How to Recover Accidentally Deleted Photos from a Digital Camera

I NEVER store images in my camera for any longer than possible. Once I get home, I always download and then format the card. Soon I will be going away quite a bit and I'll take a portable hard drive with me and download onto that using a computer there. I have an untidy mind, but with images, I do try to be efficient, as I know how my befuddled mind functions.

I'm not sure that once a card is formatted, the images can be recovered. So, if you do use your camera to store pictures you might be wise to be aware of that.

My strategy too Rod. Get the images off the card as soon as possible. Also I always take the card out of the camera and use a card reader to transfer from the card which is generally considered the best way of doing it. When I go away I take the laptop and a portable drive. Always drop my days takings onto the portable drive and then transfer to the main PC when I get home. The portable drive then serves as a reasonably secure backup. But also depending on what I have taken and how 'important' I consider them to be I also backup onto CD/DVD. Can be come time consuming but better safe than sorry. But on the other hand, how far do you go with making backups???

If I ever do have to recover any images from a damaged card for instance I use a free programme 'RECUVA' It does a pretty good job usually.

It is unwise to assume that recovery is possible after formatting, but I found that Sandisk RescuePro (which used to be free with Sandisk CF Cards) will do just that, unless the data has been overwritten with ones and zeroes after formatting. 

Other factors to be considered with flash memory are how many read/write cycles can be done before errors creep in, and also how long the data can be stored. Both these questions underline the need for back-up, as you rightly say, Rod.

Gotta agree with you too Edward, Sandisk is one of the best but to best of experience only free for a year after purchasing a Sandisk card ... unless that has changed in the last couple of years.

The main thing to remember if you have made a mistake with a memory card is to take it out of the camera immediately you realise there is a problem and don't touch it until you can get a recovery programme on to it.