About image file recovery

I recently read the posting from a member who said she lost 40-something images in/thru Bridge from an external HD, but later got them back.
Several other members posted advice saying to use the image recovery software that usually comes with SD or CF cards. I'm not positive, but I don't think the recovery software referred to will recover image files from an HD - only from a SD/CF memory card. Any comments?

I have the recovery program from Sandisk and only found out later that the files had been corrupted. As you said Tom, it would not be directed to the HD. I had to load the files back onto the CF card and then run the program again. At this point, it worked beautifully. However, it recovered all the files that were recoverable, including all the ones that previously been downloaded and the CF Card formatted, in camera of course. Given a choice, I would rather delete the extra files than not get all of them. There was a flaw that was probably the reason the recovery was necessary. The lower couple of rows of pixels on the right hand side, horizontal orientation, while viewing the picture were missing. This required a slight crop, but the pictures were saved!

I always download using Windows Explorer. After finding out how a camera supplied software further compressed my pictures (Kodak 950 with JPEG only capture - each picture was read, re-compressed, and then written on the PC.) I never when with any other method I couldn't control.

Memory cards are typically formatted with a FAT filesystem. Windows hard drives are usually NTFS. File recovery from FAT filesystems is trivial compared to NTFS filesystems.

The recovery software from Sandisk probably supports FAT only. It might work on a FAT formatted hard disk. Has anyone tried that?

One could create a FAT partition on a HD, assuming there is unallocated space on it

If there is no unallocated space, one might; be able to resize a partition, create unallocated space, and then create a new FAT partition. This could be tricky, though. A better solution would be to obtain a new HD and partttion it to create two logical drives; one in NTFS (for additonal storage) and the other to FAT for recovery.

Partitioning an unformatted disk with Windows is pretty easy, but resizing partitions and creating new ones would be best done using a program like Partition Commander.

--P

I've gotten DPR (Digital Photo Recovery) as well as RescuePro. One of them came free with a camera card (I don't recall which one... I think RescuePro). I've used the latter to successfully recover lost files on the camera card. It was great with files that were on a card which did not get used after files were lost. The files weren't completely intact on a card that had been used after files were lost, but many of them were at least usable. Anyway, I believe both of these programs state that they can recover lost files or whatever from a hard drive as well. I haven't tried it for that purpose yet. There are free demos online, and if you try them out, you are sometimes able to tell if it'll find your lost files. If you actually want to save them, you'd have to buy the program though. Camera cards that come with one of these programs are a very good deal, imho... I've used the program to help others besides myself & made some people very happy.

I have used the accompanied recovery program that ones receives sometimes with a Sandisk card. However, the best experience I have had is using Prosoft Engineering, Inc's program named Data Rescue Pro II. It can often find a card that will not show up on the desk top. It has saved me on more then one occasion because of corrupted files.

www.prosofteng.com