Restore Photos

April 26, 2012 4:10 PM

How do I recover photos on my blackberry bold?

I googled how to do this and came to a dead end. The photos I want to recover were deleted last year. I have taken many new pictures since then. A google search said that this was a problem because new pictures can be saved over deleted ones. Is this true? Is there a way I can restore them?

posted by squirtle to computers & internet (4 answers total)

Given the time span involved and the many pictures you've taken since the desired ones were deleted, I think it's very unlikely that you can recover them. Sorry.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:49 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

With simple searching, I found this program. I can't test it, but it's from an OK company and I have tried other things from them. I believe you can download the program and try it, and if it finds something you'll have to pay to unlock it to actually save the photos. (Be careful installing it, I don't remember but this company's installers may default to install a browser toolbar, but you get an opportunity to uncheck that and prevent that.)

There is a slim chance, a very, very, very slim chance, that some of your older pictures can be found and recovered. Let us know if it works for you, OK?
posted by caclwmr4 at 8:54 PM on April 26, 2012

Your blackberry is a computer. Generally, unless it uses a spool of paper tape with punch-holes for storage, a computer re-uses storage areas. When you "delete" something, you are saying the space it used is available for reuse. "Undeleting" is based on the principle that if a deletion is recent, the chances that the space is already written over are slim. Not only would taking pictures after deleting the old ones risk reusing that space (and therefore reset the bits used), any activity that stored data on the device, from saving an email to receiving a text message, would risk covering up one of those images. After a year of consistent use, the chances that any of the images are intact is very slim.
posted by idiopath at 8:56 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Any chance you did a backup to your desktop/laptop computer when the pictures were still there?
posted by getawaysticks at 12:14 PM on April 27, 2012