Does anyone have a recommendation for file retreival on cards after they've been formatted once and used again for another shoot?

My hard drive died and I'm trying to salvage what I can at this point.

I don't have any experience with recovering data from cards, but from what I understand - once you format, there is no hope. Sorry, I hope someone else posts to tell me I'm completely wrong.

When you format a card or a hard drive it doesn't actually erase anything - it just makes it where you're able to overwrite the data (hence the reason the data is recoverable). Once you overwrite the data with new data - that's when the old data is gone. So, if you used the card at an e-session and filled it all the way up - your data is long gone. If you did not fill it all the way up then you may have some recoverable images. I usually use Lexar's Image Rescue if I need to recover data.

That said, it's a REALLY good idea to backup all your weddings to another drive before you erase it from your cards. Hard drives fail, all the time.

Everything Melody said but especially those last two sentences. Always, always, always back up your images at least two times before you format the cards or even start editing. You can have them on your hard drive and on DVDs, Cd's, flash drives or something else just as long as you have a couple of back ups. Check the forums. Hard drives crash all the time. Make it part of your work flow. Then after you finish your edit, back that up too.

Last night I ran "Recover My Files" and was actually able to retrieve some images. Yep -- I've always followed the "Backup in 2 locations" theory. ALWAYS. Backup to DVD and hard drive. I even backup to Pictage as well -- 3 places! However, that theory only works until the following happens:

1. Hard Drive Fails
2. DVD burner made corrupt files and it was unknown until I tried to access my wedding files.

Pretty crappy huh? Not only did my hard drive fail, but my DVD burner went on the frits too. I just heard back from my data recover company (DriveSavers) yesterday and unfortunately they cannot access 1 single file. Nothing. Nadda. Gone forever.

I don't know how to avoid this situation in the future, except to backup to three spots. Two hard drives and a DVD I guess.

I always verify that images can be read from DVD's using a drive other than the one that burned them before I trust the backup.

I also burn two copies, on two different brands of blank DVDs, and keep one set offsite. Probably overkill, I know, but I'm paranoid about getting a bad batch of blanks that become unreadable.

Not that this helps your situation, but I'd like to point out that backup implies that a primary exists somewhere. So your hard drive was your primary, and your DVD was your backup. I'm assuming you don't upload to pictage until you're done processing. So you're two hard drives + DVD idea is an ideal backup scenario. I take it a step farther. I dump my cards to my file server. I then burn a DVD (or DVDs) of all of those files. I then copy from the DVD I just created to my editing workstation. This verifies that the DVD backup I created is good because I won't be able to edit the files if they are corrupt and I'll know I need to burn another DVD. It's a pain and it's time consuming, but if you build that into your prices then you're getting paid very well to wait for those files to finish backing up, and if you're busy enough you can always be editing another session while waiting.

That's a great way to work, Matt. How can I set up a server? I'd like to start doing the same.

I'm going through my files now and have already spent about 15 hours sorting through weddings (there's 5 that have potential image losses). I'm sure you can imagine that I NEVER want this to happen again.

I'm more than willing to spend additional time backing up from now on.

File server is a bit of a fancy term - really it's just a second desktop computer. It's a little older, but it has a new, very large hard drive in it. There are a ton of options, but if you're mac based I would talk to the people at the apple store about it, or if you're PC, I would contact Dell or HP and let them know you're looking for a reliable machine to use as a file server. Generally the business services people are very good and will be able to help you out.

Another great option that I will be moving to eventually is a large network attached storage system. These are basically just big hard drives that you connect to your network and you can copy back and forth to them. They are designed specifically for backing up, so many of them even have redundant hard drives that back things up even within the device (you will still want to maintain your DVD backups and local primary copies until you are done processing the session). Again, talk to the business services people - the consumer side generally doesn't know anything, but small business services you can usually find someone who knows what they're doing.

Another great option that I will be moving to eventually is a large network attached storage system. These are basically just big hard drives that you connect to your network and you can copy back and forth to them. They are designed specifically for backing up, so many of them even have redundant hard drives that back things up even within the device (you will still want to maintain your DVD backups and local primary copies until you are done processing the session). Again, talk to the business services people - the consumer side generally doesn't know anything, but small business services you can usually find someone who knows what they're doing.
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Hi Matt
I tried the network attached storage system from LaCie and it really sucked. When transferring large numbers of large files it simple disconnects - after only a few gigs. I've spent hours on the phone with tech support and nothing they could suggest solved it. I would love to know which network storage drives are more successful at handling the data that we all transfer.