It is very cruel when your memory card fails; most often it occurs on the day that you really needed it: the wedding, the drone survey, the single interview. Therefore this webpage begins with what you may currently be experiencing: the location (venue), the camera, and your memory card producing an error. What you will do in the next ten minutes will have a greater impact than everything else we do afterwards.
When your memory card throws an error, misfiles or shows a folder that doesn't exist: stop shooting on that card. Each additional frame you take could overwrite a previous shot. Do not reformat "in order to fix" it. Do not allow the camera's card recovery option to repair the card. Do not chimp through shots forcing the camera to re-read a failing chip. Remove the card, cover it, mark it, switch to another. Continue on new media, while the failing card waits, powered down, for the workbench.
Those photographers who act accordingly will lose some frames. However, the heartbreaking jobs come from those who "tested" their cards in three readers and reformatted them twice before they even thought about calling someone.
In every single SD, microSD and CompactFlash (CF) memory card lies the very same relationship between two components as inside a USB stick: a low-cost 'controller' sits at the top of the NAND memory, which is far stronger than the controller that manages it. Failures include corruption due to being written to but then stopped during writing; the controller may also lock the card read-only, or kill it completely. They also include cases where you've purchased what appears to be a genuine card but it turns out to be a counterfeit whose real capacity runs out before your shoot is finished. All of them share the common factor that the frames are usually still in the flash, waiting to be read around the failed part.
Physical damage to the card including snapped microSDs, cracked SD cases and bent CF pins will be treated the same way, with direct chip readouts and files built from the raw dumps.
The card is imaged one time, with care. Then we carve: JPEGs; all RAW types (CR2 and CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, DNG); the common video containers, MP4 and MOV; and AVCHD, which splits a long recording into many small pieces. These are reconstructed based on their signatures when the file table has been deemed unreliable. The patient process of video takes longer than other files due to how a camera breaks up its long recordings, and a simple tool will only produce a folder full of short unusable pieces. Everything recovered is verified: images that can be opened, videos that can play, files organised in a way that shows what was shot.
Prices of USB drives and memory cards are set at a £250 + VAT price point (for both connector damage & chip-level reads). Only in very rare cases (monolith devices) will this be written up as an exception before we attempt anything. Each job begins with a free online diagnostic and each job ends the same as it was quoted: the price will go in writing prior to reading any sectors; on most jobs you won't have to pay anything unless your data returns. There is no hourly rate, no surprise "evaluation fee" and no percentage of what the files are worth.
Not usually. Formatting in the camera generates a new, smaller index and does not affect the original frames. Therefore, they remain recoverable (and thus can potentially be recovered) as long as no additional shooting has overwritten them. That's why the card needs to be removed from service immediately upon discovery. Cards that have been formatted then stopped are one of our most successful recovery assignments.
Grey halves and shredded preview files indicate the reads are dying on the card while reading the middle parts of your files, typically due to a controller/flash failure, and with every new reopen, the stress will continue to degrade it. Cease browsing the card. The card is imaged only once in our process (to prevent continued degradation) and then rebuilt frame by frame from the raw data; many "broken" images get restored fully when read correctly rather than multiple times.
Yes, often: large recordings are segmented across the card and when the index becomes corrupted, a standard tool simply returns stubs which none of the players can accept. In this case, we reassemble the streams based on their original structural layout and provide playable footage. Please send us the physical memory card itself and not a converted/exported version; the arrangement/layout of fragments is a component of the evidence being preserved.
Yes, all types including SD and SDXC cards, microSD cards from phones, drones and dashcams, CompactFlash cards from working cameras and CFexpress, XQD cards etc. Monolithic microSD cards are the most difficult to read via test points but they consistently yield recoverable results. Regardless of type/format, all are charged a fixed £250 per card.
Before posting or dropping off your item please obtain a quote using either the form on this site or by calling us. There are then two genuine options. No vans will be used. To hand over your item, go to Tay House, 300 Bath Street (only two minutes from the M8) at Charing Cross, Monday to Friday, 9am–5:30pm. We do not require appointments. Or wrap your item securely and send it to us by insured, tracked post from Paisley, Ayrshire, the Highlands or anywhere else in the UK. Either way, the work is done in-house by our own engineers, with a documented chain of custody, and your data never leaves the UK.
All photographs from a single wedding day were recovered from one memory card processed over a single afternoon. Read more...
Those frames are probably still there; protect them from the camera, the card reader and the "repair" button, then leave the rest up to the free diagnostic, which will confirm it. We can perform SD card recovery for Glasgow photographers, with the card dropped off by hand at Charing Cross or sent by tracked post the same day, after you receive a quote.