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julip
09-17-2008, 05:56 AM
hello, a bit of a newbie posting so forgive me and please try to be patient if my questions are either obvious or aren't detailed enough to be able to help!

my camera went wrong at the weekend, it's internal memory is corrupted. i know that's it dead and i need a new one, it was very old and broken anyway (the casing was held together with wire and an elastic band), and i was massively overdue for an upgrade cos this one is 3mp, no zoom, no macro, no continuous shooting, no manual settings beyond exposure and white balance, no...well, you get the picture, heh
anyway, my problem isn't 'help i need to make my camera work', but rather : is there any way to rescue the photos that were in there, free of charge, and safely so they don't get deleted or damaged?

what happened is this - two batches of pictures, taken about an hour and a half apart. all the first batch are showing as static on a tv, which makes the camera freeze up when i try to go to those in the previews, so i have to open the battery door to even switch it off cos no buttons will work. the second batch look fine, you can flick through them just as normal.

they're taken on the camera's internal memory.

if i connect the camera to the PC, it says the disk is corrupted and unreadable. if i make the scanner and camera wizard open, it says there's no device detected.

if i put a card in and try to copy them to it, it says 'copying' for a little while, then it shows the same static as when i try to preview the bad batch of pictures, and when i put the card in to be read, it's blank, nothing can copy cos it can't get past that dodgy staticky bit

i can't print direct from the camera, it's too old to have that option

i've trawled google and found no end of free programmes which SAY they can recover photos from corrupted cameras as well as cards, but i don't know whether to trust any of them as some claim other people's programes can destroy the data in trying to remove it, and i don't want to kill the pictures i know are still ok in there! i've looked at camera forums for recommendations, but it seems everyone but me has corrupted cards, not internal memory, so the programmes people are saying are good aren't suited to my camera's problem

i'm getting a new camera in about a fortnight, my plan at the moment is just to take pictures of each preview on screen, so i'll have copies, but of course they will be small and awful quality.

does anyone know a non-destructive programme that can pull out the good photos without the risk of ruining them? it has to be free, though, a friend recommended a £50 programme for saving corrupted files from a computer's hard drive, but i wouldn't want to spend that much just for about twenty pictures :(

i downloaded one called 'data doctor recovery digital camera', but now i daren't use it incase it destroys the photos before i've had chance to even take little pictures of the previews on there :(

David Metsky
09-17-2008, 06:24 AM
Data recovery programs are pretty much all non-destructive; I don't know why people are telling you otherwise. But it sounds like the images were never recorded properly, so data recovery won't help you.

It's hard to beat this deal (http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40692); great program and free.

julip
09-17-2008, 07:03 AM
SUCCESS! i have the photos! thankyou very much for that link, i had seen it recommended on here when i was browsing but made the mistake of thinking it was only for memory cards, not internal memory of cameras.

it's worked pretty well, one of the pictures is completely useless grey-and-coloured pixel mess, a couple are chopped up and funny colours, but some are just scrambled along the bottom so i can crop them, and most of them are fine, i'm really really happy with how well it worked, even though i've still lost a few this is way better than having none at all, especially as they were something special to me (a sweet moment with my favourite horse)

bizarrely it's also found a picture i took in spring of a church door, a horse i painted last year, and a picture of something i made from at LEAST three years ago, maybe four!