It's bound to happen...
Your solid state memory card is a wonderful invention but just when you least expect it, you'll see that dreaded message on the camera viewscreen: "Card Error." You also might see "Card Full" when you want to record and "No Images" when you switch to playback! Maybe you got in a hurry and pushed the "Erase All Images" by accident. Sometimes you'll put the card into the camera and nothing happens at all...nothing.
When you have a problem...
Even if it lets you, stop recording pictures onto the memory card immediately. Any new pictures you take will overwrite the older pictures you want us to rescue. Bring the card to Kohne Camera & Photo and we'll set up to recover your images for just $19.99.
We will try up to ten different methods using up to four software packages on two computers to recover your pictures. Whether we're successful in retrieving your files or not, your memory card will be returned to you in the same condition you provided it.
The charge for a successful recovery is $39.99 and we will provide you with a CD or DVD of the recovered images along with a printout of thumbnail pictures with their new file names so you can easily locate, sort, and print.
The recovery process does not discriminate between your important pictures and those you already printed last year; it grabs everything it possibly can. Please let us know approximately how many pictures we're trying to repair and what the subject matter is.
An ounce of prevention...
- If you offload directly from your camera to your computer, make certain to have plenty of battery power. A card reader is a better way to make the transfer.
- Before removing (or inserting) the memory card from (or into) your camera, turn the camera off.
- Get actual photos made of your best efforts. Even when you've made a successful transfer to your computer, your pictures are still vulnerable from power surges, operator error, hard drive crashes, viruses and the like. An actual photo won't disappear without explanation.
- Handle your memory card(s) gently. Do not drop or shake; washing in washing machine is bad, too.
- Airport security devices are not known to damage memory cards, but magnets can affect the data on them. Keep them away from your stereo speakers.
- When a memory card goes bad, it does so without warning. Print your pictures or transfer them to computer often. Images of holiday lights and fireworks should never share space on the same memory card.
- If your camera has a "Format" option in the playback menu, use that instead of "Erase Images" because it's a deeper, cleaner way to empty the card of all information. Obviously, don't format or erase until you're sure you have successfully copied the pictures to your computer and/or backup device or removeable medium.
- Use a handful of smaller capacity cards instead of keeping the entire event (wedding, vacation, reunion, etc.) on one large capacity card. It's slightly less convenient to do so, but if one of the cards goes bad altogether, you'll still have pictures.