Urgent: Memory Card Recovery Software

martinturner · 13 Nov 2009 at 16:58

Can anyone recommend a memory card software recovery tool. Preferably one that is free. A good friend of mine has just got back from holiday in Texas, but xd card upon inserting into laptop suggests it needs to be formatted before it can be used. She said that when it was in the camera she was able to cycle thruogh the shots; just since removal/journey it has somehow got into a pickle.

Thanks

daven1986 · 13 Nov 2009 at 17:13

not sure but couldn't you use linux to do a complete dump of the entire memory card? I think the command is "dd" or something.

martinturner · 13 Nov 2009 at 17:16

Thanks fella, do not use Linux.

Something windows please

RaV · 13 Nov 2009 at 18:21

Try this http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Just dont write anything else too it.
But I have recovered all the files from a USB stick that has been formatted before, so that may have to be a step if the PC wont recognise it until it has been formatted.

SteveOBHave · 13 Nov 2009 at 18:59

http://www.cardrecovery.com/rdownload.asp and it works really well.

martinturner · 13 Nov 2009 at 19:53

Cheers guys, had to search for myself as it was very urgent! I landed up using 'PC Inspector File Recovery'. It's free and recovered all the data! Success!

Pho · 13 Nov 2009 at 20:13

For future information, there's also PhotoRec. It's a command line program but very powerful.

Rough guide: create a folder on your c:\ drive, i.e. "photorec" and extract the contents of testdisk-6.12-WIP to it. Open up a command prompt (start > cmd.exe) and type:

CD c:\photorec
photorec_win.exe
Select the drive to recover from, click enter
Select 'Intel', click enter
Select the partition type, there's probably only one anyway
Select [OTHER] FAT/NTFS/HFS+/ReiserFS/...
Let it find stuff

Phorec info: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec