Desperate! photo SD card says "not Formatted" is all lost!?
 

We just returned from our trip last night after a great 15 days in Europe with our kids. this morning, I put our photo card in a card reader, hooked it up to my macbook - and nothing happened. I tried the card reader in my other, windows, computer - same thing - showed hardware attached but no content.

So I put card back in camera to hook up the entire camera to computer and the camera said "card not formatted - format card?" i said no - and I'm stuck!!!
I've researched online, but not sure what to do!

Please help - It would be horrible to lose all of the photos from this wonderfule trip!

This doesn't sound good at all. It's not uncommon that a computer cannot read an SD card - I have the same problem with one of my cameras. For that camera I have to connect a USB cable directly into the camera to read the files. The fact that you can't see the pictures when you put the card back into the camera is the troublesome part. Maybe I didn't get that part - did you try to view the pictures on the camera? Sounds like the camera gave you an error before you got to that point.

I'm not a data recovery expert - perhaps Andrew or another computer expert will chime in here. A couple of things you can try.

- Can you connect the camera to your computer via USB cable? - sounds like you already tried that.
- Do you have a different computer you can try to read the card with?
- Do you have a different card you can play around with to test how the camera, card reader, and/or computer work under normal circumstances?

Whatever you do, don't try to take another picture on the same card - you may inadvertently reformat the card.

Can you see the photos in camera? Are you sure it actually recorded the photos?
Do you have another car you could try in the camera to check the camera is working correctly?

There are various recovery programs available, some free some you pay for. Sandisk cards often come with a free recovery program for instance. Have a google and see what you can find.
It might be worth trying a recovery program.
Otherwise get it to a computer expert and ask for help. Whatever you do do not format the card.

In some circumstances you can unlock your card, but I need to know which camera (brand and model) you have to tell you if it is possible.
I dont think you can use another card at present either.
This occurs normally because you have disconnected the card from the PC without closing it down properly.

O.K. - we were able to review the photos while on our trip, so I know that they were recorded to the card. We have a Nikon coolpix S51 and the card is a SD HC 16 GB. RIB... I think you are exactly right. When we got home, and I was tired, I hooked up the card reader to my Macbook. I THINK (because I can't entirely remember) that I probably did not give it enough time to download before I removed it - I tend to get impatient, to my own detriment - so what now?

You have to trust me on this...reformat your card.
The recover your images by using a specialist programme. The one that comes up often on blogs, because I expect they have been spamming blogs is stellar.
But I have found this one which may do the same job.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...italmedia.html
Here are some instructions for Nikon Cool pix, not the same model but they are all going to be the same.
http://www.replacelaptop.com/data-re...00pj-3804.html
and hers is another:
http://www.pk520.com/nikon-software-suite/
Note the bit about the author. Different names but the same experience. That is what I meant about Spamming blogs.

Any way you could create a copy of the card first?

Maybe I am talking out of turn here and I am very happy to be corrected, but doesn't formatting the card wipe it?

The same thing happened to me several years ago. I was afraid to mess around with recovery software since I didn't know what I was doing. I ended up taking the card to a well-respected photo store and they were able to restore my pictures. It was worth it to me. You should be able to retrieve the pictures through recovery software or with professional help. Good luck!

"Maybe I am talking out of turn here and I am very happy to be corrected, but doesn't formatting the card wipe it?"

Yes it does but the recovery software can re-create the images from the "ghosts" left on the SD card (in theory). Personally I'd let someone who's had success at this before attempt it (i.e. a shop).

I'd be looking for a good photo store to help me.

If you took any photos for your own enjoyment and then deleted them because you didn't want anyone else to see be warned, they will be the first ones to pop up if someone else recovers them!

palmettoprincess,
Whatever are you suggesting !!!! lol

;-)

Muck

:-)

I've not read all the responses above, so apologies if this is repetition.

Does you card have a little switch on the side? Often when you remove your card from the camera and insert in in another machine this tiny switch gets flicked over and then the card becomes unreadable.

Mine used to do this, but I could always retrieve the photos, until the switch broke off and I had to get another card.

Simple, but could be worth a try.

Call a local camera store if there is such a thing near you. Our little local store recovered photos off a SD card that we thought were lost forever. They told us that in the majority of cases they can recover the photos. I think it cost $15.00. Could be the Geek Squad at Best Buy could do it, but since I deal with the local store I asked them and they got it done in just a couple of hours.
Also, some card readers, even computers, don't seem able to handle the larger cards. No idea how that works.
Don't give up.
I sure wish you the best.
I had a scare in Paris, had my DSLR and my P&S Nikon. The P&S had a 8 GB, Class 6 memory card (wanted to use the P&S for video). About 4 days into the trip I took a few photos around the Louvre and when I went to review them got a message "this card can not be used." Talk about upset! Anyway, I turned off the camera, removed the card, reinserted the card, and turned on the camera. No further problems. But it is such a sick feeling, all those photos!
Please let us know.

Another reason to keep local, bricks-and-mortar camera stores in business. (They're suffering greatly from online sellers.)

A young man in the Geek Squad at my local Best Buy was able to save my photos for me. It took him about a half an hour. Good luck.

Thanks for the good wishes - I appreciate it. I did take the disk to a specialty camera shop. After working on it for quite some time, they said "no luck" and gave me a flyer for a data recovery place in Chicago. I plan to send the disk there this week.

Fortunately, I took just a few pictures with a borrowed camera that turned out just fine. I took one for every 25 my husband took. I hope we can recover the photos - Though we all laugh that it is the vacation that they took without Mommy - no photos of me anywhere!

?????
Jujubean ..... been several months ...... were you ever able to recover the photos thru Chicago recovery data place?

I took my SD card to our local photography shop (not the big box places) and they were able to recover all the photos on the card. Cost was about $20.00. Well worth it. Just don't do anything to it til you have them give it a try.

Oops, sorry, I did not see you had already tried that. I hope the data recovery place works. My store has the technology to recover most photos, but maybe this case is very different.

This thread is almost 2 years old; the OP never came back to report if the images were recovered.

I was wonder whether this problem has been solved, because I have the same problem now, I tried the suggestions above and none of them helped.

I have got my problem solved! I found an article about how to fix memory card not formatted error and recover data from the memory card:
http://www.asoftech.com/articles/fix...ted-error.html

It helped me get back all my photos that I thought I never be able to restore.

julianw, thanks for the update. Maybe the OP had the same success. I know it would make me sick to lose all my trip photos.

Bookmarking

This could also be a reason for not using a mega pixel card for an entire trip. Use several?

I even take two cameras, plus my phone. I am so paranoid about losing my photos that I take important photos with all three cameras. I also back them up on my iPad daily. Told you I was paranoid!

Challiman, if you are truly that paranoid then I suggest you look into getting Eye-Fi memory cards (or similar). I have one and I have been very, very pleased with it.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=as_li_ss...BQ2THRZOZ45SSV

That looks interesting, sparkchaser. I'll have to look into it further to see if I can use that to transfer pictures to my Fire using hotel wifi...

It really is a nifty device.

Our very knowledgeable IT type children SWEAR by Eye-fi cards.

Thanks for your useful post. Last weekend, my Canon camera memory card also got the same not formatted error and all my taken graduation pictures were inaccessible without any format. But, I knew that formatting process would also erase everything inside and made them all gone. So, in order to extract them all out successfully, I searched and read many relates posts to find data recovery software could help take original photos out from that not formatted card.
Fortunately, after trying many data recovery software online, I finally recovered and accessed many memory card photos.
I just get many useful helps from this article:
http://www.icare-recovery.com/faq/me...ted-error.html
Hope it also give your guys useful clues.

<i>I knew that formatting process would also erase everything inside and made them all gone.</i>

Not true. Formatting simply erases the file allocation table. Any memory forensics tool can recover "lost" data from a formatted source.

sparkchaser,

My Eye-fi card arrived yesterday. Took lest than 5 minutes to install the free app on my Fire and figure out. Works perfectly. Thanks for mentioning this nifty device. Just what I needed.

Glad to hear you like it. I love mine.

I was on a trip to Brussels and I was clicking photos with my phone, and suddenly i got error saying that "Memory card removed unexpectedly" as I was in a hurry I did not check it and continue clicking photos. When I came back home i got to know that my phone is not showing my sd card and all my photos are gone from gallery, only photos which I clicked after I got the error were in phone memory. I turned off and started the phone, removed SD card and put it back again but nothing was working. My phone was not showing SD card at all. I connected my micro sd card to computer but in my computer i could only see drive icon with no information about total space and remaining space. After double clicking on drive i was getting messenger "The drive is not formatted, do you want to format it ?". I tried defragmentation, disk error checking but nothing was working. My micro sd card was having all the photos right from the beginning also I had not taken backup of it. I spent almost a month researching about how to recover data from damaged/corrupted micro sd card but nothing was working. My filesystem has been changed to raw so I tried various softwares to recover data from raw drive but it was all in vain.luckily one day while browsing i came across one person who recovers data from flash drives and sd cards using specialized technique. He works in Germany with firm name as "recoverfab" i went through his website and saw his methods to recover the data which was not at all software related but his emphasise was on recovery through hardware unlike most of the other firms in market. There is also video on YouTube about his work. So i sent him my sd card by post and after receiving the sd card i immediately got confirmation email and he told me my job will complete in approximately three days. I was waiting eagerly and the next day i got email saying 100% of my data has been recovered. I was sooooo happy. I would happily suggest everyone who is facing similar kind of issue to try contacting recoverfab.

If you stop taking new photos, you can still get them back with sd card data recovery.

You can recover all your photos from SD card within a minute using Data Recovery Software. The software supports many amazing features and recovery modes that help the user in recovering the lost data. I have also used this tool and this is the best tool that I have ever used in my entire life.

To know more in detail, visit: http://www.mytechlogy.com/IT-blogs/8...ng-a-software/

Jujubean......please tell me the outcome to this problem. I have the exact problem now and can not loose all the photos on my card.
HELP!