Corrupted Memory Cards – What I Did When the Unthinkable Happened

Sometimes, in business, you can do all the planning, coordinating, and preventing in the world, and things can still go wrong.

A few years ago, something in mine went really wrong.

I had just finished photographing an engagement session, and the shoot had gone amazingly. The couple was fun to work with, and the resulting images looked great from the previews I could see on the back of my camera. I was so excited for my clients to see the final results, and was even more excited to photograph their wedding in the coming months!

I got home, eager to edit, and placed the memory card into the reader on my computer.

“Corrupted card. Please reformat and try again.”

Frantic, I shoved the memory card back into my camera hoping against hope that it was a mistake.

Another error message. The card appeared empty.

Epic panic ensued.

I’ll try and spare you the long, drawn-out description of the agony I was in during those next two hours, but just picture a full grown woman curled into the fetal position bawling her eyes out. I racked my brain for the words to tell my clients, and –even though I was insured– contemplated the impending demise of my business.

There had to be something that could be done, so I decided to stop wallowing and start researching.

I asked in photography groups, I called photography friends, and I googled my little heart out.

Then, I discovered a program called PhotoRescue PC .

This program promised the potential to recover all lost data or corrupted images. It said that image recovery wasn’t always possible every time, but that if it was successful, all previewed images would be completely usable and full-size once recovered or I’d get my money back.

It told me that after attempting the recovery, the program would display a demo of my images and allow me to see them all before ever paying a cent. If all of my images were there, all I’d have to do is pay $29 and not only would I get all of the images back, I’d also get to keep the program should anything like this ever happen in the future.

What was left to lose? I went for it!

And that was when I decided I wanted to marry PhotoRescue.

It worked!

All of my RAW files were back, completely usable, and even more beautiful than they’d appeared on the back of my camera!

I immediately saved the images to my computer. I then duplicated the folder about 48 times and backed them up via Dropbox, and an external hard drive to be extra super duper sure I had them secured.

Then, I threw that freakin’ memory card away!

PhotoRescue saved the day for me, and while I hope you’ll never need to use it, I’m sharing this with you today in hopes that if the unthinkable ever happens to you, you’ll have a place to start trying to make it right.