If your memory card in the device (cell phone, Android smartphone, camera...) or the USB flash pen drive is suddenly no longer detected and you get an error message like: micro SD card error, unknown device, formatting required, unreadable card, etc. This indicates that a physical damage is present; most likely, the controller is damaged. Data rescue software can't help in this case. In almost every instance, the memory chips are intact and the data are actually available. When the memory chips of a memory device with this kind of damage are removed from the printed circuit board, it is possible to read the data with the help of a special NAND flash reader. However, at this point the data are raw data and must be compiled into readable data. This is the most difficult part of the rescue procedure, and is carried out by only a few service companies world-wide.
With this method, I succeed in 92% of all cases in rescuing the data, even when other data rescue companies have said they can’t do it.
For the 8% of cases in which I am unsuccessful in rescuing the data, the memory chips themselves are damaged.
When recovering data from SD memory cards or USB flash pen drives that have suffered water damage, the data can almost always be recovered by repairing the damage.
In these cases, the components are removed from the board, the board is cleaned and broken tracks repaired. The components are then soldered back to the board.
If water damage occurs to a micro SD card, the card's contacts will always be broken and new contacts will be installed on the board.
Memory card formatting in the camera / smartphone: It is generally known that by formatting the memory card with the camera or smartphone
the memory cells on the memory card are overwritten with zeroes and a data recovery is no longer possible. That is a false statement!
Just the fact that the formatting takes only a few seconds suggests that the memory cells were not overwritten. The overwriting of the memory cells must logically
take just as long as copying data to the entire memory card and that takes several minutes.
If you want to save the data with a data recovery program after an unintentional formatting, it will be shown that there is no data left,
because the memory cells no longer have any content. But that is not correct. When formatting, the memory card controller was only programmed to
that it should output zero for all requests, as long as the memory cell has not been rewritten. This manipulation can not overcome a data recovery program.
In these cases, the data can only be saved if the raw data is read directly from the memory chip, that is, the controller must be bypassed.
How Recoverfab works for this, is shown in this video: Data recovery by bypassing the memory card controller
I just want share my experience with anyone out there who has ever experienced the lost of precious photos from a micro SD card out of my android smartphone as I am OVER THE MOON RIGHT NOW. I recently went to Fiji for a wedding, it was the most amazing place.. I went snap-crazy and took a baziillion (or 1000+ photos to be more exact) photos of everything we saw like I always do. Then on the wedding day...all of a sudden my camera said "memory full" when I tried to take a photo, camera froze, then I couldn't even view all the other photos I previously took... I went into panic mode. I had not backed up my photos at all being on holiday - traveling lite and not bringing any form of backup device with me.. For the rest of my holiday I was totally in a state of despair. There were professional wedding photographers there and they all had a look at my SD card for me, even trying the SD card in their cameras and their laptops, but all they could tell me was "Get a better SD card next time!" as none of the devices even recognized the SD card as a readable source... There were no physical damage to the card and I had not damaged it in any way. I have used the card for a few years but its never had any problems.. After getting back from the holiday I went to all sorts of places to try and save my photos. Camera stores, photographers, hard ware store people..I tried all the photo recovery softwares there is and read every piece of advice I can find on the internet. But none worked.. the softwares would only work if the card was actually recognized as a drive. Not mine... and pretty much everyone told me if its not readable, there's no way of recovering it...full stop. Then I found a guy who raved about this German company called Recoverfab - who supposedly can retrieve photos from memory devices even if the card is damaged or unreadable by normal means. I emailed the guy telling him my story - he emailed me back and told me yes they can save my photos even tho its not recognized by the computer - because they have a special technique involving extracting the microchip from the printed circuit board and directly accessing the raw data with a programmable chip reader. I posted my SD card away to Germany...finally Last night he emailed me to say they have received my SD card. Then one day later, I got another email - he rescued 1040 photos and 8 videos out of my SD card which everyone deemed was as good as dead. I am speechless. He sent me a preview of my photos - I started screaming in joy. He really did it!!!!!!!! All my lost memories are saved. They are AMAZING!!! I cannot recommend them more. This is the best money I've ever spent. Here's the site if anyone has the same problem and everyone else shuts you down, don't throw away your memory card & your memories, send it to these guys they will help you!!!!! |
I had a very similar issue with on of my memory cards. While my wife and I were in Italy for our anniversary we had a memory card completely quit working. This was after 3 days of exploring Rome and the card was nearly full. When we got home I tried taking the card to both a camera shop and a computer shop and was told they couldn't recover the pictures. I then tried many of the file recovery software programs out there with no luck at all. I have spent nearly two years waiting and hoping to find some way to get these pictures off of the card. I found a company in Germany called Recoverfab. Their website had perfectly described the problem that I was having, so I figured I would give it a try since at this point I really had nothing to lose. I described the problem I had and sent the card in. They sent an e-mail when the card was received saying they had it and would process it in a few days. The next day I got an e-mail from them saying that they had recovered all of my pictures and videos from the card, along with a preview of them! I seriously had tears in my eyes actually seeing those pictures! If the free software out there won't work for you, definitely check this place out. Their website is http://recoverfab.com. It is definitely not free, but it is totally worth every penny spent. |
Hi all - Just wanted to post regarding a great recovery service called Recoverfab in Germany. I worked with Jim C. in the following post in an attempt to recover the photos: Cannot read Micro SD HC for Olympus Stylus Tough-8000 Unfortunately, it ended up the damaged card was beyond what we could fix, as we determined it must've been a dead controller (thus making the data irretrievable). Jim C. was generous enough to look at the card himself and then helped point me in the direction of Recoverfab when attempts to resurrect the card were unsuccessful. I sent my card off to Recoverfab and they were able to retrieve all of my lost photos! I was starting to give up hope, so I was elated to learn that they were able to get them back. Thankfully I now have all my photos back from my family vacation in Mexico and they did an awesome job. So if all of your attempts seem to be in vain with all the methods in this forum, give them a try. They won't charge you if they can't retrieve anything, which is nice. It's worth a shot! |
I have a corrupted memory card for many years and I have calling data/photo recovery companies, going to numerous photo reader machines , spoke to a lot of photo recovery specialist in person , via phone/emails, reading so many online reviews and trying a lot of software here in the US but no one has ever recovered my photos on my corrupted memory card. So I keep searching and reading reviews until I tried this company - http://recoverfab.com and so I send my "corrupted" memory card to the company and Mr. L. Hiersche did the recovery and walllllaaaaaaa!!!!!!! he did send me a password to check my photos on his website and I saw my long-never seen photos almost 10 years ago!!!! I never thought someone will ever recover my photos on my corrupted memory card, so If ever you think nobody would ever recover your photos on a memory card or tired of using of the so-called "recovery softwares" - I highly recommend to visit... http://recoverfab.com and let your memories seen again. The company has excellent customer service and Mr. Leopold Hiersche do really reply your email's so fast- even as fast in minutes to hours. So visit his website and watch his recovery technique and you will be amazed. |
A friend has baby pictures on an SD card, which said baby later found and used as an inappropriate teething aid. Yeah, yeah, I know … He asked me to try to get the pictures back. I couldn’t read the card. It even fried one of my card readers. I tried RescuePRO, PhotoRec and PhotoRescue: no dice. Downtown Camera returned it as unreadable (and declined to charge me anything). So I asked metafilter, and someone suggested Recoverfab in Germany. I sent the card off last week, and waited … Got an e-mail at 06:30 this morning that they’d received the card, with a latest completion date of a week. Before 09:00, received a second e-mail with a link to picture samples and payment options. Have paid (not cheap – €89, but they got results) and am awaiting the FTP link. Many thanks to Leopold Hiersche for his excellent results. |
In case anyone has a problem recovering their files from a corrupted memory card, i would like to share what i found. my 16gb sdcard from my camera got spoilt. i tried different types of software to recover the data which included over 1000 photos i had taken. none worked..really desperate cuz i had fotos from a trip to brazil on it. i discovered a company in germany called recoverfab. they got back my data for me . apparently they physically access the memory chip in the device. so they do what software recovery wont do!.. it did cost a bit.. but the price is negotiable.. i got back my photos and videos and i am happy.. here is the site of the company incase anyone runs into "unrecoverable by software" problems and think that they have to throw away their memory card! |
Hi, I think this may help you a lot. About 4 years ago I had a similar situation where my memory stick was physically damaged when I brought it in for a shop to transfer some photos onto a disc. The shop person must of accidentally dropped it and stepped on it. Anyway, all our photos on it from our recent trip in Asia were lost and we were very sad about it. We looked around for many ways to get our photos back but almost all the solutions were just software data recovery if you accidentally wiped or reformatted your card etc... which was all no use to us. About 4 years passed we sort of forgot about it until recently cleaning the drawers we saw the memory card and i returned searching just for interest and I found a company called Recoverfab based in Germany. At the same time I found a few others but they were all so expensive (in Australia). Recoverfab has very good prices in comparison. So eventually I posted it to Recoverfab and about a week later, they replied saying they recieved our memory stick. Then about 2 days after that they said it was fixed and even had a photo preview of all the recovered photos! I actually couldn't believe it that I thought something like this would be lost forever but it was recovered. I'm so happy that I discovered them. So yea, give Recoverfab a try! I hope this helps, I know how you feel! |
I too was in a similar situation with a physically damaged SD card which contained a month's worth of family photos. After a day of taking photos at Dover Castle on the first day of our family vacation, something went terribly wrong with my 2GB Traveler SD card which rarely gets removed from my Nikon D40. The camera simply would not recognize the card but rather gave an error message that the memory was probably damaged. How that happened-I have no idea! But there was no way that the camera or multiple card readers could access data on the card. After trying to get multiple card readers to access the card, I just gave up and assumed that the 1000+ photos from the first day of vacation (and the previous month) were just going to be lost. After vacation I began researching the issue once again. I tried a couple of recovery programs that were recommended in this forum http://www.z-a-recovery.com/ and http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec but neither worked. I thought PhotoRec may work since it claims to be able to recover photos from a card even if the drive does not recognize the removable media. Once again I was close to giving up! However, I read further in this forum and discovered a post about a customer who was very satisfied with service received from Recoverfab. After checking out the services that Recoverfab claimed to be able to offer, I opened up my SD card to verify that there was no physical damage to the memory chip inside the SD card. Observing no physical damage to the memory chip, I decided to send the card off to see if there was any chance that some of the pictures on my card might be able to be recovered. To my great delight, in just a few days, I received an e-mail back from Recoverfab saying that my card had arrived and the all my photos had been recovered! Wow! What a relief! So, I am writing this as a satisfied customer and a happy father who has been able to have 1000+ photos recovered from an SD card that quit working in my Nikon D40. I don't know why the card quit working since this has never happened to me before. Yet, I do know that Recoverfab did a great job recovering the family photos that would otherwise have been lost. As a satisfied customer, I highly recommend Recoverfab as a good option for recovering data on an SD card that your computer or camera will no longer recognize or read. All is not lost if the memory chip is still intact and you are willing to part with some money to let a qualified expert recover your data!!! |
I recently took my wife and baby daughter to Hawaii for the first time. Needless to say, I took many great pictures. But then I went outrigger canoeing on the last day and the camera got ruined by salt water (no big deal, I wanted a new camera anyways). WORSE YET, when I got home I discovered that my card was no longer readable. How TRAGIC!!! What to do? Here are some things I tried which did NOT work: (1) Try the card in other cameras, card readers and any other device I could possible get my hands on. I even bough a new universal card reader, but the card remained unrecognizable. (2) Recovery software -- what's the point? The card's unrecognizable? (3) Let the card dry for two weeks, no change. (4) Clean the contact point with alcohol and cotton swabs, and other methods... NONE OF THAT WORKED AT ALL Then I came across a lab in germany which some other forum users in my situation had used with siccess. It seemed weird to have to send it all the way to Germany, but every other 'recovery' lab I investigated seemed to just be using software to try recovering data with no higher success rate than I would have on my own. Recoverfab, on the other hand, looked like a real LAB with hardware to break card open and rebuilt the data from the bits that remained on there. So I packaged up my card and mailed it off to Germany, hoping for the best. Sure enough, a week later, I got ALL my pictures and videos back via ftp download from RECOVERFAB! So happy!!! |
Had a similar problem after my sister's family came over for a 1-week visit to Vancouver Canada. When I took out the Patriot 8GB Class 6 SD card from my EOS 60D SLR and inserted it to a PC, the PC won't display the card contents. (Note: The PC did not report that the card had to be formatted; rather, it did not detect that I inserted a card in the first place.) Tried the same on another PC & a Mac & Linux, and also on a dedicated SD card reader, but they still won't detect the card. I tried to re-insert the SD card on my SLR and 2 other digicams, it didn't detect the card at all. I tried downloading software such as TestDisk, PhotoRec, Recuva, Zero Assumption (ZAR), Low-level disk checker from Patriot, nothing worked because these software rely on the PC to first detect the SD card so that they could access it. I also visited a reputable data recovery service in the city, the technician said he couldn't do it because the controller inside the SD card was damaged, and there was very slim chance of recovering the pics. When I learned this I felt devastated.* Still, I kept googling for a solution and based on what I've read at some forums my last resort was to find people who could open the SD card and directly access the memory chips inside (of course, I kinda figured out early on this wasn't going to be free). I noticed this website*http://recoverfab.com/*in a few forums and people had said good things about it. So I sent the card via regular mail (postage is about $5 from Canada to Germany), and after a week I received an email saying that they received the card. The next day I got another email saying they were able to recover 365 pics!*What surprised me wasn't the price (the website shows the pricing up front), but the fact that I now had the chance to retrieve all my holiday memories back and in such a short time. I learned my lesson now; #1: backup your pics everyday (don't wait until the last day of vacation to backup all the photos!) and #2: try to exhaust all the free solutions you could find (info from forums, free data recovery software, etc.), and #3: don't lose hope because as my experience has shown it is still possible to recover the data. I*just want to share my experience for the benefit of other people having the same problem. |
We recently experienced a small nightmare of sorts during our vacation. After a furious day of taking photos at Jungfrau in Switzerland, the Transcend SDHC card in our Canon T1i suddenly and without warning decided to quit - The read "card access" light would not go off for several minutes. Eventually it did but I immediately knew there was a problem. I back up every day on a vacation, and the card failed on me literally on the last picture I took that morning. As soon as we reached our hotel, I spent the whole afternoon trying to search google for how to recover photos from damaged sdhc cards, and downloaded at least 3 different software programs that claimed to help in such situations. After a while I realized that I was in deeper trouble because the card would not MOUNT in the camera or the computer or any other device (I tried my son's 3DS), and thats when I realized that this is a hardware problem. I continued searching, and realized that there are possible hardware solutions to this and all hope need not be lost yet. I finally sent my card by FedEx to Recoverfab in Germany and they recovered my photos! This was a great learning experience for me in many ways. The key thing is as long as the card is not physically damaged to crack the memory chips inside, the data can be recovered. Most google searches only return software recovery solutions, which were pretty useless in my case and I suppose in many other cases. If the card cannot be mounted as a drive on a computer, it means the controller of the card is likely bad but the memory chips may be safe! This was exactly the situation in my case. Hope this post is useful to some others like me. Thanks! |
I had a very similar experience recently regarding my SD card. My wife and I went on our Europe vacation and into day two of the trip, the SD card gave a "memory card lock" error in the camera. I ended up purchasing another SD card to use and kept the old one thinking that I could recover it. Once I got back home, I tried everything possible using various shareware program like ZAR to recover the pictures. The problem I had was that the SD card was not recognized by the computer. I read a lot of information from this forum and tried to use Jim C method. The linux utilities didn't work as well. I even tried two types of linux software but the operating system didn't recognize the SD card. Feeling frustrated about not being able to recover the pictures from our trip, I saw another posting about the company recoverfab in Germany. I was a bit hesitant at first about sending my SD card all the way to Germany. I ended up calling companies in US but they were planning to charge $300-$800 for the services. On top of it, they'll charge for diagnosis as well. I bit the bullet and sent the SD card to recoverfab. It took about 2 weeks using US mail to get there. I received a confirmation email once the company received the SD card. The company was able to recover 341 pictures within a day. Best thing about the company was that you don't need to pay if they can't retrieve anything. The cost is also based on the size of SD card as well. I'm glad that I found this forum as well as recoverfab. My wife is also pleased as well. |
I'd like to chime in and give a positive reference to Recoverfab as well. I had a 32GB SD card I had been using for photographs on vacation when it began to give me an error message. Trying to load the SD card through multiple PC's also yielded no results. Subsequently, I used nearly every data recovery software out there (ZAR, Stellar Phoenix, GetDataBack) with no avail and it became apparent to me that this wasn't a software issue but more likely something that happened physically to the SD card. I won't name names but I contacted several major data recovery firms in the US and was very much put off by the seedy pricing procedures and service. Quite frankly, I feel some of these firms clearly take financial advantage of a situation in which you need or must have back your sensitive or important data. Found Recoverfab through this thread and needless to say, they were able to recover all data and felt confident with the level of service there. The same exact situation happened to a friend, (32GB SD card, same model camera) and I was more then happy to refer them to Recoverfab. Thanks to the threadstarter for the recommendation and Recoverfab! |
Hey guys, So I have been lurking here for a while and came back recently to see if I could find a solution when the SD card in my camera stopped registering as existing on my computer. Someone here (sorry don't remember the name), pointed me to some recovery software, which was great, but could only be used if the computer saw the card (even if it saw it as corrupt). Unfortunately the card I had didn't even register at all. I thought I was out of luck... then I was chatting to a friend and they suggested this service called Recoverfab. I checked it out and it is in Germany, so I was a little hesitant (I am in the US), but figured that the card was useless so it wouldn't hurt (I did ask around locally for recovery services too, but most places that do this in the US are aimed at corporate customers and their prices started at $500). I had to mail the SD card to recoverfab before making any payment.... But then, a couple of days ago, I get an e-mail saying they have revoered all 1788 photos and 98 videos from the card! They give you an account on the website and they post about 20 sample images from your memory card to your account so you can see that they actually did recover them (bearing in mind I had paid them nothing up to that point). Once I replied that the images were good, I paid the fee (depends on card size but for my 8gb was 165 Euros), they uploaded the whole thing to an FTP site and sent me the link to download, it was a easy as that! So, anyway, after the help I got from others' answers on this board, I just wanted to share what I went through and let you know that this service is out there. |
I just went through this with one of my SD cards. The 16G micro SD in my Android phone had hundreds of pictures I didn't want to lose. The pictures vanished, and when I put the card in a usb adaptor, the drive would show for a few moments then disappear. I tried down loading a couple of recovery programs, and it worked as long as the drive worked, but not long enough to actually recover anything. The software would only show 49 pictures being recoverable, then disappear. I researched for labs that could recover the data and found recoverfab. I sent the micro SD card to them, and they were able to recover all of my files. |
I have been filming on a Sandisk 32gb flashcard with my Canon XF100 for my first documentary film. I had gathered fantastic material very useful to me. When I tried to review the material on my Macbook Pro, a message appeared along the lines of: “Unreadable disc… please format”. I then tried to view the data on my camera and a message recommending me to format appeared. I became very anxious. I tried this several times, on a different computer (PC) and also tried my Kodak card reader with other cards to dismiss any possible problem not relating to the card but everything seemed to work fine, so it became apparently that the problem was to do with my card! A few friends recommended I try the sandisk recovery software. I tried that the first time and it did not recover any files. The second time, over 500 files were recovered; however, it was clear that the data had been corrupted as my clips were split into fragments. When I tried to convert these clips into a format that could be seen through Final Cut Pro, I saw that it was damaged and some of them could not even be converted to be seen. Again, I became very anxious as I seemed to run out of options! Luckily, another friend of mine who works in the film industry recommended Leopold and I sent my card to him. Although I have yet to see the data, the summary sheet shows a very healthy breakdown of the data recovered and all looks very positive! This is better than software recovery packages because he works directly on the chip. Georgina C., London (UK) |
Last year , December 2012 I'm visit south korea for vacation , the weather is very cold in there , and the last day we are going to mount sorak , the weather is -17 celcius , i take my canon camera 5dmk3 and take a lot picture . Somehow i don't know what happen my camera said the memory card error , since then i can't access my card , and all my picture is gone , I'm using 16 gb transcend compact flash , the only solution is i removed the compact flash , and change it with my sdhc card , and my camera can take picture again , so when i back to my hometown , i try my compact flash in my computer , oh damm , the computer also can not detect the cf card , then i try a lot photo recovery program , all can not find the files in there , please remember don't try to format the card , because many photo recovery program suggest to format the card ! , i talk to my friend he said you need the professional to recovery this card , he suggest me a recoverfab.com in germany , wow , he said when the picture is come out you just paid , other wise you no need to spend the money , so i send out the card to germany , and almost 3 weeks my photo is coming out include the raw and jpeg files , two thumbs for recoverfab , I'm sure many people will have this problem , just remember don't try format the card ! , you still have chance to have back your photo or video . Remember recovering flash is more difficult then hard drive . |
To anyone who has lost files and programs on a USB memory stick. My wife had all of her digital sewing programs on a USB memory stick. There were hundreds of different digital designs for her 2 different machines when one day there was nothing. I put the memory stick into the computer and it did not respond in any way. I even tried it on 2 other computers, still nothing. The computer acted like it wasn’t even plugged in it didn’t recognize it at all. We had a lot of money invested in these designs and now they were lost or so I thought. I did a search online and discovered Recoverfab and their claim to recover files other companies could not. I thought it was certainly worth the chance to see if they were able to recover these files and designs. I mailed off the USB memory stick and within a few days they were able to recover every one of the lost designs. The cost to recover these lost designs were a small fraction of what it would have cost to replace them. A great big thank you to Recoverlab, for saving these files and designs. The process is easy and the turnaround is fast. I would highly recommend Recoverlab to anyone that has lost files. |
While uploading an SD card containing once-in-a-lifetime holiday photos, I unfortunately bent it and the housing opened. Then while trying to fix it the little inner card broke even further and I could see that the little circuits were snapped through. I was just heartbroken and went online to see what I could do to fix it. Being physically damaged, none of the recovery software would be able to help and I couldn't find online help on actually fixing a damaged SD card. I contacted a couple of local companies who also said they could not help. While I was searching online, I came across a company called Recoverfab in Germany who fixes these things and their reviews were just amazing. I contacted them, sent my card to them and received a message to say that they had received the card and would have news for me within a couple of days. By the next morning my 237 photos and 6 videos had been recovered and samples were on their website for viewing! I cannot describe to you how delighted I am that these photos and videos have all been recovered!! I only pay if I decide to take them (I MOST CERTAINLY AM!!!) and they will then get sent to me via FTP. Wonderful service! Thank you!! |
I agree with Ben - recommend Recoverfab, they are fantastic and life saver. When I took lot of beautiful photos (RAW files) in Morocco (Berber tribe community in mountains) by Canon DSLR. SD suddently, say can't read - all photos gone. I've checked it on my PC - nothing there, and ask for format. I've download recovery software, still not success. I then went to local photoshop, still not success - can't read. I last straw, to trust Recoverfab (Germany), to post the corrupt SD card. Very quick, one day, they fix, and finally got 290 photos. I was so relieved and pleased. It's expensive but worth, to have value photos. Hope it helps, and good luck. |
On april 13, 2013 at my grandson's 1st Holy Communion, my camera suddenly displayed: Devise not recognized-check memory card. The card is a PNY 8GB SDHC. It seems like others have had trouble with this same card. I tried the card in my computer, Costco's and Fred Meyer's photo centers with no luck. Costco advised I would have to get a professional (a specialist) to get help with the card. I read on the internet about good results using Recoverfab. After trying just one other so called solution with no results, I wrote to Recoverfab. The response was immediate with the details of getting the process started for the recovery of my photos. I did have some reservations about sending my card to Germany but got over it. I followed the instructions and sent the card to Recoverfab. Very soon I got the results that 1040 photos had been recovered. 100 photos were there to review, along with the cost for the recovery, a new sd card with the photos downloaded to it, postage. The cost for all of this is very reasonable. I would recommend Leopold Hiersche and his company-Recoverfab to anyone. It is probably not a good idea to use your memory device as a storage medium with out downloading occasionally. Rich. Anchorage, Alaska. |
We welcomed our first child on march 22. Like most first time parents we took an insane amount of pictures! Unfortunately when I went to upload the sandisk card, I received card error. You can imagine the sheer panic. I made a quick trip to wolf camera with newborn baby in tow and they were unable to upload the pictures. They left me with a basic sorry there is nothing we can do. I searched the Internet and found recoverfab. Hopeful & willing to give anything a try, I took the risk and mailed my card to Germany. Within a week I received a personal email from Recoverfab notifying me that they received my card and would respond shortly. The following day I received an email saying they were able to recover my images and I could see a sample for my viewing. I cannot thank Leopold at Recoverfab enough for his kindness, quick delivery, and service. Just recovering the pictures would have been enough, but he goes above and beyond with his quick turnaround time and service. Will certainly use him again and recommend his business to anyone else stuck in this situation. |
Try Recoverfab. I had a memory card error on a 32gb Transcend SDHC in a Canon EOS 550. It did not show up in laptop card reader with photorec, ZAR and other software. Eventually I followed several forums to recoverfab - within 3 days of posting I received an email with a link to my photos. I would highly recommend, not as low cost as freeware but if all else fails worth a try. |
My SDHC card was completely dead, and I was very paranoid because it had footage of a wedding ceremony on it, something you obviously cannot redo. None of the recovery software programs worked because the card was simply not being recognized by the computer or the camera, I kept getting the message "cannot read card". I tried a local lab and they couldn't save the files either. I researched online and found this company in Germany called Recoverfab (recoverfab.com). Basically on their site, they say that most likely a dead card means that the controller is not working, and recovery software cannot fix it, however they remove the memory chips from the printed circuit board and recover the files. I really REALLY needed to save this footage so I sent it in, all the way from Canada to Germany using just regular mail. Within a few days I got an email that they received the card, they sent me still photos (of my video footage) to prove that they were able to recover the files. To get the video files all I have to do is download it from their website. To say that I am beyond thrilled is an understatement, they literally saved my butt!!! So I would highly recommend checking them out....recoverfab.com Pricing is on the web and it was actually less than I expected, so I am soooooo happy. So worth it!! |
Video recovered from my failed CF card! Recently when my CF card could no longer be read and I had unsuccessfully tried 4 different date recovery softwares, I researched online and found reviews from people who had success with recoverfab.com. I am ecstatic to report is that this service worked for me also! I teach filmmaking and the “lost video” was an interview for an educational video for the university. The subject was local and my students assisted in the production, meaning we could have re-shot the interview, but asking the subject to re-shoot in his house when he returned seemed like a lot to ask. I decided that if I could find an affordable service, it would be worth it. The technical low-down: I believe that the 32GB SanDisk Extreme Pro card failed because of heat fluxuations. The problematic CF card was in a camera bag in the very hot sun while we were shooting outside. Next, we went to an air conditioned interior and after 90 minutes of set-up, we used the (over-heated) CF card for the interview. Afterward, I tried to download the clips and a window popped up on my computer saying that it couldn’t be read. I tried playing the card in the Canon DSLR we used and others, various computers and card readers, but to no avail. We tried these softwares; SanDisk Recovery, Data Rescue, Wondershare, and Photorecovery (and StellarPhoenix to try to repair the black QTs we could retrieve). What I learned is that the card had suffered an internal issue which could not be fixed by any recovery software and that I needed to use a service. I had heard about recovery services which make you pay whether or not they can retrieve your data. Recoverfab.com doesn’t require payment until the media is recovered and you are satisfied with the results. Recoverfab.com first sent thumbnails and when I asked to see a clip, they sent me a link to download part of one of the videos. The video looks good without any degradation of image. The service is very transparent and professional with the fees listed on the site, clear instructions, prompt communications, and a quick turn around time once the CF card reached Germany. If you are in a bind, I highly recommend them! The service has a fascinating Youtube video showing how the data is retrieved. It’s quite amazing that they have figured out a way to do this! I’m very grateful! |
Hey Folks! I had a similar problem with a 16GB Transcend SDHC card. I was in holidays in Zürich and Istanbul recently and as you can imagine I had lots of pictures in my SD card. Unfortunately it stopped working in my last day in Istanbul ;( My Nikon D7000 gave me a "card error" message. It was a big bummer, but I thought to myself, "calm down, I just need to connect the card to my laptop and recover the data with any data recovery software." As soon as i got back home, i started the process to recover my pictures. Unfortunately, my laptop (or any of the 5 computers i tried) wouldn't recognise the SD card. After many hours of googling for ways to recover the pictures, i came to the conclusion that my card was physically damaged, so that's why it wasn't recognised by any device. Since the card wasn't readable, i couldn't even try any of the data recovery softwares available. Fortunately i came across this thread and found some hope by many of you. I followed your advice to contact a professional flash data recovery company. I contacted Recoverfab, HDD recovery and FlashDrivePros and requested an estimate. Of these companies, Recoverfab in Germany was the cheapest. You can look up the prices here (http://recoverfab.com/price.php). The price depends on the memory size of your card. Mine was a 16GB. I'm happy to share that Leopold at Recoverfab has recovered ALL of my PICTURES!! And it was super fast too! From the time i shipped the card (from Sweden) to the time they recovered my pictures it only took 9 days. Hope my experience can help you. |
I went through the same issue as you and I almost lost hope that I won't be able to rescue my pictures and then I read about http://recoverfab.com/ and Leopold Hiersche who has that rescue data company located in Germany. I tried to use different rescue software such as PhotoRec and Recuva but I was unsuccessful to retrieve any images because no computer recognized or read my SD card. I even visited one of my local photo shops but they weren’t able to help me – they told me that there was some circuit issue with the card and their hands are tight. So I was desperate and in tears; I spent two sleepless nights trying to find a solution and to get back my pictures. And then I read about Recoverfab. You don’t pay anything in advance! I am a satisfied customer and I highly recommend Recoverfab for recovering data on a SD card that your computer or camera will no longer recognize or read. |
My girlfriend and I were on vacation and I accidentally dropped my camera into the ocean. My SD card with all the pictures on it was in the camera at the time, and although I tried a bunch of different card readers, my laptop couldn't recognize the card after that. I researched several different data recovery companies and decided to go with a company called Recoverfab. Most of the companies I contacted either couldn't give me a definite price quote without me mailing in the card first, or the price they gave me was well above what I could afford. Recoverfab has all their prices listed on their website (it depends on the size of the card), and their deal was the most cost-effective I could find. After I described what had happened in an email, the owner replied right away and said there was a good chance that my data could be recovered. I mailed in my card, and within a few days all my pictures had been recovered! They don't ask for payment unless recovery is successful, and I was able to view thumbnails of some of the photos to satisfy myself that they had been recovered properly. I'd definitely recommend this company, both for their reasonable pricing and the speed of their process. |
Hi Martin, I see you had the same issue that I had....same size card, same format. If you are still wondering about whether to use a recovery service...I'd absolutely recommend that you do (if you still have your card!) My card died about half way through a holiday recently so I switched to another. I tried at several places on the way to read the "dead card" but no luck. It was not until I got home that I though about how to retrieve these photos. This had not happened to me before so I did not have an immediate answer. I Googled for a solution and decided to go with a company called Recoverfab (http://recoverfab.com/. Recoverfab has all their prices listed on their website (it depends on the size of the card). I think its good value for recovering what is otherwise lost forever! Using their website, you describe the problem, together with the earliest date for photos you are interested in (other OLDER photos may also still be on the card). I mailed in my card, and within a about 5 days all my pictures had been recovered! I checked thumbnail copies and also EARLIEST and LAST Photo and... voilà ...all good!. No payment requested unless recovery is successful, no risk at all. I'd definitely recommend this company. They saved some memories for me. |
On a recent trip into Asia, my card sudden died on me one night! The camera just start to report that the "SD card was unrecognized". The same issue occurred when I also put the computer in my laptop! I even tried to use PhotoRec to see if there was a chance. I knew that the SD card memory, chip had a catastrophic failure. SOLUTION: I search for other having the same issues, and saw a tremendous number of posts from satisfied people saying they sent the broken card to this company in Germany called RecoverFab. Obviously, from Canada, I decided to see if there anyone local that could do the same thing. The quotes seemed a bit far fetched. So, I put a request for a repair at RecoverFab.com. I received a reply in a short amount of time later with instructions to send card to germany. I received email confirmations from start of the process, upon them receiving the card and upon them reporting they had extracted my lost photos/videos. Very easy and straightforward process! If you have a broken media/memory but have valuable content on it, I would strongly urge you to consider RecoverFab.com. Don't let sending a package to Germany sway you. It is the real deal! Now I will have my pictures from visiting the Great Wall of China for the first time in my life back! Peace! Wesley |
Hello all, I've all my pictures/documents back !! Also I had a micro SD card that suddenly was unrecognizable. The card was used in a tablet and the tablet could not find the card anymore. So I tried it on my laptop. But also there no card to mount. So I search the internet and found a lot of software to recover the lost content. But they work only when the notebook/tablet recognise the card (so it is mountable). Then I read something about the compagny RECOVERFAB in Germany. They claim that in most cases the can recover all the content is the card is not fysically broken. So I had nothing to lose and send my card to them. I few days later I received an email with a link to their website where I could see the complete contents I thought I've lost for ever. so visit them and your lost pictures/documents could get back to life. |
I had the same type of problem with the SD card from my camera. I had gone on vacation with a water proof camera and on the last day of my trip my camera was displaying an error message. When I took out my SD card it was wet. Of course, I was distraught! When I returned from my vacation I took my card to different data recovery centers, none of which could restore my precious vacation photos. I tried a bunch of different at home online recovery programs-still no help! Finally, I stumbled upon this online sight for a German company, Recoverfab. I contacted the company and explained what had happened. I was told that they could most likely retrieve all of my lost information so I shipped my SD card to Germany and waited. It took about 2-3 weeks for my card to arrive but once it did I received an email and the very next day I was told all of my images and videos had been recovered! I could view the images online to make sure I wanted to purchase the images they had retrieved. They all looked perfect!! I am so excited to have my images back and had the memories that I thought were lost forever! |
I have had a similar experience, thankfully I have found a fix! Problem: I force ejected my 8GB SanDisk SD card from the card reader slot on my 2010 MacBook Pro, the device drivers on the card have malfunctioned because I did so (as can apparently happen with any flash storage, USBs etc.) and now my computer will not recognise my SD memory card when I insert it. I tried downloading recovery software such as Remo Recover, and PhotoRec, and tried using the Disk Utility repair feature on the MacBook itself (found in system preferences/utilities on the dock, lower right hand side) but to no avail. Disk Utility gave me an error message saying the disk cannot be repaired. Other recovery software still can't get me my pictures, data etc. back. Solution!: After many google searches, and trowelling through tonnes of forums/threads, I eventually came across a website (recoverfab.com) and as a last ditch effort, I sent my SD card overseas to Deutschland to hopefully try and salvage the last 5 years of my life in photographs. A week later I received some email correspondance saying that ALL of my 'unreadable' images and videos had been recovered!!! I still have to pay the fee, but my images are invaluable, it's just nice to know I can still get them back off of my otherwise stuffed memory card. Clearly this is only going to help you if the problem is your actual flash memory card, though. At first, I immediately accused the card reader on my MBP of functioning incorrectly, when actually it wasn't my Mac's fault! Don't worry Apple, never doubted you for a second Lesson learned; don't put too much faith in flash storage! And BACK YOUR SHIZZ UP!!!! |
I just had this same issue happen to me a few weeks back. My mico SD inexplicably unmounted from my phone, tried to plug it into my computer using my SD adapter and it acted as if nothing at all was plugged in. I did a google search and found some recommended programs to try and retrieve data from corrupted SD cards, but nothing worked since the computer wouldn't even recognize anything was plugged in. I tried plugging it into my netbook, my Mac computer at work, one of those photo lab machines at Target--nothing would recognize there was a card plugged in. I was distraught because I hadn't thought to backup my photos in months, and I did not want to lose them. However in my searching for a solution, I saw many people mention Recoverfab (recoverfab.com), a professional in Germany who has a good success rate at recovering data from these SD cards that won't mount. I was sold the minute I saw that if he is not able to recover your data, there is no charge. I contacted him and filled out the order form. Shipping from the midwest, my card got to him in little over a week and he had my photos recovered the very next day. Depending on the size of the card it can get a little pricey, but for me it was well worth getting all my pictures back. I'm going to be sure to set my google+ account to backup my pictures going forward now, but if I ever had something like this happen again I would use Recoverfab again without hesitation. I hope this helps, and good luck on retrieving your data! |
I was unable to get my computer or any other device for that matter to detect my Micro SD. I needed the pictures off of it as well. I searched the internet and heard good reviews about recoverfab.com. I sent the microsd card to them and within two weeks they had recovered my pictures and sent the FTP link for a nominal fee. Very friendly and fast service and I would recomend them to anyone in need of file recovery from a non-working microsd card. |
I had the same problem with losing 290 photos on a Micro SD card. I tried about every free program available and several of the applications that I had to pay for all to no avail. I let the card sit for several months thinking there was no way I was going to every see the photos again when a friend told me about a company in Germany called Recoverfab. I was skeptical to say the least considering everything I had tried failed. I sent the SD Card to them and figured why not give it a try since it wasn't working anyway. To my surprise they were able to recover all of the photos at a reasonable price for their services. If everything else fails I would highly recommend the people at Recoverfab as they saved what I thought was lost. |
If the card is undetectable, mostly likely the card has physical damage on its interface or controller. As card is not detected by any PC, no reovery software can recover the data. (By the way, there are a lot FREE software the try...) I had the same issue that my microSD card died in my cell phone and could not be detected by any card reader or device (PC, phone, camera, you name it). I eventually sent the card to a German company (Recoverfab) that can retrieve data from damaged card by replacing the card controller/interface and read the raw data... as long as the card has no crack, the data will not lost but just can't be read thru the damaged interface or controller. If this is your case, you can google "recoverfab" to learn more. They charge about 100 to 200 euros depending on the size of the SD card. There will be no charge if they cannot recover the data, but you have to mail the faulty card to Germany. I know it's not cheap, but if you think your data worth that much, give it a try. I was happy with their service, fast and easy, saved a lot of stress. |
I am based in India and I recently clicked pictures of a family function, during which all of a sudden my camera was unable to read the CF card(16GB, Sandisk). I tried downloading the pictures onto my laptop but the card could not be detected. I tried various softwares but nothing helped as the card could not be read using any device. I gave the card to a reputed data recovery company but they too could not help us at all. Finally I found "Recoverfab" recommended by a lot of people on various internet forums and sent my card to them and sure enough they are are as good as each review on the net. All of my images have been recovered and that too within a very short span of time!!! |