Digital Camera Tip

Recover Deleted Photos From Your Digital Camera's Memory Card.

Do not take any more photos using the memory card containing the deleted photos. Like computers, the photo files are still on the card but are coded as deleted and the space they occupy is marked as available for new files. There is a freeware program called PC Inspector Smart Recovery that can be downloaded from www.snapfiles.com. Download and install this program on your computer. If you have never downloaded software before, check my file download tip. Then, follow these steps:

If you have a flash card reader already attached to your computer, insert the memory card into it, otherwise connect your camera to your computer with the memory card containing the deleted images. Since the recovery program runs quite slow, be sure your camera battery is at full charge. Power on your camera.

Start the PC Inspector Smart Recovery program.

Select the device (camera drive letter, probably e:, f:) that contains the images that need to be recovered.

Leave the output format JPG unless you know another format you want.

Select the destination folder on your computer where you want the restored images to be placed.

Click the Start button.

The program runs slow but what the heck, it's better than losing the photos. Do not be surprised when the program restores photos that you took some time ago. It cannot distinguish just the last batch you deleted. Watch the number of found files in the progress section. If you have a large memory card, and the number of found files stops going up after 5 minutes, it may be safe to assume that no more files will be found. I tried this on my camera and it found 105 photo files and stopped finding files at 29% of the cards capacity. I have to assume that 105 is the largest number of photos that was on my card at any one time.

If you live in the Springfield, MO area and feel uncomfortable with doing this yourself, you may contact me for my services.