Corrupted memory card? Fear not!

I discovered a great way to sort out corrupted memory cards in Windows XP, completely by accident, this weekend after photographing Jamie T at the Leadmill.

When I tried to transfer the RAW files to my computer for processing, Windows XP produced one of it's all-too-familiar Warning/Error messages stating that the files on my card were unreadable. The problem with shooting RAW is that none of the image recovery programs available recognise the files, leaving the information on the card ignored.

In a frantic panic, I frantically searched www.download.com for a solution to my woes, as if anything is available I'd find it on there, or so I hoped! So I downloaded a couple of freeware applications which professed to be able to retrieve the corrupted data, and drew many blanks. The final program I tried required a reboot before I could use it. I obliged and restarted the computer with my corrupted card still in the USB card reader.

Now the next bit was where the magic happened:

Upon restarting, the blue screen that you'd normally get if you didn't shut down your computer properly appeared saying that the integrity of the CF card needed to be checked using CHKDISK. Fantastic, it skimmed through the card, fixing any errors and restoring *nearly* all the lost data!

All the files I thought I'd lost had been restored, the only problem being that a few images had black space filling a band down one side of the frame. Sod's law dictated that these images would be the best of the night, but I was still relieved to have most restored to their former glory.

So what's the moral of this tale? Don't panic, just reboot and hope for the best! Just as any computer tech support person will tell you to do first time round, 'switch it off, then switch it back on again.'