HELP!! Just DEVASTADED ... !

[Eleni2007]

Hi Everyone,

 

After our 1 week fabulous cruise on the Saphhire in Alaska, we just discovered that all our pictures are gone! We don't know if the memory card was damaged or what, but all our pics, almost 400 of them are gone! Apart from the beautiful memories we have in our heads, we can not show our friends and families all the beautiful sites we saw, all the great wildlife we enjoyed seeing, our whale watchign tour with Harv & Marv, our WhitePass Railway tour to Yukon... all gone!!

 

I am hoping all my newfound friends here can help me... is there anyway that I can take links of photos that you guys have posted, etc... put them on a CD, and take them to a picture store to get 4X6 prints made?? Is there any way that I can pick and choose pics and drop them into a CD?

Is there anyway that you can share your great pics with me so I can have somethign to show as well?? I am just BESIDE myself .. pics that we would appreciate getting are from following:

- Pics from Anchorage to Whittier (scenery by train)... especially wildlife?

- Pics from Harv & Marv Whale Watching (whales, eagles, sea lions, etc)

- PIcs from Whitepass Yukon tour

- Wildlife pics .. (bears, mountain goat, etc).

 

Any help/suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Tx,

Helen (aka - desperate)

[Toyz711]

that is my worst nightmare!!!! everyone gives me a bad time for dragging the laptop with me...but that's exacting why i do it. every night i would save the photos to disk and to the laptop's file.

i still drives me nuts that the whale watching in hawaii, 10 years ago..got lost when i went to get them develope. i know one whale popped up next to the boat, but i don't have the photo of it. photos keep your memories sharp.

[jrw]

You may be able to get some help with recovering the photos. I don't know anything about it personally, but have read that they are not truly ever "gone" and can be recovered. I just don't know the details or the process. Of course, this is not guaranteed & the card could be corrupted. Have read a lot about cards bought off eBay that are worthless, not sure if that applies here.

 

Look for Dave (pierces) and maybe he can steer you towards possible recovery of the photos. There are other people whose names/IDs I can't recall offhand, but I find Dave to have tons of great photography info. You can do a search on his ID or maybe he will come across this...or someone else may.

 

Good luck :)

[fti]

I am so sorry to hear that your photos are apparently gone. As was mentioned, you can try to have them recovered - it usually costs $100-$200 I believe. Do an extended search by title of the Alaska board with "Photo" and you will see several threads. You will immediately know those posters who are "in the know" about such stuff.

 

I am not trying to beat you over the head with the next statement but just trying to show with an example why I recommend multiple memory cards and smaller memory per card:

 

I never use memory cards that are more than 1GB in size which for me on the finest setting take about 300 photos. That is the greatest number of photos I am willing to lose in case a memory card goes bad. Being that I take +-1,000 or more photos on any given weeklong trip to Alaska, that is still a good portion of my total photos.

 

Please people, (1) use the finest setting, (2) bring multiple memory cards (3) change out memory cards once you get more photos on the card than you are willing to lose.

 

John

[gambit57]

I've had hard drives go bad (among other things) so even if you put it on a laptop, you're not entirely safe either.

 

But yes, buying multiple memory cards and changing them out so you limit how many are on one card is one of the cheapest insurance you can have.

 

The good news is there are all sorts of software and services to try and recover photos for you (better brands include some software with the card). With digital, it's essentially the same whether you're trying to recover from a memory card or a hard drive. It likely isn't TOTALLY wiped out and there's a chance you can recover your photos.

 

If you leave your e-mail (and make sure it's a generic one in case some webbot later picks it up and floods it with spam), people can leave links to their sites.

[Coral]

I strongly recommend looking at data recovery programs. One of my coworkers returned from India and had lost all of her photos. I used a program I found online (I can't remember the name, I have it at work) but it let me download a trial demo. With the demo, I could tell if it would work recovering the files (I could see the pictures). Once I bought the program, I could "recover the pictures". I think the cost was only $30 or so.

 

I think this is the program I used:

 

http://www.mediarecover.com

 

The program recovered every picture perfectly.

 

BTW - I also bring several storage cards. I know too many people who have had their cameras stolen along with their only storage card. It is a difficult lesson to learn.

[thawan]

If you don't want to try yourself. take the card to a photo shop. they should have programs to try and recover it.

[qiangf2]

I've had hard drives go bad (among other things) so even if you put it on a laptop, you're not entirely safe either.

 

But yes, buying multiple memory cards and changing them out so you limit how many are on one card is one of the cheapest insurance you can have.

 

 

Nothing can be 100% sure. All my recent photos were downloaded to my laptop and deleted from the CF cards. The laptop was totalled in a party. I remember another poster's cure is to go back and retake those pictures, which is very convincing for me at this stage. I have sweared that I would never delete pictures file from CF cards before it is double backed-up. It does need persistence and descipline. I will be trying.

[Toyz711]

i was thinking about doing a triple back-up. we stayed with family in seattle for a few days after...i was thinking of emailing the photos to myself. but after checking the disk a few 100 times and double checking the hard drive..i figured i was safe.:D plus i left a disk there for them to view. going to do the same when/if we get to cruise during december...but for the resort in costa rica i may have to think of a another system...wieght limit on luggage on small plane to resort..bummer!!! i only had 1 memory card, DH doesn't do photos and just would not be talked into extras.

[mytime53]

I've had hard drives go bad (among other things) so even if you put it on a laptop, you're not entirely safe either.

 

But it's not likely to happen to both in the same trip.

 

Because of worry over this happening, we downloaded our pictures from last year's cruise to a CD in a port, and then again onboard. I don't care what it cost.

Before we had a digital cameral, we took a trip to Wash. DC, then a cruise Istanbul to Athens, then a few days in NYC on the way back. Needless to say we had many rolls of film, and I guess if we had to lose one, we lost the right one. But I still hope someday I run across the roll of film containing the pics of us at Coney Island.

[ute_fan]

I'm so sorry! We had this happen once following a land vacation -- due entirely to my stupidity, but that didn't make it any easier. I was able to recover mine using a program that I downloaded. I think it was called r-studio, or something like that.

 

About a year later, we had neighbors who had the ship copy their pictures to a CD. Something went wrong, and they ended up with about 20 out of 200 pictures on the CD. Since they'd started reusing the memory card, some of them were unrecoverable, but I got most of them back.

 

It's definitely worth trying a recovery program, or taking the card to a photo store, but depending on what happened, you may or may not get lucky.

 

I've got a link to my photos in my signature line. You're perfectly welcome to download anything that you are interested in.

[aaklang]

Lexar and Sandisk (as well as other companies) have recovery programs that can help get your pictures back. You may have to pay (approx $20-30), but it would be worth it for your memories.

 

Good luck!

[photodoodle]

Nothing can be 100% sure. All my recent photos were downloaded to my laptop and deleted from the CF cards. The laptop was totalled in a party. I remember another poster's cure is to go back and retake those pictures, which is very convincing for me at this stage. I have sweared that I would never delete pictures file from CF cards before it is double backed-up. It does need persistence and descipline. I will be trying.

Oh no, sounds like you can't get your photos back. I'm so sorry to hear that.

[photodoodle]

I did back up favorite shots on CD on my Alaska cruise, not everything. It's tedious to back up 2-6 Gigs a day on CD. (My laptop only burns CDs.) I'm thinking of getting a compact USB drive to take along when I travel.

[photodoodle]

Eleni,

Many of the photo hosting websites allow anyone to order prints of photos. Lots of Alaska posters have photo galleries (look for links in their signatures). You may want to browse through them and see if it's possible to order prints or download files. This way you can look for photos that are similar to what you remember. The availability, quality, price will vary with the hosting site, but it's worth a try...

[qiangf2]

Oh no, sounds like you can't get your photos back. I'm so sorry to hear that.

 

Thanks. Unfortunately, the harddrive, along with the motherboard is dead. I feel so lucky to get their purchase protection plan, so I can at least get the computer rebuilt without additional charge. Big lesson learnt!

[pierces]

Just some info that might help:

 

Corrupted cards can often be recovered. As someone mentioned, Sandisk and Lexar have recovery software that can work wonders with these issues. If you want to get a new card anyway, get a Sandisk Extreme III card (CF, SD or MS) since it includes a copy of their excellent RescuePro software. Lexar's highly rated Image Rescue is available here: http://www.lexar.com/software/image_rescue3.html for $30. Both have a very good chance of recovering your files. I would recommend using a card reader or a dock if you have one or getting one if you don't since the process can take a long time and your camera battery may not last long enough.

 

BTW: if you send your cards in to a recovery service, chances are they will use one of these to recover your files...and charge dearly for it! So, try it yourself first.

 

Little known fact: If you cleared your cards, even with re-format, you can probably recover most of the images. When you delete or reformat (unless you used the above recommended software to do a secure "wipe" of the card), all that is removed is the entry in the FAT (the file allocation table stores all the info on where your files are on the card). It's like tearing the index pages out of a book and putting in blank ones...the articles are still there, but you have to go page by page and find them. That's what rescue software does. It may even work for some of the images if you have taken some new pictures with the card but didn't fill it up again.

 

Good luck to all with these issues. Hope this info helps!

 

Dave

[OldCodger73]

Helen, a quick question. Had you reviewed the pictures on your camera during your trip? The reason I'm asking is I'm wondering if it's a corrupt card or failure of the camera to write to the card. You also might want to get an external card reader, they're inexpense, some are less than $10 and see if the card is readable from the card reader rather than from the camera.

 

Good luck and let us know how this turns out.

[salty dingo]

One of the services I do for a living is computer forensics. Basically, it does not matter if a file is deleted or a disk is formatted. The data (e.g. you pictures) are still there, until some other data overwrites it.

 

If the disk is physically damaged, the data may be there but be unrecoverable unless the damage is fixed (if possible.) Most of the time, the hardware is not damaged and it is just a corruption of the file system, and the data is fine.

 

Pictures are about the easiest type of data to recover. Once a forensic image is done, software can scan the bits for signatures for file headers and then re-create a file. Very easy to do with the right software.

 

You may want to call around and ask local compter forensic professionals what they would charge for this service. I would estimate it would cost about $150 to recover a CF card, but prices can vary based on lots of details.

 

FYI, I went to Best Buy (Geek Squad) locally and they list data recovery as one of their services. Their prices start at $250.

[darin2]

Helen

 

Send me an email. I am a computer forensic specialist, and may be able to retrieve your pictures. I had a friend who's wife deleted all the pics off their card by accident. I was able to retrieve all their images. I would do it a little or no cost, just to cover shipping.

 

Darin

 

darin2@alltel.net

[EnidSooner]

Eleni2007 - pierces hit the nail on the head and if that doesn't work email darin2

 

Dave (qiangf2) Unless your hard drive was physically damaged, have it pulled and recover your pics. I have pulled data off a drive that was dropped in a swimming pool.

 

To those of you that like to use smaller cards, you might want to rethink your philosophy. Non microdrive CF's rarely physically cease functioning, particularly well made ones like Lexar and SanDisk Extremes. Most errors are write or read errors and can be recovered even if they are major. Pulling a card in and out of a camera repeatedly runs a significant risk of bending a connector prong and that will run you in excess of $200 to get repaired. Also the camera is useless until you get it fixed.

 

I keep a 4 Gig in the body and a couple of 2 Gig spares for my 30D. After a days shoot I transfer to my tablet and then copy to a Maxtor USB drive (cheap, lightweight, packable and huge) if I'm going to clear the card. Once I get home, grade my shots and dump the 1 stars, I burn a CD or a DVD.

 

Here is a good website for data card info and evaluations -

 

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

[fti]

FYI, I went to Best Buy (Geek Squad) locally and they list data recovery as one of their services. Their prices start at $250.

 

Just my opinion but I would never use Geek Squad again. Very bad experience with them that ended in a court battle. No need to go into details here, just caveat emptor.

[PLHag]

Helen:

 

We were on your cruise (9/1 Sapphire, right?). I'd be happy to share photos with you. We went with Captain Larry instead Harv/Marv, but our boats were within close proximity. We also have great photos of the scenery between Anchorage & Whittier, Whittier and that most gorgeous day in Glacier Bay.

 

Let me know how to get these to you.

[mbisson]

I had a card go bad on an Alaska cruise a couple years ago. I tried several on line recovery programs before I found one that worked, but I think I ended up losing 4 or 5 pictures on a card with over 100 on it. ( I can't remember which program-you might want to do a google search for photo card recovery program). The program I used was free.

 

If the card hasn't been reformated I bet you will have some luck. It may take some work, but I think you'll find a solution.

 

good luck

-Monte

[Grannycb]

Hi Everyone,

 

After our 1 week fabulous cruise on the Saphhire in Alaska, we just discovered that all our pictures are gone! We don't know if the memory card was damaged or what, but all our pics, almost 400 of them are gone! Apart from the beautiful memories we have in our heads, we can not show our friends and families all the beautiful sites we saw, all the great wildlife we enjoyed seeing, our whale watchign tour with Harv & Marv, our WhitePass Railway tour to Yukon... all gone!!

 

I am hoping all my newfound friends here can help me... is there anyway that I can take links of photos that you guys have posted, etc... put them on a CD, and take them to a picture store to get 4X6 prints made?? Is there any way that I can pick and choose pics and drop them into a CD?

Is there anyway that you can share your great pics with me so I can have somethign to show as well?? I am just BESIDE myself .. pics that we would appreciate getting are from following:

- Pics from Anchorage to Whittier (scenery by train)... especially wildlife?

- Pics from Harv & Marv Whale Watching (whales, eagles, sea lions, etc)

- PIcs from Whitepass Yukon tour

- Wildlife pics .. (bears, mountain goat, etc).

 

Any help/suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Tx,

Helen (aka - desperate)

 

Helen, http://www.harvandmarvs.com has pictures taken on trips listed by days. You might find some good pictures there. We were on the Golden Princess - just returned Saturday. If there is anything I can do to help let me know. We didn't do the train but did go to Carcross, Carabou Crossing and Fraser.