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How I Recovered Three Months Worth of Images After Multiple Card Formats

Chris Gampat
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10/20/2011
4 Mins read
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Imagine being on a very big shoot (like a wedding) and accidentally formatting your memory card. Though most of us are more careful than that, it could accidentally happen. Or, you could erase images that you didn’t want to but did without pay attention. So how would you be able to recover them?

Situation 1

I was Facebook messaged by a girl I met for coffee recently asking me for a photo that I had shot of her. I told her that I didn’t really like it at all and that I deleted. In fact, I really did; and it was a total bummer. But I also realized that I had deleted images off the card that I actually could perhaps add to my portfolio. So I went on a quest looking for software to do it for me. I had known about some free software that did it, but I had decided that it was about time that I go further.

After some research and reading online, I stumbled across Remo Software, who has an excellent Photo Recovery product for an affordable price.

So in order to get it working, I needed a card reader. The reason why is because the software didn’t detect my Canon 5D Mk II when I plugged it in due to EOS Utility taking over. After borrowing a friend’s reader and going through the recovery process, I was pleasantly surprised.

Not only was I able to recover my RAW images at nearly their full size, but I was also able to recover images as far back as three months back. Suddenly, I started seeing image that I had shot around my grandfather’s passing. It was like nostalgia had just hit me as I scrolled through an album of older images that I had shot.

In the end though, I ended up finding the images and giving them to the girl.

What amazed me more though is the fact that I format my CF cards at least twice a week. So that means:

3 months = approximately 12 weeks.

12 weeks x 2 formats = 24 different card formats

Despite constant formatting of my CF card, the software was still able to recover my images.

Situation 2

This situation is much more serious. A co-worker was shooting an event in Central Park and had encountered problem with his CF card. For some odd reason, his Macbook stop recognizing it. He tried many different options, and it seems as if the only thing that saved him was to format the card. In formatting the card, he lost all the work that he did and that he needed.

Being a good friend, I took the card from him and in under a half hour I was able to recover months of images for him.

Using Remo

Using Remo Recover is surprisingly simple; but there are features that I haven’t even used or needed to use for my needs. Mostly, I’ve just needed to recover images off of a card.

The software is extremely straight forward if you read the directions when they are prompted. You can recover deleted photos, lost photos, etc. The software will scan your card and then later on ask you what file types you want to recover. In my case, they are CR2 files. The program is smart enough to recognize most RAW file types, and therefore can save you in a situation like this.

Depending on how much information you want to recover, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours in my experience. The scanning and recovery time varies based on the size of your card and the types of files you want to recover. That means that in practice, if you want to recover HD video and RAW files off of your card, prepare to go make yourself a sandwich or two and sit back while waiting for the software to recover your lost media.

Is it For Everyone?

To be honest, the software is not for everyone. It’s for those that need to recover images and it’s a great tool for professionals to have as extra insurance. Many manufacturers such as SanDisk have their own data recovery software on their websites that are free to use. Free software have their limitations though and may not necessarily be anywhere as powerful as paid software such as Remo.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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