Need Advice on Disk Recovery Software

**zxpro168** · Feb 10th, 2009, 8:21 am

One of my 8GB compactflash cards failed recently. When I inserted into my laptop, it comes with the dreaded message "Do you want to format this card"

The card is completely packed with photographs. Luckily, I have got copies of most of this elsewhere. I know it is possible to recover the images but I want to do it in such a way so that the file structure and file names are intact.

I wonder if anybody can suggest what software to use?

Thanks

**numaga** · Feb 18th, 2009, 3:42 am

try norton or a good pc store they might be able to help you

**The Webmaster** · Feb 18th, 2009, 4:05 am

Flash drives are pain in ass when they go haywire.
I have lost 3 flash drives so far, and had a little luck with data recovery.

One of my friends is a recovery expert and he recommended 'Bad Copy Pro' to recover the data.

Flash Drive Data Recovery Software and File Recovery

You may give it a try..

**zeruel** · Feb 25th, 2009, 7:52 pm

Thanks for the resource there TheWebmaster!

I also got 2 flash drives that needs data recovery.

**BzSales** · Mar 20th, 2009, 4:35 pm

Try "RecoverMyFiles" for me it worked wonders with the pics i lost. I also recovered some game saves i forgot to keep. It's pretty quick and easy 2 get

**Noobeedoo** · Mar 27th, 2009, 7:19 pm

Any update which of the software actually worked and recovered important data ?

Thanks.

**zxpro168** · Mar 27th, 2009, 10:15 pm

The one I used in the end was a free software called "PC Inspector Smart Recovery 4.5"

It was able to recover all the image files but couldn't recover any other files.

However, this is still more or less useless to me as the name and date of the images were altered. There was also no file structure left. Since there were thousands of images on the card, it would be extremely tough to identify which is which. Luckily, I already had copies of most of these images elsewhere.

Looking a recovery software, it seems that most can recover images easily but not other files.

**igxhost** · Mar 31st, 2009, 11:55 pm

Originally Posted by BzSales

Try "RecoverMyFiles" for me it worked wonders with the pics i lost. I also recovered some game saves i forgot to keep. It's pretty quick and easy 2 get

I agree. I've also used RecoverMyFiles and it works great.

**timsdd** · Apr 4th, 2009, 8:45 am

I don't know about recovery but this is why the cautious photographers never use more than a 4GB for instance...minimize the fallout in case of card failure.

though admittedly it would be tough to do if I was using a Canon 5D M2 in which the files are 21MP each! (though you can shoot @ 10 & 5 as well)