Recovering Lost Images from
Flash Media
PC Inspector File Recovery provides a number of
settings for accessing files on damaged drives. The
following steps will scan flash media and display
files on the media that can be recovered.- If you have a flash card reader, connect it to
your computer and insert the damaged flash
media card. Windows should at the very
least recognize the flash card reader.
Windows should also “see” the damaged
card, but it might not know what to do with
it. If you do not have a flash card reader,
you might also be able to connect your cam-
era to your PC. If Windows recognizes your camera as another drive, you
may proceed. - Open the PC Inspector File Recovery software. You will first see an introduc-
tory screen that explains what the software does. Click Close to move past
this intro window. The main screen will appear with nothing in it. - Click the Open Drive icon or choose Object, Drive. The system will scan your
computer, looking for all possible physical and logical drives, and then it will
display the Select Drive dialog box. - When the Select Drive dialog box appears, make sure the Logical Drive tab is
selected. Select the drive letter that represents your flash media. Make sure it
is highlighted.
Any external flash media will usually
appear near the bottom of this list. The
flash media drive might be listed as drive
F: or G:, for example, and say 117MB if
the flash media is a 128MB card. You can
also select a specific directory. This will be
explained later. - Click on the Preview button to review the
contents of this logical drive (see Figure
8.2). If the contents or file structure looks
familiar (you see either a DCIM folder
or .jpgimages), choose the correct drive
letter.
100 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TODIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
If the settings sug-
gested here do not work,
experiment. The software cannot
corrupt the damaged media any
further.tip
If you formatted the card
by mistake, select the Use
FAT drop-down box on the
Select Drive window and
choose No before continuing.