Retrieving lost photos/files?

Hi, a friend of mine just phoned me and is gutted because he has possibly lost two weeks worth of holiday photos and videos, he thinks he has somehow wiped his memory card whilst connecting his camera up to the computer. I have told him to drop the SD card round to me tomorrow as I have heard of software that will retrieve lost files but can anyone recommend a good one to use?

Thanks

Lee

I have software that came with my Sandisk SD card, it runs from the disk so you don't even need to install it, I have used it a couple of times with great success.
Highly recommend.

This works quite well.

Davex

Yes, I also have used Recuva successfully and, if I remember rightly, it's freeware?

Thanks guys, I just downloaded the Recuva one and it retrieved some files off an old memory card of mine so I will try it on my mate's one tomorrow.


Thanks again
Lee

There is also FreeUndelete which can be installed on a pen drive.

http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/


regards
Bernard

Best commercial product I've used is

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

Favourite tool at work for this sort of job is The Forensic Toolkit from Access Data. Interestingly enough it works with full functionality on drives with less than 5,000 items (full cost is about 3k), so in other words SD cards are ideal. Their imager is also free and means that you can make a bit for bit copy of the SD Card to work on and avoid continually writing to the card. A write blocker would help but theres not a huge call for them.

Recovery of DNG files is another thing - not had a huge amount of success with those. Tried a variety of bits of software and playing with the headers and footers.

The Forensic Toolkit isn't the easiest to work your way round but if you are interested I don't mind talking anyone through it.

RescuePro worked where the others failed for me, tried the freebies and they were all a bit slow or had a hard time finding stuff. The Sandisk freebie worked a treat including DNGs.

Thanks again for the advice, Recuva has retrieved 190 files so my mate is well chuffed!

Lee