Recovering lost photos: A quick how-to

It's not very hard to lose hundreds of photos from your digital camera's memory card in the blink of an eye. Just ask my colleague, Eileen McCooey, who asked for my help after accidentally erasing pictures of her recent summer vacation when she unintentionally reformatted the memory card.

Fortunately, if you know what you're doing, it's nearly as easy to recover deleted images as it is to erase them.

Here's how I rescued Eileen's photos:

1. I told Eileen to immediately remove the memory card from the camera. This is critical, because right after photos are deleted (or a card is formatted), they're usually still intact and recoverable. But once you use that card to store additional shots, you put your deleted photos at risk.


2. I knew there was software that could recover deleted files, because I had bought and used programs at home to help family members with similar problems. (Card makers Sandisk and Lexar both sell such software.)
   
   But I wanted to recover these photos in the office, without buying more software. So I Googled "freeware to recover memory card." Several hits seemed to fit the bill. But I wasn't sure if those downloads were both spyware- and virus-free, so I checked Download.com, which has a reputation for safe downloads.


3. At Download.com, I searched for "recover memory card" which turned up 82 hits. I tried a couple that appeared to be free (there was no "Buy now" displayed). One of them actually found the lost photos, but wouldn't recover them unless I paid up.


4. So, I used "Narrow Your Search" on the results page to find the few that actually were free. That turned up just four hits.


5. I downloaded and ran VaioSoft Recovery Manager 1.5 (click on image at left), which recovered nearly 500 photos in just a minute or two. There they were, on my hard drive. I copied them to a CD for Eileen. VaioSoft encourages users of its software to make a contribution to support its work.
   
   (Note to Mac users: Recovery Manager 1.5 runs only under Windows. You may need to hunt for alternatives through reputable freeware sites that cater to Mac users.)

If you attempt this yourself, keep these tips in mind:

• If your damaged memory card has some form of write-protection, use it to avoid accidentally writing to the card.
• Never copy files to the memory card while it's in your computer's card reader.
• Check the software's destination settings to make sure it will place the recovered files on your hard drive, not the memory card. (See image at right.)
  
• View the recovered photos to make sure everything is intact.
• Before reusing the memory card, make sure you have also backed up the recovered files to a CD, DVD, or other device, so that you have at least two copies of them.

And remember: Anyone with a PC can do what I did, so before you lend an "empty" memory card to someone, make sure you've irrevocably erased any files and photos you'd rather not share. (You can do that with a "complete-delete" utility like Eraser or by totally filling the card with other files and then erasing all of those.)

—Jeff Fox

—Jeffrey Fox