Pictures lost, how can I recover them?

rik1603 · 22 Oct 2013

Hello all,

I am wondering if anyone can help with a bit of a nightmare situation I am having?

I went to upload a picture yesterday and when doing so realised all of my pictures had gone. There were stored in the usual My Pictures folder and was around 15GB of pictures from the last 10 years (our wedding, honeymoon, holidays, family evens etc), obviously now I cannot find this I am beginning to panic a little.

So far I have tried a programme called Recuva (which seemed to find loads of images (1.2 million infact) but not one of them being from this folder) and Shadow Explorer which seems a bit more difficult to use and the folder always looks empty.

I use Avast! antivirus and run Windows 7, being the idiot I am I have no backup setup. Is there anything I can try?

Thanks in advance for any help!

rik1603 · 22 Oct 2013

Also tried Wise Data Recovery which feels similar to Recuva

Mark Phelps · 22 Oct 2013

Based on my experience at doing this successfully, my suggestions are the following:
1) Download and install the trial version of RecoverMyFiles from Runtime Software in MS Windows.
2) Right-click the RecoverMyFiles shortcut and select "Run as Administrator"
3) Select the option to Recover a Drive
4) You will get a list of drive, scroll down to find the one for your USB stick or memory card
5) Select Automatic Driver recovery, press Start button
6) It will run for a while but when done, will show a directory tree in the left pane. Do NOT interrupt it.
7) When done, browse the folders in the directory tree -- and be SURE to check the filesizes of the files you want to recover. If the filesize is zero, the file is trashed and you will NOT be able to recover it.
If the files look OK, you will need to contact Runtime Software to purchase a license for the recovery. You won't have to reinstall the app; instead, they will email you an activation code which you can use to turn on the recovery feature.
According to their website, the "standard" version of the app is $70 USD. They also have a Pro version for $99 dollars, but if you go to the website below, you can compare the features and (at least for me) the extra cost wasn't worth it:
Recover My Files: Purchase Recover My Files data recovery software
Your data ... your money ... your choice.

rik1603 · 22 Oct 2013

Thanks Mark. It was on my C: rather than a memeroy card but I will try the software.

Also tried showing hidden files and searching for some of the folder names I know but nothing. It seems really bizarre that these are the only things missing and its not like I could accidentally delete 15BG. Could it be virus related?

jumanji · 22 Oct 2013

I would think that you should forthwith stop using the C drive to prevent any overwriting and try recovery from a bootable DOS pen drive. PhotoRec lends itself to it.

Download Rufus Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way and create a bootable disk using:MS-DOS

Download TestDisk & PhotoRec 6.14 Dos/Win9x version from TestDisk Download - CGSecurity Extract the zip file into the bootable DOS pen drive you just created. You will find a testdisk-6.14 folder in the bootable DOS pen drive. To make life easier select all the files in that folder and move them to the root of the pen drive. At the end of it your DOS bootable pendrive will look like this:

Pictures lost, how can I recover them?-22-10-2013-21-18-33.jpg

(Do all these on another computer so that you do not overwrite anything on the C drive of your computer.)

Connect an external drive to which you want to recover to your computer,, boot it from the bootable DOS pen drive, against the C:> prompt type photorec.exe and press ENTER to run PhotoRec

Some help on running PhotoRec here Guide to using PhotoRec recovery software.

In the screen where you have to select the file types select only the file types you want to recover - may be .jpg - so that you get to recover only those files.

Provided that your files had already been not-overwritten, I think that this would work in recovering your photos.

Good luck.

rik1603 · 22 Oct 2013

Thanks jumanji, seems a complex piece of software (or not very user friendly should I say) so coulnt work out how to export .jpg files only so running it on everything and I will filter myself when its do. Fingers crossed.

whs · 22 Oct 2013

Try this, it's easy: ShadowExplorer - Recover Lost Files and Folders

rik1603 · 22 Oct 2013

whs said:

Try this, it's easy: ShadowExplorer - Recover Lost Files and Folders

Thanks WHS, I have tried that one and it doesn't seem to get me anything. The folder just shows with one weird file in it no matter what date I select

whs · 22 Oct 2013

Hmm, that suggests that your pictures folder was already corrupted for a while. But are you certain that you drilled down to the correct pictures folder - C:\Users\Your Name\Pictures

jumanji · 22 Oct 2013

rik1603 said:

Thanks jumanji, seems a complex piece of software (or not very user friendly should I say) so coulnt work out how to export .jpg files only so running it on everything and I will filter myself when its do. Fingers crossed.

It does appear complex and daunting for the first time user but once you play around with it for a while , you will get a grip on it. And if you use PhotoRec you can run it any number of times and it is absolutely safe since it does not write anything to the drive under recovery. There is no way you can mess up with the drive under recovery even if you do some mistakes.

As for copying the recovered files to an external drive, My external hard drive suddenly became unllocated: (applies to PhotoRec also)

EDIT: Here is a booster dose :) for you Best recovery software? (Windows 7)