I know this isn't a camera forum - but I also know it's a board of people who are willing to help. I just returned from a trip with my camera and laptop. During the trip I put one of my friend's memory cards into my laptop card reader to copy some of her photos, but not all. We put the memory card back in her camera and now it won't let her use it until she "formats" it again - erasing all her photos.

Is there a way to get the existing photos off the card before formatting? When I put it back in my laptop it wants to format again before letting me transfer. Same thing with the usb cord. How did this happen and how can I fix it? Can I take it to a photo shop and get the photos pulled off, can I do it myself - or do I just try to get her to forgive me ? I've read her owners manual and mine (she has an olympus and I have a canon) and nothing address this.

Note - to all those who helped with my previous post about zoom cameras, I ended up purchasing the Canon A720is and enjoyed it greatly this past week. Thank you for all your help.

I'd take it to a professional.

Put the photos onto a disc. You can do this from any photo kiosk, ie WallMart, Rite Aid, CVS or many printers. I don't understand why it's asking to format. Technology is great until you need a tech nerd to understand how to fix it.
Good luck.

Is there a way to get the existing photos off the card before formatting?

There's free software that lets you recover the files ... I use something that came with a Sandisk Extreme card for free, called "RescuePro". Actually it will recover the images even if the card has been formatted, as we found out when a family member reformated a card before copying the files .

So maybe do a Google search for 'disk recovery software free' and try one of those. Or if you know someone with CF cards who might own an Extreme then they'll have the free disk for RescuePro.

Bill

You mentioned your friend has an Olympus camera. Is this an Xd card by any chance? And if so is it a type M or H? Some card readers, printers, and computers can't read the new H cards without upgrading their drivers or firmware. Good Luck, Harry

Never heard of such a problem. There must be a defect either with your memory card (try a different one) or with your camera. If there is still warranty, consult your dealer.

Don't format it.

Go to:

www.download.com

There's a free program called PC Inspector Smart Recovery.

Download and install it.

My daughter deleted photos from several trips and was able to recover over 1,500 that she had deleted after her computer fell on the floor wrecking the hard drive (her backups weren't recent enough).

For info. Deleting a file doesn't delete it. It wipes out the entry in the directory. The data is there until over-written.

These recovery programs read the data files and not the directory. So, it's possible they'll recovery a lot of files and name them sequentially without their original names. That's how they work.

Good luck.

Do try the PC Inspector software mentioned above. It's not the easiest to use but it is free and it works. I used it to rescue some photos from my brother's corrupted memory card a few years ago. Just let it guide you through discovery of images on the card. It will probably find the images you've already downloaded as well as the new ones - just grab as many as it can find.

It sounds like you switched the card between two different cameras (two different brands, too) - not a great idea in the future. You can probably get away with swapping between two Canon cameras but not two different brands. Also, in the future, it IS a good idea to format your memory card in the camera once you've copied all the pictures off and are ready to take more pictures. Better to start clean, using the camera's own formatting method.

Ragtopgirl,

So how did you do recovering photos?

I just want to thank everyone for all your help. I used the PC Inspector free software and it worked beautifully - and my friend is now speaking to me again!

I so enjoy having this board for advice and help.

Good!

Tell her to format her card IN HER CAMERA right away. And do that often. In fact, I format my cards in my camera after each download to the computer. I don't use "erase" at all.

rkkwan, one thing I would suggest in addition to formatting the card in the camera after uploading the pictures to the computer is to copy the pictures to a second hard drive, to a CD/DVD, or to an internet photo-sharing/storage site. Otherwise, the hard drive could fail (it happens often) and once again, the pictures would be lost.

Yeah, to guard against hard drive failure on your computer, better yet to have a regular, semi-automatic backup method, using an external hard drive. You can even get software that images (backs up) the entire hard drive, including Windows, all programs, and all pictures files, etc. It will make a snapshot of your drive once, then next time save only the changes since the last backup. Then you never need to worry about whether you backed up recently or not - just run the backup program and it will take care of everything.

External hard drives are cheap. Costco had (may still have) a Western Digital 160GB portable hard drive for only $89.99 recently - I used mine when going to Italy to backup my photos daily off my laptop, a real security blanket, believe me.

My 70GB Apple Aperture Library is back-uped on an external drive using the "Vault" feature.