Photo Rescue to the Rescue!

Ron Niebrugge Arizona, Phoenix, Photos, Travel 17 Comments

McCormick Ranch Golf Course, Scottsdale, Arizona.

McCormick Ranch Golf Course, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Here is a mistake I have never made before – I went out one evening to photograph sunset in the hills above Scottsdale, and noticed my card was nearly full.  I did a quick look – perfect, these have been downloaded and backed up, so I formatted my card and began shooting.  It wasn’t until I got back to camp that I remembered that I had photographed Scottsdale and the McCormick Ranch the night before and hadn’t backed up or downloaded those images – I just wiped out that evenings work!

I couldn’t believe it – I’m always so careful.  I told Janine that if we ever get any requests for photos of McCormick Ranch, don’t tell me!  I didn’t lose anything that was going to win awards or solve world peace, but it is still a bummer to lose a nights work.

So I decided to see if I could rescue the images – even though the card was formatted, as long as the new images weren’t written over the old, I thought there might be a chance, and I had nothing to lose.  I downloaded a recovery program, and didn’t have any luck.  I then thought of Photo Rescue.  I noticed that I could download a free version that would search your card and tell what it found before you actually had to buy the program – so I would know if it could work before parting with the cash.  Well, sure enough, I believe it found every photo from that night!  I couldn’t believe it, and happily paid the $29 for the actual program.  It successfully recovered every image.

The ironic thing is that this same SanDisk Extreme card came with Photo Rescue on it for free, so I’m sure I had a copy at home – this is just another reason to use  SanDisk Extreme cards.  In the future I will make sure I have that program on my laptop when I travel.

So if you ever unintentionally delete, format, or just have a card go bad, don’t give up until you try Photo Rescue!

Comments 17

  1. That’s great the hear. I’ve used photo rescue to recover images off a card that appeared to be corrupt—you could see the files, but the computer said they where 0 kilobytes in size and nothing would open them. Photo rescue worked in that case too; it recovered every one. It’s a handy little piece of software. Glad it saved your shots.

  2. Glad to hear you came out on top this time. Be careful! I hate those stomach in your throat moments. I’ll have to check out Photo Rescue to keep it on my keychain thumbdrive and laptop just in case.

  3. I can see your stomach turning when you figured out you deleted the files. I’m paranoid that it would happen to me – so far I’m lucky and I made a routine when we are on a shoot to ALWAYS – yes ALWAYS download images before going to bed. Sometimes easier said then done when it gets so late that only sleep is an option.

    Happy for you you didn’t get punished!

  4. Really? I always thought those programs would likely fail me if I ever found myself in your situation. I’m glad to hear it turned out to be a lifesaver. I’ll have to write a post up about this! Thanks for the review!

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    Author

    I’m like Rolf and Jon – I always download every night, and do extra backups, or so I thought. Those are both good strategies – somehow I got distracted from my system. I will definitely be more careful in the future!

  6. Now for something quite different! I was looking at bear photos on flickr and found a picture of bear cubs remarkably like yours of the two cubs “boxing”. If you want to see try xueshan’s photostream. Maybe they were with you at the time ?? I am curious.

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    Author

    Nina – I looked for the image you are talking about but couldn’t find it. I do know, I was the only one there.

    Thanks

  8. Hi, I had a nearly identical situation and Photo rescue got ALL of my photos back as well. It’s a handy thing to have around. Glad it worked.

  9. I’m so glad you saved your images, Ron. I’m about to buy a new card for whatever I shoot today, because I can’t believe I traveled without bringing my cable to download everything from the card I’ve been using to my laptop! Thanks for the tip about the software. I wish I could find something reliable to rescue docs on the hard drive. I lost something I wrote (accidentally deleted), and the tech guys at work tried a couple of recovery programs, but we couldn’t get it back. Terrible feeling.

  10. I had something similar happen a couple of months ago. I was in the process of backing up the files from my main computer to my backup drive. I decided to delete just the files I had already backed up when I accidentally deleted every photo on my main computer–including thousands I hadn’t backed up yet. They didn’t even go to the recycle bin because the deleted file was so large. I also found one of those free trial softwares, and it found every photo I had lost. Apparently the files were still on the computer’s memory, but if you install or update anything that memory will start getting overwritten. I had to install the software on a different drive in order not to lose anything.

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    Author

    Hi Scott. The photos aren’t truely deleted and are still on the hard drive when you “delete” them, but your computer now thinks that space is available for new storage, so the risk of installing the software on the same drive is that the software will be stored over the top of the photos making them unrecoverable.

    A mistake like that is a sick feeling – bummer they couldn’t save the files Toby!

  12. Wow. Thanks for the valuable info! So glad you recovered all of your photos. I know that sick feeling, but I’m far from being a professional. I can’t really imagine.

    I hoipe you can check out that photo of the cubs. It is good to have eyes everywhere! I can’t believe people can take pride in posting someone else’s work as their own. What kind of sick mind does that take?

  13. I too feel that I would never make that mistake, but as soon as you say that, Murphy has a way of showing up. I’ve always used the Extreme cards and am really glad to hear that in an emergency like this they can be recovered. Glad to hear it all worked out in the end for you Ron. You’re certainly getting some great shots down in AZ.

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