I was handed an SD memory card tonight which had over 300 images on it. The problem was that the card was no longer readable on several laptops and a desktop PC. It seemed that all was lost. I searched on Google (love Google) and found this listing of 17 free file recovery programs.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm
I tried the first program in the list Recuva without success and proceeded to try the rest.
The second program was DiskDigger and it worked. I was pleasantly surprised as the program found 318 image files that otherwise seemed lost. I proceeded to recover the files one by one as this was the only way to use the free version. After a few images, I decided it was easier to buy a licence which was about $18 AUD and then all images were recovered in a few seconds. It was money well spent. The suspect memory card may be usable again if formatted but why take the risk. It was consigned to the trash.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to backup everything that is important to you. Memory cards, hard drives, CD/DVD’s will fail at some point in time, that is 100% guaranteed. It is best to backup everything in at least three different locations.
– Peter
