Specialist work · lost photos
Deleted folder, formatted card, an error message from the body — in each case the pictures normally sit there intact until fresh data lands on top. What follows is the straight account: what free software genuinely handles, why a 50MB RAW can return as a 5MB preview, and how complete files are put back together here. We work on cards, drives and computers. Not phones.
Run the problem past an engineer
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| The problem | What's behind it | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Photos removed by accident | Deleting only crosses the file out of the index; the image stays put until something overwrites it | Take that card out of use |
| The camera has formatted it | A camera format writes a new file system and usually leaves the pictures beneath alone | Good odds, provided you stopped shooting |
| ‘Memory card error’ on screen, or a demand to format | The index on the card has broken; the images below it normally have not | Say no to the format, however often it asks |
| The software returned files nothing will open | You have previews or partial files, not the actual RAW frames | The full frames may well still be sitting there |
| RAWs show banding, or turn grey halfway down | The file was fragmented, or part of it has been overwritten | A rebuild that understands the format |
| None of the recovered video will play | Nothing on a card fragments like 4K footage | Reassembled to the codec’s own layout |
Every item gets its own case number on the day it lands here. An engineer traces the fault, gives you a plain assessment of what is realistically recoverable, and puts one fixed price in writing. The diagnosis is free, you are under no obligation, and chargeable work starts only when you say go.
Before anything else, a complete sector-level copy is taken. From then on the work happens on that clone, and the card or drive you sent is never written to again.
If the file table can be mended, your photos come back as you filed them: names, folders, dates. If not, carving takes over — each format read by its own rules, and full RAW files reassembled from scattered fragments rather than previews passed off as a result.
Nothing goes back until every recovered image has been opened at full resolution and looked at properly. A number in a report says little; a photograph on the screen settles it.
You get the full list of recovered files first, and nothing is charged until you approve it. Data goes back on fresh media, return postage paid, and the job stays open on our side until you confirm every file opens at your end.
Most photo jobs turn on one thing: what happened to the card afterwards. Set it aside at once and your chances are very good. Carry on shooting and each new file goes somewhere, often right on top of the frames you are chasing. No arguing with that, and stopping costs nothing.
A free tool had produced 600 files: all embedded previews, none fit to print. Nothing had been written to the card since, so it imaged cleanly. Fragment by fragment the CR3s were rebuilt, and the couple got their gallery back at full size — with forty frames that tool had never found.
Sometimes, yes. On a card that was set aside the moment things went wrong, free software copes with small JPEGs that aren't fragmented. RAW and video defeat it — split files and embedded previews come back labelled as recoveries when what you actually hold is a thumbnail or a scrap. If the shoot matters, image the card first, then judge what a proper result looks like.
Two usual explanations. Your software may have pulled only the little embedded JPEG preview from each RAW, or picked up just the opening fragment of a split file. Either way the full sensor data is frequently still sitting on the card, and a rebuild that knows the format will get it out — provided nothing has been written over it since.
Usually not. Formatting in camera writes a fresh file system and leaves the pictures themselves sitting underneath. Put the camera down and the odds are good — each new frame you shoot lands on the photos you want back.
No — phones and tablets fall outside what we take, full stop. Once the photos are off the handset and sitting on a card, a computer or a spare drive, that media is fine to send — the phone is not, and better you know before it goes in the post.
Switch a failing device on again and you lose a little more. Open a case before you do — the diagnosis is free, whatever it finds.