Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card Apps
I went on vacation last weekend and filled up a 64mb SmartMedia card with pictures. I switched to another card to take some more pictures, and when I put the first card back in to import the photos into iPhoto ... the images were gone! I had the folks at my local camera store check the card to no avail - they told me that sometimes static electricity can "zap" a card when you insert or remove it.

After a little Google searching, I found a product called PhotoRescue. It's basically a disk utility with an OS X version that can find photo files on various media cards. I ran the program and voila -- there were my photos! In a matter of minutes, I was able to save them all to disk and import them into iPhoto with no problems. I suspect that other disk utilities may have been able to perform the same task, but I don't have one installed.

This is hopefully not a program anyone will need to use often - but it sure is nice to know it's there!

[robg adds: PhotoRescue is commercial software, but it has a free "demo mode" that will show you anything that may be recoverable from the card ... so you can try before you buy.]
    •    
  • Currently 2.25 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (4 votes cast)
 
[10,912 views]  

Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card | 8 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: balthisar on Aug 25, '03 11:10:04AM

All thumbs up to PhotoRescue. I went to my parent's-in-law 50th anniversary in Mexico in July with my always reliable Kodak DC4800 camera (that I bought the day iPhoto came out to replace my old, serial PhotoPC 500). I had never, ever had a problem with the "erase photos after importing option" in iPhoto, so I always used it.

Murphy's law is what it is, though, and sure enough iPhoto "imported" everything, erased my compact flash card, and lost every one of our pictures. Thinking I'd have to use a data recovery service, I started Google searches and ran across PhotoRescue. I ran out, bought a Dazzle 8-in-1 card reader, a USB hub (it was finally time, I guess), tried the PhotoRescue demo with my spare 16Mb card (didn't want to futher mess up the 128 with all the photos!), and it worked flawlessly. I bought it, received a registered version in email very shortly, and rescued everything on the card.

Net result: I didn't have to buy plane tickets to Mexico and pay for a re-enactment of the in-laws' 50th anniversary ceremony and reception!

This is one program I hope I don't need again, but worth every penny for even that single use!

Also, it's kind of nice having a compact flash reader that will let me use my Clie's memory sticks. Yeah, I have the Missing Sync, but this is easier for my purposes.

---
--Jim (me)



[ Reply to This | # ]
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: kance on Aug 25, '03 12:27:12PM

Yes, this software helped me recover photos from my card as well. I highly recommend at least keeping the demo installed in case you ever need it in the future.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: kerouassady on Aug 25, '03 02:22:45PM

Working at a newspaper as mac support, our photograhers love this program. We have pretty regular issues using Lexar CF cards in Nikon D1s and D1Hs. I don't know what this program does but it works every time. I have a feeling that if my regular disk utilities would read CF cards (Disk Warrior does not and Disk Utility does but doesn't seem to do anything which makes me think it really doesn't, or, at least hdutil really doesn't). I know the Associated Press and a number of newspapers use this as well.

Not knowing why this happens or why this program fixes it is truly vexing. But it does seem to be a pretty common occurance.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: cosmo on Aug 25, '03 03:00:29PM

Some time ago I found a non-commercial app on macupdate.com which seems to do the same. It's EXIF Untrasher. I luckily didn't need it jet:

http://q41.de/downloads/exif-untrasher/?lang=en



[ Reply to This | # ]
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: bignumbers on Aug 25, '03 03:47:35PM

Yep, a useful program. A tiny bit odd to use. They also have a "Wizard" program which is supposedly easier to use but has fewer features and a lower possibility of recovery. Why not just include the wizard in the same program, I don't know.

In my case I was on a weekend trip. On day two I was going to take some photos, and had the camera (Nikon 4500) delete all the images so I'd have plenty of room. After doing so I remembered the photos I took the day before, now gone for good...

So I swapped cards (had a spare) and when I got home bought PhotoRescue, which recovered the photos fine. It also found some really old photos on the card, long-since deleted, but obviously still recoverable.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: twin on Aug 25, '03 04:00:52PM

I bought OnBelay:
http://www.compuapps.com/Products/OnBelay/OnBelay.htm
It does the same thing as photorescue it also allows you to format the cards so that they are in the same condition that you bought them in. This can solve the Card Error problem that people are getting.
A Hint! Be careful when using a card reader DO NOT erase, delete or format anything on a SM card from OS X, this is what happened to my cards.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: paulrob on Aug 26, '03 04:46:05AM

IMO SM cards are pretty flimsy for camera use. My theory is they flex too much causing intermittent contacts as they are loaded/unloaded? I do outdoor sports and have lost pics with SM. Could have done with knowing about PhotoRescue before now! My solution: use CF instead as they are more robust. Fortunately, my camera has a dual SM/CF slot. Never had a prob with CF in this respect - and they are the same price. Although I see from other posters maybe I've just been lucky.

Here's a tip. Apparently, reformatting cards frequently is a good idea. To save cam batteries I did this on the Mac, FAT formatting the card. No probs - except for 1 card, which worked fine - until I reformatted it. Switched camera on and - WHOA, DID IT NOT LIKE THAT! Card works fine on the Mac, but to my camera, pure poison. Do Macs cause format probs on some cards? Re-reformatting the card in the camera failed. Moral is: never reformat a card unless it's in the camera - may drain batteries, but batteries are cheaper than cards!

Finally, hooking my Olympus camera up to iPhoto is fine so long as I'm not trying to download RAW files. iPhoto recognises the camera manufacturer and model, and downloads JPG and TIFF, but not RAW files (slightly $%£@!&*, but understandable.) I wrote a Applescript to download the files automatically, with the intention of converting them to TIFF on the Mac with Photoshop, then importing them into iPhoto, all as a batch process. Unfortunately, the Olympus-supplied Photoshop RAW2TIFF plugin refused to accept batch processing (very *&@£$%^&!)

I have used Vuescan before now to hook up to a Nikon scanner. The OSX version of the scanner software kept crashing, and was tiresome to use. There have been posts about Vuescan before. But nobody seems to have mentioned that Vuescan also has a 'scan from file' option that will read Olympus, Canon, Nikon RAW formats. The Olympus option works fine - and with the "System Events" plugin from Apple, Vuescan can be scripted (I've not finished the script but have done enough to be satified that it'll work.) Vuescan is commercial, but if you've already got it .... Check http://www.hamwick.com.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Recovering lost photos from a SmartMedia card
Authored by: Macgyyver on Aug 26, '03 04:08:18PM

I have a customer who has experienced the iPhoto import & erase. And then he deleted his Albums. All of them.

My first thought was to try and recover the Album from the iMac, and then the customer mentioned they still had the CF card. As I understand that file recovery under OS X/Unix is a little bit challenging, I thought I'd try the recovery from the card.

I downloaded PhotoRescue and the demo sold me - in under 60 seconds. It found 28 photos, 19 of which are still viable. Some files seem to have the appropriate amount of data (900k), but those files aren't recognized by GraphicConverter or any other software I tried.

I tried EXIF untrasher, it was not successful. Not even one photo.

I HIGHLY recommend PhotoRescue, and even in Canadian $ - it was $41.72! My customer will happily pay his bill to get photos of his little girl back.



[ Reply to This | # ]