Deleted Images And How To Recover Them

There can be a few reasons why your images have been lost or just "disappeared":

Case1. No images on your camera memory card

The first one is that you have not accidentally erased them from your memory card but your playback display states blandly "no images". The second one is that you have accidentally (or deliberately) erased some or all of the images from your memory card.

In both instances, the images have not actually been erased or deleted - they are still there but your camera will simply not display them. However, the camera software may well overwrite these files if you continue to take pictures.

In view of this is necessary to take immediate action to recover the files before this happens.

If you did not deliberately erase the images yourself, the first thing to try is to switch off your camera. Remove the memory card from the camera and then replace it, switch the camera back on and check to see if the images have returned. This is a similar procedure to re - booting a computer when it throws a wobbly. It works sometimes but not always.

If the images do not reappear, proceed as if you have accidentally erased them as follows:

Go online and use a search engine and type in "free file recovery programmes" to find a programme like "Free Undelete". Download it and connect your camera to the computer as you would for uploading images from your memory card. Alternatively, you can insert your memory card into the appropriate memory card slot in your computer if you have one.

I have tried this completely free programme and it works well. However, there are several other non - free programmes you can use if you prefer which may be more sophisticated with more features.

Start the programme, select the drive where the memory card is located and click "Scan". if a folder appears, open it. If the files have not been overwritten, the programme should find them. Note; For Windows Vista users; you may have to right click the program shortcut and select "run as administrator" or it may not work.

Be patient. The programme takes several minutes to completely scan the card and retrieve the files. It lists them with a rating of "poor" or "good". Select the files you want to restore, click "undelete" and then save them to your computers hard drive in a suitable location.

If you try to save to the memory card you may get a warning that the image may suffer loss of quality. If you definitely want to put these files on to your memory card then save them first to your desktop. Copy these files (right click - copy) and paste them to your memory card (right click - paste). I have done this without any apparent loss of quality.

One thing I noticed with this free programme is that if you click the "help" file on the main menu - nothing happens. To access this you will have to locate the "Free Undelete" folder from the Start - Programmes folder.

Case2. Images lost from computer

Exactly the same procedure is used to recover lost or deleted files on any other drives you have on your computer. Just select the drive where the images were stored before they disappeared. But this time specify the type of file you want to recover. In this case it is a jpeg, so enter ".jpg" as your search filter otherwise you will get every deleted file on your computer listed.

Note: As implied above, this programme will retrieve many other types of files as well, including lost or deleted emails and documents. However, Free Undelete is a utility programme so there is no preview available. If you want all the bells and whistles you may have to purchase a more sophisticated version like "Recover my Files". This has a preview window and many other features. It is available for a free trial but the save feature is blocked until you purchase it (about $70/£35). There are many other similar programmes available of varying degrees of sophistication - so take a look and find one that suits you.

Online Backup - A Necessity for Every Computer Owner

Why is online backup important?

Most people have important (if not priceless) documents and files on their computer. The hard drive of your personal computer may be filled to the brim with years and years of personal photographs, MP3 music, financial records. Business PCs can contain documents with valuable intellectual information, finances, client records, and so on. In a society where we are continually evolving to adapt to an electronic business market, much of our most valuable data is no longer in paper form.

Regrettably (as many of us have experienced) computers are susceptible to crashing, online viruses, theft, and damage from natural disasters, all of which can completely wipe away everything instantaneously. Most businesses that experience such a loss do not survive the subsequent year and imagine losing all your personal photographs. Such a loss is often heartbreaking, difficult, and very frustrating. Not to mention expensive; utilizing services to recover a failed hard drive can cost thousands of dollars.

Why online backup over other methods?

Other methods of backup typically include compact discs and external hard drives. The problem with such methods is not only is it time consuming to backup all your data to these, but such tangible methods are typically in the near vicinity of the original copies, so they are still not protected. For example, if your home is ruined by fire and you did not keep backups in another location, then you have lost both copies and your backup efforts were fruitless.