Recovering corrupt data from otherwise fine SD cards

December 1, 2006 4:13 PM

Has a no-brand cybercafe SD card reader borked our honeymoon photos/video, or is there anything we can do to recover them?

Half-way through our honeymoon we checked the photos and video on our SDs cards in a cybercafe (Compaq/WinXP; no-brand external card reader). After a while the image-viewer siezed up, directory names started showing up as hieroglyphics and wouldn't open. We put the cards back in our devices (Treo 650 and Minolta Dimage) and found that some of the image and video files had been corrupted/won't read -- only ones taken in the last few days. On the Treo, the images displayed the top 10-15% before degenerating into grey; the Minolta simply reported them as unreadable. Pics taken earlier were fine, as were the ones we took over the rest of the trip.

Back at home, the Treo syncs fine and transfers all images -- imcluding the corrupted ones -- but Windows reports the directory on the card is corrupt. The corrupted video doesn't seem to have synced. My wife (must get used to writing that) seems to have got the pics off the Minolta okay but isn't sure how she did it; I suspect voodoo.

Two questions: what did the card-reader/PC do to our SD cards; and is there any software or method for recovering the still-corrupted files?

All thanks appreciated.

posted by Hogshead to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Shitty thing to append. I know, my cheap Lexar mp3 player pulled the same trick.

You should go see the responses to my post.
posted by gmarceau at 4:52 PM on December 1, 2006

MediaRECOVER has worked for me in the past. YMM, of course, V.

It'd be a good idea to make an image backup of the card before you play with it - as they say, it's hard to make things better, but it's easy to make them worse.

No way to know exactly what happened without more information, of course, but guesses include (Possibly in decreasing probability) an electrical problem(static or problems with the reader) that gave a charge to the card, Gamma ray hit, driver/software problems with the cafe PC, and the ever-popular viral infestation....
posted by Orb2069 at 5:29 PM on December 1, 2006

Try this program also.
posted by robofunk at 5:30 PM on December 1, 2006

I've had great success with the free program PhotoRec.
posted by micradigitalis at 5:45 PM on December 1, 2006

If it's worth it to you pay for Photorescue.

It has saved my ass multiple times.
posted by photoslob at 8:43 PM on December 2, 2006