# Recovery of Files



## ray5 (Mar 26, 2019)

Hi,
I have accidentally formatted a Lexar CF card and am wondering how to recover the files. I use Macs exclusively so please suggest options for that platform. Thanks a lot!
Ray


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## cayenne (Mar 26, 2019)

Did you format, or just erase?
If formatted, you likely will have a more difficult time of trying to recover anything. With a simple erase, you often just wipe entries from the 'directory' tables of the media, but with format, it can often happen that the full disk is overwritten or "zero'ed" out....with data physically overwritten.

I know this is largely how regular hard drives work...not sure with memory cards like CF ones, but I think this is likely how they work too...if formatted, you may be SOL on this one....


Erased files can usually be resurrected, as that it is only their catalog entry of where on the disk the data/file is located...the data is actually still there. Not so much with most formatting actions.

c


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## ray5 (Mar 26, 2019)

cayenne said:


> Did you format, or just erase?
> If formatted, you likely will have a more difficult time of trying to recover anything. With a simple erase, you often just wipe entries from the 'directory' tables of the media, but with format, it can often happen that the full disk is overwritten or "zero'ed" out....with data physically overwritten.
> 
> I know this is largely how regular hard drives work...not sure with memory cards like CF ones, but I think this is likely how they work too...if formatted, you may be SOL on this one....
> ...


I formatted it but realized it immediately and so put it aside and not used it again so far.Thanks


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## privatebydesign (Mar 26, 2019)

PhotoRec, https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec , it's free and as powerful as it gets, along with the even grander Test Disk.

I once recovered files for a woman off a reformatted and used SD card, it recovered images years old from two older cameras as well as all her current 'lost' images.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 26, 2019)

The terms format or erase confuse people, some software, like the lexar card software uses erase to write all zeros to the card which basically makes files unrecoverable unless you are NSA. It takes a very long time to run. Format will let you recover files but you may lose the original file name. A low level format is more serious, the data is there, but the indexes to the files are gone.

There are lots of software recovery programs, Lexar software is no longer available for download after selling the business to a Chinese company, but Sandisk Rescue Pro deluxe is very good and available here. It works for various card brands.









SanDisk RescuePRO Offer - LC Technology


SanDisk® RescuePRO® Offer Please use the links below to download the version of RescuePRO® that matches your license key / serial number: RescuePRO® Deluxe Serial numbers starting with RPDLX or RPRID RescuePRO® PC RescuePRO® MAC RescuePRO® SSD Serial numbers starting with RPSSD RescuePRO®SSD PC...




www.lc-tech.com





I have a stack of free keys for it that come when I purchase a Sandisk Card(free for 1 year). Beware of sites trying to fool you about this, get it from the official site. you can link to it from the Sandisk site. Its available for windows or mac.

Send me a message and I'll photocopy the key card and send it to you. It has a unique serial number and can only be used once. The key is for Sandisk Rescue Pro Deluxe.


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## ray5 (Mar 26, 2019)

privatebydesign said:


> PhotoRec, https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec , it's free and as powerful as it gets, along with the even grander Test Disk.
> 
> I once recovered files for a woman off a reformatted and used SD card, it recovered images years old from two older cameras as well as all her current 'lost' images.


Thanks!


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## ray5 (Mar 26, 2019)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> The terms format or erase confuse people, some software, like the lexar card software uses erase to write all zeros to the card which basically makes files unrecoverable unless you are NSA. It takes a very long time to run. Format will let you recover files but you may lose the original file name. A low level format is more serious, the data is there, but the indexes to the files are gone.
> 
> There are lots of software recovery programs, Lexar software is no longer available for download after selling the business to a Chinese company, but Sandisk Rescue Pro deluxe is very good and available here. It works for various card brands.
> 
> ...


Hi
Thanks for your reply. Haven't posted here in a while, is there a PM option?


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## Don Haines (Mar 26, 2019)

There are two levels of format, the quick format (the directory is cleared) and the full format where the entire card is set to zero. There is no recovery from a full format.

[EDIT] this is for memory cards. With a hard drive (not a solid state drive) that has been low level formatted, you can read the residual magnetism from the last few writes. This is why we are required to use software that performs multiple random writes to each sector (it has to more than 19 passes!) before we can re-use a drive that had secret level info on it. For TS, we take the drive apart, sand off the platters, and then crush everything in a hydraulic press.... nobody is going to recover data off of that! [/EDIT]


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 26, 2019)

I played with my EOS R and both Lexar Image Rescue 5 and Sandisk Rescue pro. 

Neither could recover deleted CR3 files!

Then, I switched to jpg and they had no issue finding the formatted files.

Finally, I did a low level in camera format and could not recover any files.

The terminology for different software is very confusing, Lexar has a erase and secure erase, Sandisk has a wipe function, while the Canon EOS R has a low level function. Images cannot be recovered from any of the methods, secure erase, wipe, or low level format. At least, not when using my software.

I need to ask about updates to recover CR3 files from a formatted card.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 26, 2019)

I downloaded PhotoRec to try, and it was blocked by Windows Security. I decided that it was not worth the trouble to override software that triggered the Security Block.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 26, 2019)

I did one more try with both cr3 and jpg files written to the same card, then formatted. This time, it found 2 jpg files, apparently the one saved to jpg and the one embedded in the cr3 file. The card was first low level erased.

Its a 128 gb card, so I'm going to retry with a small card, since it takes a hour to search a large card.

UPDATE: Same results, does not find CR3 but finds the jpg thumbnail that is embedded in the .cr3 file and it finds the full jpeg file.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 26, 2019)

One final try with Rescue Pro Deluxe using the recover all files option. It did find the .cr3 file and the embedded jpg, but could not recognize the cr3 and gave it a m4v extension and my pc called it a pdf file. I changed the extension to .cr3 and opened it in lightroom and it was the correct image.

The software needs a update. I'll send them a message.


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## ray5 (Mar 26, 2019)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I did one more try with both cr3 and jpg files written to the same card, then formatted. This time, it found 2 jpg files, apparently the one saved to jpg and the one embedded in the cr3 file. The card was first low level erased.
> 
> Its a 128 gb card, so I'm going to retry with a small card, since it takes a hour to search a large card.
> 
> UPDATE: Same results, does not find CR3 but finds the jpg thumbnail that is embedded in the .cr3 file and it finds the full jpeg file.


Thanks for your diligence and effort!


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## privatebydesign (Mar 26, 2019)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> One final try with Rescue Pro Deluxe using the recover all files option. It did find the .cr3 file and the embedded jpg, but could not recognize the cr3 and gave it a m4v extension and my pc called it a pdf file. I changed the extension to .cr3 and opened it in lightroom and it was the correct image.
> 
> The software needs a update. I'll send them a message.


The .cr3 is in the family of .mov files and they have been mentioned in the PhotoRec forums. https://forum.cgsecurity.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8364


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 26, 2019)

I received a reply from the company that makes Rescue Pro indicating that they will update the software to recognize .cr3 files, but for now, renaming the .m4v file to .cr3 is their recommended work around.


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## cayenne (Mar 27, 2019)

Wow....very interesting thread!!!


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