17 Nov
2011
17 Nov
'11
11:30 a.m.
All,
I have a 128 MB Smart Media card from my camera which I
inadvertently formatted, erasing a whole pile of really good photos
from Yellowstone Park, in mid-June 2009. It recently
re-surfaced in
my pile of things to do.
1) Is there any hope at all that the original images are recoverable?
2) Any recommendations on where to go to get that done?
OT-ness is that it applies to a (now) 10-year-old camera,
which is a pretty tenuous thread. However, I think I dimly recall a
discussion on this topic here recently, so if anyone can help me,
please do! Private email is fine, if the topic is not deemed of
general interest.
--
- Mark 210-379-4635
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Asteroids headed toward planets
inhabited by beings that don't have
technology adequate to stop them:
Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.
17 Nov
17 Nov
11:39 a.m.
On Nov 17, 2011, at 11:30 AM, Mark Tapley wrote:
All,
I have a 128 MB Smart Media card from my camera which I
inadvertently formatted, erasing a whole pile of really good photos
from Yellowstone Park, in mid-June 2009. It recently re-surfaced in
my pile of things to do.
1) Is there any hope at all that the original images are recoverable?
2) Any recommendations on where to go to get that done?
OT-ness is that it applies to a (now) 10-year-old camera,
which is a pretty tenuous thread. However, I think I dimly recall a
discussion on this topic here recently, so if anyone can help me,
please do! Private email is fine, if the topic is not deemed of
general interest.
I guess it's possible... does SmartMedia format as FAT[12|16|32]? A lot of DOS
"unerase" programs might do the trick if the camera just blows away the header
blocks of the filesystem; often times the directories are left more or less intact.
Probably a good idea to make a backup image of the card before you do any experiments,
though. If you have access to a UNIX-y machine that can access the card, dd should do the
job. I don't know what to use on Windows.
- Dave
11:58 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Riley
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 8:40 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: (OT) SmartMedia un-erasing - help?
On Nov 17, 2011, at 11:30 AM, Mark Tapley wrote:
> All,
> I have a 128 MB Smart Media card from my camera which I
> inadvertently formatted, erasing a whole pile of really good photos
> from Yellowstone Park, in mid-June 2009. It recently re-surfaced in
> my pile of things to do.
>
> 1) Is there any hope at all that the original images are recoverable?
>
> 2) Any recommendations on where to go to get that done?
>
[snip]
I guess it's possible... does SmartMedia format as FAT[12|16|32]? A lot of
DOS "unerase" programs might do the trick if the camera just blows away the
header blocks of the filesystem; often times the directories are left more or
less intact.
[> ]
The format should be determined by the camera, rather than as an attribute of the media.
If it is FAT (and I've yet to see a digital camera that doesn't use FAT): I had a
similar experience with a CompactFlash card and I was able to recover the images with DOS
Chkdsk.
Probably a good idea to make a backup image of the card before you do any
experiments, though. If you have access to a UNIX-y machine that can
access the card, dd should do the job. I don't know what to use on Windows.
I very much agree that making an image backup before you do anything like that is a very
good idea. If you don't have a *nix system I'd suggest installing Cygwin and
using dd in that environment. -- Ian
12:46 p.m.
On 17 November 2011 16:58, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
Concur, except that an Ubuntu LiveCD (or similar) would be much
quicker & easier than installing Cygwin. But agree as to the
technique.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
-----Original
Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Riley
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 8:40 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: (OT) SmartMedia un-erasing - help?
On Nov 17, 2011, at 11:30 AM, Mark Tapley wrote:
> All,
> ? ? I have a 128 MB Smart Media card from my camera which I
> inadvertently formatted, erasing a whole pile of really good photos
> from Yellowstone Park, in mid-June 2009. It recently re-surfaced in
> my pile of things to do.
>
> 1) Is there any hope at all that the original images are recoverable?
>
> 2) Any recommendations on where to go to get that done?
>
[snip]
I guess it's possible... does SmartMedia format as FAT[12|16|32]? ?A lot of
DOS "unerase" programs might do the trick if the camera just blows away the
header blocks of the filesystem; often times the directories are left more or
less intact.
[> ]
The format should be determined by the camera, rather than as an attribute of the media.
?If it is FAT (and I've yet to see a digital camera that doesn't use FAT): I had a
similar experience with a CompactFlash card and I was able to recover the images with DOS
Chkdsk.
Probably a good idea to make a backup image of the card before you do any
experiments, though. ?If you have access to a UNIX-y machine that can
access the card, dd should do the job. ?I don't know what to use on Windows.
I very much agree that making an image backup before you do anything like that is a very
good idea. ?If you don't have a *nix system I'd suggest installing Cygwin and
using dd in that environment. ?-- Ian 
1:20 p.m.
David Riley wrote:
I guess it's possible... does SmartMedia format as
FAT[12|16|32]? A lot
of DOS "unerase" programs might do the trick if the camera just blows
away the header blocks of the filesystem; often times the directories
are left more or less intact.
On my Canon the firmware always seems to store files as contiguous blocks -
when I accidentally erased its card once, I wrote a quick bit of code that
would scan blocks for JPEG headers and copy the data to separate files on
disk.
So long as the OP's camera doesn't fragment files, I expect a similar
recovery would be possible even if some form of "undelete" tool won't work.
(I don't know if I still have the code I wrote, but I can hunt for it if
needed)
cheers
Jules
1:07 p.m.
A great program I've used to recover files off of a flash card, is
digital image recovery. A little freeware program, that scans the card
beyond the FAT level, and recovers anything that matches the format of
an image. Bit tough to find, as the program isn't supported anymore..
But I did find it here..
http://housing19.berlin3.powerweb.de/fotoforum/index.php/topic,2690.0.html
Cheers
On 17/11/2011 9:30 AM, Mark Tapley wrote:
All,
I have a 128 MB Smart Media card from my camera which I
inadvertently formatted, erasing a whole pile of really good photos
from Yellowstone Park, in mid-June 2009. It recently re-surfaced in my
pile of things to do.
1) Is there any hope at all that the original images are recoverable?
2) Any recommendations on where to go to get that done?
OT-ness is that it applies to a (now) 10-year-old camera, which is
a pretty tenuous thread. However, I think I dimly recall a discussion
on this topic here recently, so if anyone can help me, please do!
Private email is fine, if the topic is not deemed of general interest.
1:15 p.m.
--- On Thu, 11/17/11, Mark Tapley <mtapley at swri.edu> wrote:
??? I have a 128 MB Smart Media card from my
camera which I inadvertently formatted, erasing a whole pile
of really good photos from Yellowstone Park, in mid-June
2009. It recently re-surfaced in my pile of things to do.
1) Is there any hope at all that the original images are
recoverable?
Assuming that you just reformatted the card and haven't used it again, then yes, you
should be able to recover everything.
2) Any recommendations on where to go to get that
done?
This is going to assume a *nix based system - I have no idea how you'd do this from
Windows, as I don't use it...
First, dd the card to a file. Work only from the image file, not the camera card:
dd if=/dev/[cardreader] of=[imagefile]
photorec is a wonderful piece of software that can automatically scan and recover image
files that have been deleted.
photorec [imagefile]
If you've got other stuff on there that's not a photo (or an MP3, I think photorec
also parses those), then you'll have to use the tools from sleuthkit:
fls -f fat -r [imagefile]
will list out the files it can find, and give you the inode numbers of the files.
It'll probably be a long list, so pipe it through less or something.
You can then use icat to extract the file, by inode number, from the list:
icat -f fat [imagefile] [inode#] > filename.foo
Not that I've ever accidentally deleted files from a camera card. No. Never.
-Ian
4581
days inactive
4581
days old
6 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
fast79ta＠yahoo.com -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
ian_primus＠yahoo.com -
IanK＠vulcan.com -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mtapley＠swri.edu