursory google only brings up the usual exorbitantly expensive data
recovery companies)!

Is there somebody in the Picassa team that I might try canvassing in
this regard? Presumably there is a product support route other than
this user based discussion board.

Thanks

Sols


Source: http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaGuide/browse_frm/thread/90d5191a35a60e69/#
 
Last edited:
binaryknight said:
i tested recover my files on a 1gb sd card id deleted pictures off on purpose and it recovered them no bother might be worth trying your usual file recover software

Ok sounds promising

and what would recover my files be (is this a windows convention)? I dont have any 'usual file recovery software' (!)

do you mean this, perhaps? http://www.recovermyfiles.com/data-recovery-software-download.php?file=RecoverMyFiles-Setup.exe

unde4d, will give image recall a shot too however the demo version comes with this rather disparaging disclaimer: "This Lite Edition is limited to recovering the first 10 images from a card" I have the first 10 as it happens - it's the other 160 i need!
 
Last edited:
Right, the update...

Recover My Files worked a charm, so a happy ending :)

Just beware of using Picasa's 'Safe Delete' when importing - it's far from fool proof
 
http://www.recuva.com/

if that doesn't find them (its really simple to use, and freeware!)

screen2.png


then google "photo rec"
 
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