How did card get unformated?

I took a Transcend SD HC 8GB card out of my K-7 and plugged it into a card reader attached to my computer. Then had to go looking for it, because it didn't pop up, like it normally does. When I located it, Windows asked me if I wanted to format it. When I clicked no, and put it back in the camera, the camera says the card is not formated.

There were 30 or 50 miscellaneous pictures on that card, albeit, the more important ones I had probably downloaded already. (I long ago learned the watchword of the digital age is redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.)

I have used the camera, reader, and computer with a different card. All seems well.

Before I took that card out of the camera to download some photos, it was working.
What did I do to un-format the card?

Without sending it in to a forensic lab for a zillion dollars, is there any hope of recovering those pictures?

Scary. When I don't have a clue why it happened, I hardly have any hope of preventing it from happening again.

And, the man smiles and says, "Welcome to digital photography."

What did you do? Who knows? You might have inserted it into the PC slightly askew which might have caused a power glitch and corruption or ...


You might want to try RescuePro.

If that and anything else fails to recover the images then maybe you need to consider a slightly drastic move.

Do a "Quick Format" which should only recreate the file table and then try the rescue software again.

There are a number of "Undelete/Recovery" programs available which would possibly get back your pictures, but - the main snag as 'I see it is' :-

The PC failed to recognise your card as a formatted drive and so would be unable to do much with it.

A thought :-
Do you have a friend who uses a Mac or one who uses Linux or even DOS.
It might be possible to look at the card with those and maybe copy the contents to a new card.

regards
Bernard

Crads get corrupted and there isn't always a reason. It's never happened to me, but I back up important photos as soon as possible.

I have used Recuva successively a number of times give it a try.