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Recovering Files from Formatted Card
  • blueflamejamesblueflamejames
    I just wrapped shooting an entire feature using Driftwood's reAQuainted patch. Mostly great results - 1.5 TB total footage. I will hold back on comments until I've had a proper opportunity to review the footage, but overall it seemed to hold up well. Unfortunately on one occasion the AC formatted a full 16GB card by mistake. Not horrible in the large scheme of things but it would be great to recover that footage. I've run it through Sandisk's Rescue Pro and a couple other programs with no luck. I wonder if this is because the hacked files are non-standard. Has anyone had a similar experience? Has anyone been able to successfully recover files from a formatted card? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
  • 14 Replies sorted by
  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn
    Congrats on wrapping your feature. I've heard that Klix (joesoft.com) can recover images from formatted cards, though I have not yet tried it myself.
  • ed_lee83ed_lee83
    I can whole heartedly recommend Data Rescue 3 (for Mac). I had a streak of bad luck lately that involved missing or corrupted footage (hacked and non-hacked) but the software was able to recover most of it. Just be sure not to use that particular SD card for anything for the time being.
  • blueflamejamesblueflamejames
    Thanks - will give this a try.
  • tiredtired
    I've used Recover My Photo's with great success on PC
  • fatpigfatpig
    i would recommend, if on windows, researching good hard disk recovery software. i recovered a crashed hdd once, including filenames and structures, with no errors in the resulting files! I would assume that this also works for an sd card..
  • blueflamejamesblueflamejames
    Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately nothing has worked. I've tried Data Rescue and others repeatedly with no luck - closest I got was one time a bunch of xml files were found. There may be some additional problem involved, as when I run the scan I usually get a "disk was not ejected properly" message. I'm not sure why this is, I've tried with several different card readers and still get this same error message when I start the scan.
  • alcomposeralcomposer
    @blueflamejames

    Have a look at DDRescue. http://www.gnu.org/s/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

    This app will copy the memory card onto another HD 'bit for bit' so all of the damaged data will be copied.

    You can then use http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

    This software is AMAZING as it can find the partition table that is damaged etc...

    Best to use TestDisk on the copied files as it does modify the data- and you only get one chance... (or simply use DDRescue to create a backup and modify the SD card with TestDisk)

    If TestDisk is unable to fix this... then try the software PhotoRec (on the same website on the left menu)-

    This software is a scavenging routine and can find many different files.. (use this as a last resort).

    It is a good idea to get familiar with TestDisk as it will save your bacon more times than you would like to think of...

    BTW: both of these softwares are the real deal and what most professional data recovery houses use- so they are VERY powerful so handle with care... Also they are both Command Line apps. They are both also free!

    Good luck!
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @blueflamejames This will work for you.
    https://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/avc_download.htm#sdrecov
  • blueflamejamesblueflamejames
    Still no luck. Seems like a distinct problem that the drive is unmounted and I get the "disk not ejected properly" message as soon as a start a scan. It happens immediately when I initiate a scan, whether it's Data Rescue 3, Rescue Pro, AVCCAM, or Stellar. I've seen reports of other people experiencing this but nothing on why or how to remedy it.

    I did actually try PhotoRec as well, without using DDRescue (before your reply @alcomposer), also with no luck. I wasn't aware that I should've used DDRescue and TestDisk first. Still worth trying that approach or maybe I've screwed things up now?
  • alcomposeralcomposer
    @blueflamejames
    I would totally try another SD card reader.. or even the SD card reader inside the GH2.

    Sounds like you could have another issue like a corrupt card... with the card mounted (without doing anything) use DDrescue- as this can copy the data without 'mounting' the drive. You can actually unmount the drive- and make DDresuce copy bit by bit the drive... (HD's only need to be mounted to
    read 'files-folders' etc off of them- not bits) YMMV

    In data recovery it is a good idea to copy off the data before attempting anything... as this is your only backup! Also you may find that copying off the data sometimes is ALL that is needed- as this allows the data to be readable again. (there is built in parity within file systems believe it or not!)

    Good Luck! Remember - as long as you don't write again onto the drive- all the data is still there!
  • blueflamejamesblueflamejames
    So I was able to recover from the SD card almost 19,000 files and save them to a new location, but they are not mts files. The first 3796 are xml files and the remaining are gz. They total 15.9 GB, basically the size of the SD card. Is it likely the mts files are contained in there, and if so, how do I go about retrieving them?
  • berniezberniez

    I have some footage deleted by a corrupt undercover cop... so he thinks. I made sure he left one file on the card which means the data is still there (not reformatted). Intriguing, no? What's the best program to recover this 'deleted' footage?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Check links to topics at

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/102341#Comment_102341

  • ahblezaahbleza

    @berniez My experiences with http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk have always been consistently good, and it's free. The suggestion in the thread above that it modifies the source media is not correct if it's used correctly. Works on Windows, Linux or Mac OSX.

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