I just tried to view some pics from an XD card on my laptop. It started to copy the files to the laptop so I clicked to stop that as I just wanted to view them. Now it seems I managed to wipe the whole card....and it's my mother's, with pix going back ages....Is there ANY way of retrieving them?? I get 'card error' when I put it back in the camera...am desperate for any help you can give!!

Let me look into this. In the meantime, DO NOT USE THE CARD FOR ANYTHING! Doing so will make retrieving any images off it nearly impossible.

There's been a discussion on this before, I just have to find it.

This might be worth checking out:


PC Inspector Smart Recovery

Have you ever tried this, stevealmighty?

ok am downloading that as we speak and will wait to see what steve has to say too....TIA

Hmmm...No, I haven't checked that one out tg911, but I'd be interested to know how it works! I use lexar media recovery software that comes on our pcmcia cards (2 and 4 gig cards) that we have, but I believe that you have to buy the software if you don't own the card (it comes free with purchase of a card). The lexar software works really well.

destiny27, you can check this link HERE, paying attention to Grinlers post. I can't say anything about the software recomended, as I've never used it before, and didn't find any info on it in the forums. But, do like Grinler recommended, and look for the images on the computer, as chances are (hopefully) that the images were moved to the laptops hard drive instead of deleted.

You can also check this link HERE. Be sure to use the free trial. I've never used this software, but personally know people (I work with) that have used it and had good results with it.

Hope this helps!

Thanks. One thing I do know is that I stopped it saving to the laptop, It saved about 5 pics before I hit 'cancel'. There were 300+ pics on it, and I only read need the last 20 or so as the others have been saved before. I'm going to try out everything I can to find them though, and thank you very much for your help. I have a feeling I'm going to be unlucky but I'll be sure to post here with the results! Thanks again

Oh, I should probably mention that you can (usually) use more than one recovery software on it, which may yeild better results. What one program fails to recover, another one might. No software is guarenteed 100% to recover all lost data/images. If it's a "must have" image(s), you could send the card out to a company that would charge you mega dollars to recover the images, but I don't even want to think of how expensive that would be!

Well PC Inspector didn't find a thing first time round, so now it's using its 'intensive' search. Will try Photos Recovery next, and I think it was Flash Guardian mentioned somewhere else. I wouldn't mind half so much if it was my own card, but it's my mother's, with pix taken at a birthday celebration yesterday that I KNOW she wanted to keep. Not mega important but incredibly annoying if they have disappeared! Most frustrating is the fact that I know I didn't do anything different to what I've done before, and certainly didn't click on anything that looked like it might wipe the whole %&^!?!! card! Thanks again for the help....if nothing else you gave me hope!

Hello, I found this website while searching for a way to recover my photos from Disney World on an Olympus xD card. I did the same thing as destiny27. I was transferring the files using Explorer and stopped the transfer in the middle because it was taking too long. Luckily I saved half of the 300 pictures. I tried many recovery programs. The card is unformatted and shows 0 bytes. Most recovery programs do not even recognize that the card even exists.

I have about given up and am considering re-formatting the card so that the recovery programs can find it. I guess that formatting it will wipe out the photos if they are there.

Any ideas out there ?

Sorry to hear about losing your photos. If you format your card, you will lose everything on it. If you've taken more pictures since you've tried to recover the photos off the card, then you might've lost all of your images. Another thing is that if it was taking longer than usual, your card may be corrupt. Cards have a write/re-write lifecycle, and just like any piece of hardware, it will eventually die.

Before I'd format the card, I'd do the following: Run some recovery software, see what it comes up with. Immediatley after running the recovery software, run the same program again. It might get something that it missed the first time around. After running it the second time, I'd run a different recovery program, two times, one right after the other just like you did the first one. If it comes up empty handed after using both programs, then I'd say (sadly) that you're images are lost. You always have the option of sending the card to a company to have them try to recover the photos, but that's extremely expensive (hundreds of dollars!).

If you can't recover the images, then I'd format the card. I strongly recomend letting the camera format the card, as it's good practice to let the equipment format the media.

After formating it, I'd check it for errors, and see if it needs to be defragged. Remember, a card is just a small memory device, much like ram (or a hdd minus the moving parts), it's a storage device. When you write, re-write, copy to and from and delete information (pictures) to it, it's bound to need "maintanace".

If you are unable to format the card, or the camera says it's corrupt, or partially corrupt, then try having windows format it. If that fails, you can try to wipe it clean using other softer (will explain if you get to this point), then after it's been wiped, you can try reformatting again. If you still can't reformat it, or it comes up saying it's corrupt or partially corrupt, I'd get rid of the card and purchase a new one, as the card is on it's last leg, and will do nothing but cause heartache and gray hair!

Hope this helps, and please post back letting us know how you make out! Good luck!

I just wanted to say THANKYOU for this forum!!!
I am travelling through Europe and am in the middle of nowhere in the Czech Republic, and i go to upload about 1000 pics after finally finding a decent computer and my Xd card says there are no photos.
Thanks to this thread and downloading PC inspector to scan my card, i have been able to recover ALL my photos!
I am so happy and really just wanted to express my appreciation for your help (even though you didnt even know you were giving it!!)
THANKYOU AGAIN
Sam