It Had to Happen: A Corrupt Memory Card
Michelle and I spent Monday evening in downtown Salt Lake City photographing recent bride Militia. The evening was beautiful and we were able to capture some nice images of Milita using tungsten lighting.
The first step when I return from a shoot is to download the contents of the memory card to my Mac. On Monday night, this was when I realized I had a problem. When I went to open the card in the Mac Finder (similar to File Explorer for you Windows users), the Finder would immediately close. After having this happen a couple of times I quickly became worried. I ejected the card and placed it back into my camera. When I attempted to view the images on the camera, I received an error. Uh oh!
Thankfully, at this point I recalled a blog post last month by photographer Thomas Hawk recounting an eerily similar experience. I took a quick trip to Google and found the post (read it here). In the post Thomas details his use of DATARESCUE's PhotoRescue program to recover the contents of his card. I followed the link he provided and downloaded the program.
I like stories with happy endings and this one is no exception. The program worked flawlessly and was able to recover the complete contents of my memory card. It even showed me the recovered images before requiring me to purchase it, so I knew it would work before handing over the $29 purchase price. This is definitely a program that any serious photographer should have in their kit.
In recap, here are the steps Thomas gives when encountering a corrupt memory card:
- Don't panic. Like I said. You will probably be able to get the shots back. Don't let it ruin whatever you are doing or shooting.
- Once you know that you need to recover photos from a card stop using that card immediately. Don't try to reformat it. Don't reuse it. Put it away and wait until you get home where you can try recovery. If you do keep shooting with the card you might overwrite some of the data and be unable to recover some of your photos.
- When you get home run DataRescue's PhotoRescue. You can download and run this software for free on your memory card.
- If PhotoRescue can recover your images they will show you the thumbnails of the images. At this point you will need to buy the software if you want to use it to actually recover your images. The software cost's $29 but usually this is a small price to pay to have all of your images back.
Today's featured image is a capture from the Monday night shoot. Militia was lit using two handheld tungsten lights. By setting the camera's manual white balance control to the temperature of the tungsten light, a natural (read: un-photoshopped) purple hue fell over the rest of the scene.
Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens - 1/200 second, f/4, ISO 250
Labels: tutorial
6 Comments:
Glad your story has a happy ending. Just curious--what do you do with the card after you've recovered your images? Do you reformat and use it again, or is there risk of the card becoming corrupt at some later time?
Thanks for the comment, Michael.
I've re-formatted the card and am using it for non-critical shooting to see how it goes.
In retrospect, I think this was caused by a combination of my Mac and card reader. The Mac was still showing a disk image from a previously read (but ejected) memory card on the desktop and wouldn't eject it. When I put this card in the reader, it began giving the error. I should have re-booted prior to trying to read any cards.
Bummer it happened but glad it worked out OK.
If I recall correctly, this is the second time this has happened to you. Same card? Same reader? (I don't think so.)
Sounds like the FAT data (or these card's equivalent) gets hosed; in any case it seems to indicate a faulty driver somewhere along the line. It'd be interesting to try to find the common denominator.
The Mac was still showing a disk image from a previously read (but ejected) memory card...
That does sound really suspicious.
FWIW, all the Lexar Pro cards I've gotten have come with a CD containing their own recovery software. I don't know if this is standard with this brand or if all the ones I've gotten happen to have come with the same marketing gimmick. In any case, I've loaded it on my laptop for when/if it happens to me. I'm hoping by having it already installed I'm keeping ol' Murphy at bay. :-)
I had a similar thing happen to me with some project-critical shots earlier this month. The Mac index of files listed files from the previous data set that I had deleted. Worse, the preview images appeared in the Finder, then the filename and related data disappeared once I clicked on it. Unluckily, I was 100 miles from an internet connection at the time, unable to download any recovery software. In the end, I used RescuePro, which first came with some SanDisk chips, to similarly satisfactory and blood-pressure-lowering results. RescuePro will rest on my laptop hard drive from that forward.
Hi,
I just like what you have done with the light, love it, well done.
All my best!
Robert Hammar
It's good to know that the software is available, but I HOPE I never need it!
Post a Comment
<< Home