Lost Pictures Happy Ending

Last night one of my sisters contacted me in somewhat of a panic because she had accidentally re-formatted several of her digital camera memory cards before she had copied all the photos to her computer. The photos were from a recent trip and she was very upset to have lost them.

I pointed her to my Digital Photo Recovery Software category and she was able to get back all the photos she thought she had lost. You see, when you delete files from a hard disk or memory card, the data is not really erased--only the references to the file are removed, but the data is still there until something else is written to that same "space" on the media. So if this happens to you, the most important thing you can do is take action immediately to recover the lost data. The more you use the media, the less chance there is that you will be able to recover the lost files.

The software my sister used to get her pictures back was RecoverPlus. What's interesting about this particular software is that the company offers a 48-hour license. Most of these recovery programs offer a crippled trial version and cost in the range of $30-50 for full functionality, which is a bit high considering that most people only need to use them once or twice in a lifetime. The RecoverPlus unlimited 48-hour license costs a reasonable US$12.95. My sister said it didn't work as well for the videos on her memory card, but it retrieved one video and all the pictures she wanted.

Have you ever needed to use data recovery software? Tell us about your experience by voting in the poll or posting a comment.

Related Links:
• Digital Photo Rescue and Recovery Software
• Salvage the Files You Lost From Your Hard Drive
• Video: Undelete Photos on a Digital Camera
• Don't Forget to Make Backups of Your Digital Photos