Lesson learned

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elody21

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Well, The day started off well until I went to put my memory card in the reader and it BROKE in half ! So I lost 5 years of pictures of everything! Please don't ask "didn't you have it backed up?" ! Duh! If I did I would not be upset. Sorry, but that seems to be the first thing out of everyone's mouth today. Well, I am still stunned, but there is nothing I can do at this point. Such is life.
I know in the big picture of life 5 years and hundreds of pictures is a pretty small problem but just for today, at least, it still hurts.
Needless to say, back up you pictures because you might not have tomorrow to do it!
Breath deep, breath deep, breath deep.
Alice
 
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Sorry abotu the pictures. I have back system and use it it called Click Free. 750GB hard drive USB so I move it to LOMLs desktop and laptop once a week and back them up mine are done twice aweek. How did the memory card break?
 
I lost half a year of pictures once. I feel your pain it really sucks.

Don't give up on the card though. Check around someone may be able to tap into it and save it.
 
Les is right. Unless the memory chips themselves are damaged the pictures are still there. It's just a matter of finding someone who can recover them AND how much you are willing to pay to get them back.
 
You can get a 5 GB account at Sugarsync for free! Offsite backup, file sharing, and synchronizing between multiple computers. Fully automatic too. You don't even know it is doing its thing.

I know that does not help you feel better about your current problem but may help for future issues. Also, it may be worth checking to see if there is anyone online who could restore the data. Just because it broke in half does not mean the data is gone. Did it split in half or physicaly break? You may be able to tape it together and get the computer to read the data. I have done that before with a Sony memory stick and it worked.
 
if you were close I might be able to recover, just depends on what "Broke" is...if it's just the usb connector, then you should be able to find someone local

I used to do data recovery and made good money, now too many back up their files.
 
I work next to a bunch of software guys and you wouldn't believe the trash they are able to pull data off of.

It might not be cheap to have someone fix it, but it's five years and probably worth it. Maybe you could post a picture and we could take a look.
 
Like the folks above are saying: unless the chips themselves split in 1/2 the pictures are still there. You might call the manufacturer and see if there is something they can do. Otherwise contact the electrical engineering department at a local university and see if the students want a project. You have nothing to lose by trying.
 
I'll check into LOML. We got a new reader a few months ago and instead of the card slipping in nicely it was a very tight fit. All I can imagine is that over the period having to push the card in it weakened and eventually broke. I have 3 computer geeks in the house and they all say it is too late for the card. there is no was of recovering any of the pictures since it is not a software problem, but a hardware one.
Alice


tbroye said:
Sorry abotu the pictures. I have back system and use it it called Click Free. 750GB hard drive USB so I move it to LOMLs desktop and laptop once a week and back them up mine are done twice aweek. How did the memory card break?
Click to expand...
 
For this problem Carbonite would not work. The break is physical and is no where in software.




SuperDave said:
... Carbonite!

It's cheap, less than $5/month. I have had to restore files one time and it was worth its weight in gold!
Click to expand...
 
The card is split in half. Cracked and broken. My son the electrical engineer actually opened the card up and he said the micro fine (smaller than a hair) wires or connections are tore apart and as he explained this to me, the only computer challenged person in the house, each micro wire would have to be reconnected with the correct wire for the data to be recovered. He said it cant be done.
I will of course take the advice of those and look into some thing to capture and save the pictures somewhere else from now on. I just wanted to give a reminder to anyone else not backing up pictures.
At least with a 35mm roll one would only loose 36 pictures not hundreds
Thanks Alice





gketell said:
Like the folks above are saying: unless the chips themselves split in 1/2 the pictures are still there. You might call the manufacturer and see if there is something they can do. Otherwise contact the electrical engineering department at a local university and see if the students want a project. You have nothing to lose by trying.
Click to expand...
 
Alice,
I own a Camera Store and hear this story multiple times a week. Saving your photos in the future is as easy as the posts have said for off-site storage. YOu create a folder for your photos and send it right before you go to bed. What the majority of our customers do is just burn CD's or DVD's---like two of each...to be stored in separate places. We have ours, one at home and one in a saftey deposit box with all the other stuff. (Personal photos)

Memory Cards are like everything else, there are only a few manufacturers and they market their products under many names. I don't know as there are better ones or worse ones. I used to buy only San-disk but we have seen as many problems with them as others....which I must say is rare. I have seen them break like yours, but only a few times. THe biggest thing that happens to them is in the winter we see people "shock" them with a static electricity shock and that will totally destroy them every time.

The other big problem we see is simply human nature. You can buy these huge cards that hold hundreds or a thousand photos and people shoot for a long time with out a download. Like you, maybe years. This leads to tragedy too. While the digital world has many, many advantages, there are many draw backs and unforunately you experienced one here.

Procrastination is the biggest enenmy of making your photos archival....easy for me to say as I have been known to do just that.....as in my footer/signature below says.
When the world was changing to digital and film was still a viable option, I used to ask people if they were the type that picked up their photofinishing and just threw it in a drawer, but never got them in albums, and if they did, maybe downloading, manipulating and saving to a folder then digital was maybe not for them. Film, of course is not a good option any more, but some diligence in saving your images is.

Coming from a world that we had custom B&W services, where we printed Grandmas negs for early to mid 1900's digital is much more a "short term" memory.

If this ever happens again, and the card is not split in the citical parts, there are many service providers that can recover your images. They are pricey....sometimes hundreds, and while it sounds as if this may be a done deal, in the future it may be an option.
 
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I've had my own computer consulting business for more than 25 years. I preach "backup, backup, backup" but until you have lost something important it doesn't seem to make an impression. You are not alone! It seems to be human nature...it won't happen to me. (I lost 3 months worth of work back in the days of no hard drive, floppy disc computers. Learned my lesson then.)
 
I had my hard drive crash for my main work computer. It had 10 years of Qucikbooks data on it for my entire construction company. My most recent backup was over a year old and $100's of thousands had gone through there. I was looking at being out of business! I tried the hard drive in another computer and it would not even recognize the drive. I found some software online called Get Data Back that said it would most likely be able to retrieve it. Cost me $40-50 if I remember right. To my pleasant surprise, it actually worked and was able to retrieve my Quickbooks data. Ever since then, I have been running SugarSync which does a real time backup every time the file is saved, even with an autosave. I was sweating for a while and learned my lesson. Now all of my computers are running SugarSync and they are all synchronized with each other including my office computers, house computers, and my iPhone and I also have an off site backup archive. Every picture taken on my iPhone is also synced automatically through SugarSync and every photo I upload from the camera to the computer is synced and backed up, all for free, I might add with their 5GB free plan!
 
Careful with real-time/full-time sync. If the file data corrupts that corruption will immediately be synced everywhere and you are just as toast. Better to have it sync once a day or something so if there is a corruption you have a little while to stop the sync before the corruption gets propagated. Been there, done that; learned the hard way.
 
Thanks guys and gals,
I was just thinking the other day that I couldn't believe how many years of pictures were on this. It was a San-Disk. I just happened to move my son's graduation pics onto another file and I can get some pics of some things from other people but probably 98% of them are gone. I am not very good on the computer and seem to have to ask a family member about every time I need to do something new so I do procrastinate when it comes to the computer. I really think it was the fault of the new card reader which made really difficult to insert the card. I should have taken it back right away instead of trying to use it. Like I said I am very much trying to look at this as pretty small compared to some peoples problem. I went and got a new card and in other things we make I am posting picture #1. check it out.
Thanks everyone
Alice
 
Yeah, except that SugarSync keeps the immediately previous version in the archive for your account on the server so you always have it to go back on.
 
Another trick for recovering HD info is to take the drive out, put it in a zip lock baggie and put it in the freezer. The issues that HD's usually have is the bearings. The cold sometimes allows the bearings to function. The next day, get everything prepared, then put the drive in at the last minute. Usually the drive will run about 2 hours... this should give you time to copy it....I have had about 50% success with this. Usually this is a time for "Hail Mary" things anyway.
 
elody21 said:
The card is split in half.
Click to expand...


Alice; Unless the chips themselves are broken the data is likely intact.

There are firms that specialize in data recovery. The services are not cheap, upwards of $100, but if it your only alternative, I would try it. Google "memory stick data recovery". These folks take the USB card apart, remove the chips and install them in another USB stick. Some promise, "no recovery, no fee".

Check out this link
 
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