When you accidentally delete a photo from your iPhone, you can quickly visit the ‘Recently Deleted’ section and retrieve the deleted photo. Well, what if you accidentally delete a photo from your digital camera? There are ways to recover deleted images or videos from your digital camera. You can also recover the data from a corrupted digital camera SD card. Knowing simple hacks for recovering your data will help you protect your data and avoid mishaps. A digital camera uses an SD (Solid State Digital) card to store your data (images and videos).
SD cards are a fantastic technology, as these nano-sized memory chips can store lots of data. However, users can face issues with their SD cards, where they abruptly stop working or get corrupted. Read on to learn more about recovering deleted or lost data from your digital camera or recovering data from corrupted memory cards.
How is data lost in digital cameras?
Your photos/videos can be deleted or lost from your digital camera in the below-listed ways:
- Sometimes, the digital camera stops working, or the SD card doesn’t mount. In such cases, the user has to reset the camera to its original factory settings. Resetting the camera to factory settings can result in data loss.
- The abrupt shutting down of the camera due to a low battery or any other issue can also lead to data loss.
- Accidentally deleting your photos/videos is a common mistake camera users commit.
- Sometimes, the digital camera doesn’t read the SD card, prompting the user to format it. Formatting your SD card leads to data loss, even if it resolves the issue.
- Malware or viruses inside an SD card can also result in data loss.
- If an SD card is corrupted, it will lead to data loss as the SD card will not mount on any device. Some of the common mistakes that lead to memory card corruption are ignoring storage management messages, ejecting SD cards when in use, etc.
How do you recover accidentally deleted photos/videos?
All the reasons for data loss are listed above, and accidentally deleting data is a significant cause worldwide.
To recover accidentally deleted photos/videos from your digital camera, follow the below-mentioned steps:
- Download and use reliable photo recovery software to recover your accidentally deleted data. While many photo data recovery software(s) are available, choosing a reliable one may be a hassle. Based on personal experiences, Stellar Photo Recovery is one of the best photo data recovery software, hailed by many users and Fortune 500 companies for data recovery.
- Select the storage location from where the data is to be retrieved. In this case, it is your SD card, so connect it to a Mac or PC and select it for data recovery.
- Scan the storage location using the recovery software; after the scanning, all the deleted photos and videos will appear.
- Preview the deleted images/videos and select those you want to recover. Once you have selected the photos/videos for recovery, click the ‘Recover’ option.
- In the recovery software’s dialogue box, choose the storage option. All the recovered files/data will be stored in your selected location.
How do you recover files from an encrypted SD card?
Using a BitLocker encrypted storage drive for your digital camera, you can also recover accidentally deleted photos/videos. To do so, you must download Stellar and follow all the above steps. Once you have scanned the storage location, enter the BitLocker password. You can recover all deleted files once you provide the correct BitLocker password.
What is advanced/deep scanning?
Sometimes, the deleted files you’re looking for don’t appear even after scanning the storage location using recovery software. This happens due to the incomprehensive scanning of the target storage location. Most data recovery software(s) provide a deep or advanced scanning option for a comprehensive recovery. If you cannot see the files you are looking for, opt for deep/advanced scanning.
How do you retrieve photos/videos from a corrupted memory card?
Reliable data recovery software also lets you recover data from corrupted memory cards. But before you recover data from a corrupted SD card, you should know whether your SD card is corrupted. When people recover data from corrupted memory cards, they tend to format the SD card, which is not ideal. Make sure that your memory card is corrupted before taking any other step.
The signs that prove your SD card is corrupted are as follows:
- You can see your files on the SD card but can’t open or use them.
- You know that you have data on your SD card of the digital camera, but it says ‘card empty’ when you view it.
- When you try to copy the SD card’s contents to another location, it shows an impossible time to complete the task.
- When you see error messages like ‘Read / Write error on SD card’ or ‘Unreadable SD card,’ the SD card is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?’, ‘SD card is blank or has an unsupported file system,’ ‘SD Card is Damaged. Try Reformatting it, etc.
- If you can’t access your files even via a management tool
When facing the abovementioned issues, try to do simple diagnostics before terming the SD card useless. Follow these steps when you can’t access your digital camera’s SD card data:
- Try the SD card on some other device. If the SD card works on that device, it means that the SD card is fine and your device is faulty.
- Try another SD card on the same device. If the SD card is mounted easily on the same device, it implies that the earlier SD card is corrupt.
- Try accessing the SD card through a cable connecting that device to a PC.
- Once connected to a PC, you can also try running the chkdsk command to diagnose any errors in the memory card.
If none of your DIY diagnostics work, it implies that the SD card is corrupt. You can use specialized data recovery software to access the content of your SD card. You can also use Windows or Mac management tools to recover data from corrupted memory cards, but they are not always successful. The method to access a corrupt SD card using specialized data recovery software is the same as in the case of deletion.
You have to scan the SD card using the photo recovery software, and all its contents will be shown. If the contents are still not visible, opt for a deep/advanced scan. Once you have recovered your photos/videos and put them in a safe location, please stop using the SD card until you fix it. If not looked at for long, corrupt SD cards destroy the data.
How can I be more secure using my SD card?
Prevention is better than cure. It is better to manage rather than recover data from corrupted memory cards. You should use your SD card so that only a minimum of data is lost.
Some of the ways that ensure you don’t lose data from the SD card of your digital camera are as follows:
- Unmount the SD card from your digital camera frequently and back up all the photos/videos on the cloud. You can also opt for an automatic backup of the SD card contents when connected to a PC.
- Once you have clicked the photos in one go from your digital camera, immediately transfer the images to another device or PC. Ensure your SD card has space available so it doesn’t get corrupted due to a lack of storage.
- You can keep two copies of your SD card data to avoid future risks or vulnerabilities. Keep one copy on your PC and upload another one to cloud storage.
- If data integrity is your key concern, avoid buying cheap SD cards from unrecognized brands.
In a nutshell
Everyone loves clicking and recording the beautiful moments of life to view later. Losing your favorite photos or videos is terrible, but you can recover the lost data with the abovementioned steps. SD cards are a valuable technology, but they are not immune to accidental deletion or corruption. Stellar Data Recovery is the recommended software for retrieving seemingly lost data. Stellar has many satisfied customers worldwide and uses various Fortune 500 companies for data recovery and management. Recover data from corrupted memory cards yourself!