How to Recover Files Erased by Mistake From an SD Card
SD cards are a popular standardized storage media used for an array of portable devices. Roughly the size of a postage stamp, SD cards are most often found in digital cameras. Recovering pictures and other files that have been mistakenly erased from the SD card of a camera, however, is a common question. Fortunately, as long as no new pictures or movies have been taken with the camera, there is a very good chance all the files can be recovered.
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Instructions
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Stop taking pictures or recording movies with the camera. If this is some other portable device, do not do anything that could write new files to the SD card. When a file gets erased on a SD card, the information is not removed. Instead, the space where the file was located gets marked as "available" to use.
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Download and install file recovery software geared for SD cards. There are tons of software packages that can recover lost information from SD cards. Most cost money, but there are a few that are free, including Pandora Recovery and Recover Files. There are also some free Linux based tools that can recover files from just about anything.
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Insert your SD card into the card reader. In some cases, you can use the camera's provided sync cable and access the SD card from your computer over the cable.
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Open the recovery software and direct it to the SD card. Most recovery software requires that you tell it which drive (and often which directory) you wish to recover files from. You generally also need to direct the software as to where you want the files recovered to.
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Select the files you wish to recover and recover them. You will be presented with a list of deleted files available on the SD card. Select the files you wish to recover and then click execute button (which will be "execute," "recover," or "OK").
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