I was moving photos from my Canon Rebel SDXC card to computer. But when I opened the SDXC card, I found many photos are missing. There were 413 photos on a 32GB SD card, but now only 322 files are visible. The rest disappeared. These are my priceless family pictures. I even tried turning off/ on my camera and checked the card reader connection, everything seems fine. How can I recover deleted photos from camera?’
It’s painful when precious photos stored in camera memory card are found missing. The photo loss is even more annoying when you can’t figure out why the photos from camera suddenly disappeared.
Technical hiccups are unavoidable. Photos may get deleted due to improper file transfer or you may have inadvertently deleted photos in camera. Formatting of camera SD card or corruption can also lead to loss of photos. Further, your camera storage card may become inaccessible due to virus infection, file system error, OS crash, or physical damage.
How to recover deleted photos from camera
A Professional photo recovery software is the most effective solution. But you may try other troubleshooting methods depending on the situation, such as when camera card is not detected by computer or asks to format.
Let’s know each in detail.
Use the best photo recovery software for your camera
An advanced photo recovery tool can restore deleted or missing pictures from digital camera. Almost all image recovery software can recover common image formats, such as JPEG/ JPG, TIFF, PNG, or TIFF. But if your lost photos are in RAW format, not every tool will offer support. Each digital camera has a unique RAW image file format. Some popular cameras RAW file types are NEF, NRW (Nikon), CR2 /CR3/CRW(Canon), ERF (EPSON), K25 /KDC /DCR (Kodak), RAF (Fujifilm), SR2, ARW, SRF (Sony), and others. Hence, make sure to choose the one that supports recovery of your camera photo file types.
Some tools like Stellar Photo Recovery can retrieve JPEG as well as RAW photos from almost all kinds of cameras on Windows and Mac computer. This includes popularly used Canon, Samsung, Nikon, Kodak, Fuji, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, and more. You can also recover deleted photos from formatted and corrupt camera SD cards of all types and sizes. The software comes in both free and pro versions. You can recover up to 10 photos from any camera with the free Stellar Photo Recovery software while its advanced edition offers unlimited photo recovery from cameras.
Steps to recover deleted photos from your camera
- Launch Stellar Photo Recovery on your computer and connect the camera storage card.
- Select the camera memory card and click Scan.
Figure: Scan camera SD card or drive
(Optional) Click on Advanced Settings icon. Click on Photo formats. Choose the image file type of your camera. Click Close. You can also add a new camera file format using the Add file option in the Advanced Settings window.
Figure: Photo file types in Advanced Settings
- Preview the found pictures and click Recover.
Figure: Preview photos in Stellar Photo Recovery
- You can save the recovered photos at your selected location on computer or external drive.
Perform Chkdsk command, if you get a message to format camera SD card
You connected the camera SD card, but received a message to format it. In such a case, use Chkdsk command to fix the issue and then try to open the SD card.
Follow the below steps to perform chdsk command:
- In the Windows Search box, type cmd.
- Right-click cmd and select Run as Administrator.
- Type chkdsk <SD card drive letter>:/f (e.g., chkdsk E: /f).
- Hit Enter.
Now again, connect your camera SD card to the computer, it should now open. Else try a photo recovery software to recover camera photos from it.
Assign a new drive letter, if your computer doesn’t detect camera storage card
Your computer may not detect camera SD card. As a result you won’t see the memory card in the connected drives list or receive, ‘Please insert the disk into drive E:’ message. In this case, allocate a new drive letter to the camera memory card.
Follow the below steps to assign new drive letter to camera card:
- Open Run dialog box, type diskmgmt.msc and click OK.
- In the Disk Management window, right-click on the memory card.
- Select ‘Change Drive Letter and Paths’ and apply the changes.
- Click Change.
- Select the drive letter from a list and click OK.
- Close the Disk Management windows and restart your Windows PC.
Now again connect the camera memory card. Your PC should be able to detect it now.
Wrapping Up
Missing photos from the camera is not just due to deletion. There can be other reasons as well. If the camera SD card asks to format, you can perform chkdsk command. In case your camera is not detected by Windows PC, try assigning a new drive letter. However, you can rely on an efficient photo recovery software, which can recover deleted photos from corrupt, formatted, or error showing camera memory cards. Ensure the photo recovery software supports your DSLR, camcorder, digicam, etc. It’s recommended to take the software’s free trial first to assess its recovery capabilities.
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