Data Recovery

Got a Camera with Corrupted Memory Card? Recover Photos from it

May 6, 2024

The Dreaded Corrupted Memory Card

Oh, the horror! I still remember the day it happened to me. I had just shot a few hundred epic photos of a couple of bands tearing it up on stage, and I was so excited to get them imported and edited. Little did I know, my night was about to take a dark turn.

I popped the memory card into my laptop, started the Lightroom import, and then headed off to bed, visions of perfect concert shots dancing in my head. But when I checked the laptop the next morning, my heart sank. Only 50 photos had imported successfully, and an ominous message told me that the rest were “unreadable.” [1]

I rushed to the Finder to take a look at the files directly, and sure enough, they were all there – but I couldn’t preview or open a single one. It was a photographer’s worst nightmare come true.

Panic Sets In

Panic mode engaged. I tried running Disk Utility to verify the disk, and it revealed that a number of the files were the wrong size – much smaller than they should have been. In a moment of poor judgment, I decided to try repairing the disk. [1] Big mistake. All that did was truncate those corrupted files, leaving me with a bunch of 33KB monstrosities that consisted of a single thin line of color and a whole lot of gray. Not exactly the vibrant concert shots I was hoping for.

At this point, I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel and kiss those precious photos goodbye. But then I remembered the wise words of the photography subreddit: “I hope this never happens to you, but if it does, that this info is somehow useful.” [1] Time to get my MacGyver on and see if I could salvage this disaster.

The Lifesaver: PhotoRec

After a frantic Google session, I stumbled upon a free, open-source file recovery program called PhotoRec. [1] It’s multi-platform, so it works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and even BSD. I downloaded it, installed it, and fired it up, ready to put it to the test.

The interface is a bit on the primitive side – a good old-fashioned command line affair. But hey, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best, right? I selected the corrupted SD card as the disk I wanted to recover, chose a folder on my hard drive to stash the recovered files, and let it rip. [1]

It took about 90 minutes to recover the entire 16GB card, and the results were nothing short of miraculous. Sure, a handful of files were still lost – just those colorful lines of doom – but PhotoRec managed to recover pretty much everything else, including some old photos I had long since deleted from the card. [1] I did a quick culling of the extra stuff, imported the band photos, and just like that, the crisis was averted.

Lessons Learned

This whole ordeal taught me a few valuable lessons:

Never trust a memory card, no matter how reliable it seems. Always have a backup plan, whether that’s cloud storage, an external hard drive, or even just another memory card. [2]
Don’t panic and start randomly trying to “fix” things. That’s a surefire way to make the situation worse. Stay calm, do some research, and find a reliable recovery tool. [3]
PhotoRec is a lifesaver, plain and simple. It may not be the prettiest program, but it gets the job done, and it’s completely free. Definitely keep it in your photography toolkit, just in case. [1]

So there you have it, folks. The next time your camera’s memory card decides to throw a tantrum and corrupt your precious photos, don’t despair. Grab PhotoRec, let it work its magic, and you just might be able to save the day. And who knows, maybe you’ll even end up with a few unexpected gems from the past!