Lost Files on Memory Card

[broon]

I have a Nikon D50 DSLR with an SD memory card. The other day I took ~100 pictures. I put the card in my computer and there are no pictures. The card is showing there is ~450mb worth of data on it in properties but it doesn't show any files in explorer. Also the photo naming on the camera is consistent with the missing pictures. I have tried the card in three different computers with Win 7 and Vista. With the card in the camera it shows no images to display.

Show hidden and system files is enabled on the computer.

 

[Modelworks]

The first thing you need to do is dump the contents of the card to a file then work with that file to do the recovery.
Download http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Put the card in the pc and use the disk editor in the above program to save a copy of all the data. Then you can use one of the recovery programs for drives to get back the data. search google for flash recovery and there are lots of programs that do it.

If you want to do it manually you can do that too. Look through the data with hxd and you should be able to see a pattern where each file starts and stops. Save those sections out as separate files.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

I've had good luck with the free apps designed to recover memory from sd cards... Google it, there are a bunch of options.

 

[China_E_Insider]

Was the card functioning normally before and did you ever use up all the memory and have it show up on the computer? Reason for asking is that it sounds like your memory card is a defective or fake one. I recommend running the H2 burn in testing program to analyze the condition of the flash memory as it will let you know if indeed the memory card has been set at a fake capacity or if the flash memory has too many bad blocks. The program will fill your memory card with data and then verify said data. This basically mimics the memory card's intended function and if there are errors during the burn in test, the card is pretty much unreliable and should not be used.

For more info on H2 and a video tutorial

 

[qft]

Might try Recuva too. That's a good program.

 

[TheInternal]

do the pictures still show up on the camera if you put the card back in?