Data recovery, stolen laptop and back ups

BrennanDatesBrennanDates Registered Users Posts: 1 Beginner grinner
edited August 3, 2016 in Digital Darkroom
Hello!

I've had my laptop and back ups stolen while in France. I need to get every scrap of data off of my SD cards that I still have. Gopro footage of my motorcycle trip around the world mostly. Obviously the more recent clips are easy to access but I'm sure that the SD cards are never truly erased unless they have been reformatted?

Can someone recommend data recovery software that encompasses SD cards.

Many, many thanks!

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Comments

  • kdogkdog Administrators Posts: 11,681 moderator
    edited March 3, 2016
    Welcome to Dgrin! Although sorry it's under these circumstances. It's actually not reformatting nor deleting files that destroys the data on an SD card. The way you lose data is when you continue to use the card for taking new pictures or videos after space has been freed up.

    A bit more detail. There is an index on the card that maps filenames to blocks of memory on the card. In the case of deleting, the file entry in the index is removed, but all the data blocks are still present. Reformatting clears the index, but also leaves the data blocks intact. It's at this point that the camera will reuse those blocks for new pictures, in which case your previous data is gone for good. If you've only added a few new pictures, then you may get lucky and be able to recover some of the old files as well.

    There are a number of card recovery programs that all essentially work the same way to locate files on the card that don't appear in the file index. The one I use is by San Disk and called, Rescue Pro. They give you a license key for it for free when you buy their cards. I believe most of the major card manufacturers have their own version of this software. Otherwise, you can probably find a free or cheap one on line. Caution with those though as many of them contain obnoxious adware. It's almost worth it to buy a cheap San Disk card just to get their program.

    Good luck with that!
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  • WillCADWillCAD Registered Users Posts: 722 Major grins
    edited March 5, 2016
    Condolences on your theft. Kdog's advice is spot-on; the SanDisk software is quite good and easy to use, but you don't need to buy a card to get it; SanDisk offers a free download on their web site.

    There are also a number of other free alternatives. I've had good luck with the free version of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.

    I am curious - how did your backups get stolen? Were they in your laptop bag and the whole thing got stolen?
    What I said when I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time: "The wide ain't wide enough and the zoom don't zoom enough!"
  • junepathjunepath Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
    edited March 8, 2016
    I've had really good luck with Pandora Data Recovery.
  • Aksana3DAksana3D Registered Users Posts: 4 Beginner grinner
    edited August 3, 2016
    I was in the same situation. All my data was deleted from flash drive. Hetman Partition Recovery helped me to solve my problem very well.
  • Hill5Hill5 New member Posts: 6 Big grins
    Wow, it's been a year since the last reply. Obviously, kdog is an expert in data recovery. My memory card can not be accessed, which contains a lot of important documents, videos and pictures. I tried a lot of data recovery tools (including SanDisk Rescue Pro), which are unable to recognize my SD memory card. A classmate suggested trying SoftHow Windows Data Recovery, fortunately the missing files were found. However, it is commercial software. Who can recommend a powerful free data recovery tool? Thank you!
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