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How to Undelete Pictures On Your Camera
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As long as you haven't used the camera after the pictures were
deleted, there's a very good chance that you can get them all
back.
If you've deleted a picture or all of your pictures on your
camera — whether hitting the "delete" key on the camera itself,
by copying the pictures to your PC and having the PC delete them
as they were copied you must start by doing nothing.
Don't take any more pictures with the camera. Don't try to use
the camera's built-in menu. Don't reformat the hard drive.
What really happens when you delete pictures
When you delete a picture on a camera, you don't actually delete
the picture.
Cameras use a file-handling system known as FAT (short for File
Allocation Table).
The FAT system used in cameras is very similar to the FAT system
used in PCs, back in the days of DOS and early versions of
Windows. FAT breaks up a memory card into fixed-size chunks.
When you take a picture, the camera stores the image in enough
unused chunks of memory to hold the file.
When you delete a picture, the file isn't erased. Instead, the
area that the file occupied is marked as "unused" and becomes
available to hold a new picture. The first character of the
filename gets changed, too. But the file itself stays intact
until the camera needs the room to store another picture.
That's why you shouldn't use the camera or the memory card that
holds your deleted images If you take the memory card out of the
camera, don't put it back in the camera. Some cameras
automatically stick stuff on the card every time it's inserted.
There are hundreds of programs available on the Internet that
claim to undelete lost pictures on a camera. Most of them cost
$30, $40, or more. Ther is an free alternative from a German
company called Convar. The is PC Inspector Smart Recovery.To
use PC Inspector:
Step 1: Download PC Inspector Smart Recovery 4.5. In
Windows XP, double-click on the downloaded file to install
the program. In Vista, right-click the file and choose Run
as Administrator. The installer takes a while, so be
patient.
Step 2: If you have a card reader attached to your PC, take
the affected memory card out of your camera, flip the
write-protect "lock" tab so nothing can be written to the
card, and put it in the card reader. If Windows pops up and
offers to do something for you (such as copying the files
into your PC), click the X button to close the AutoPlay
dialog box.
Step 3: Start PC Inspector Smart Recovery. You get the PC
Inspector Smart Recovery main dialog box.
Step 4: In the left pane, choose the drive that contains
your camera's memory card. You can use Windows Explorer to
find the correct drive letter.
Step 5: In the middle pane, choose the type of file you want
to recover.
Step 6: In the right pane, navigate to a place where you
would like to store the reconstituted files.
Step 7: Click Start. This will take a while, but you can
watch the program's progress by looking at the folder that's
being filled with recovered photos.
Step 8: When it's done, click the X button to get out of the
program, flip the "lock" write protection tab back to its
normal position, and put the card back in your camera.
You're ready to use the card.
There are othre camera file recovery comes from SanDisk — the
company that makes many of the memory cards used in cameras.
SanDisk gives away the software, free, on a CD, when you buy
certain products. or you could go to the RescuePro site and
shell out $40 for a copy of the program.
Using RescuePro is as simple as inerting the CD into your drive
and inserting your memory card in th reader SanDisk software
works on non-SanDisk products. |
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