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ADR / Media and machines / Photographs, RAW files and cards

Cards, sticks and the drives photographs live on

Photo recovery, London. Free tools return the preview and stop there. The full RAW frame is what you wanted back.

Do not use the card. This advice is always given prior to any other instruction on this page. If you delete the contents of the card, then you lose only an index reference; a camera format creates a brand-new empty index on top of the previous one and does not remove the underlying frames; and when a camera refuses to recognise a card, that card will very often show signs of being just fine once a reader that operates correctly reads it. In all of these cases the card still holds the frames that were placed there by the camera. These frames continue to exist in those locations until some other material is added on top of them. Cards and sticks begin at £250 + VAT. A drive costs £300 + VAT. The final amount is written down after we carry out a free assessment. Most jobs take approximately two or three working days. Below you will see what a free download will really give you, how a 50MB frame can come back at a tenth of that size, and how one can be fully restored. Cards, sticks, external drives and internal drives that are removed from computers are sent to us from London, Hackney, Wandsworth and Richmond. We do not accept phones.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs A free look first, then one figure in writing Media posted in from Croydon, Ealing and Camden

Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633

Photos and cards: what the symptom usually means.

Different fault? Try the finder →
What is going onThe usual reason for itWhere that leaves you
A folder deleted in errorOnly the directory reference is removed. The images are still in their original location, readable, as they were left by the camera, until they are overwritten.Remove the card from the camera and leave it alone.
The camera was instructed to format the memory.A blank index is created above the existing index. Normally the images underneath are unaffected.If you ceased taking photographs, your chances of success are good.
'Memory card error', and an offer to re-format.Index corruption; the image(s) beneath should be unaffected.Turn down this option every single time.
You received files back, but none of them could be opened.Screen previews for the images, or the initial portion of each frame: these are what you have here.It is highly probable that the entire frames are still located on it.
Colour banding appears in a RAW image, or grey along its bottom edge.Either the recording took place across multiple runs, or part of the recording has since been overwritten.Re-assembled to the manufacturer's layout.
A video clip that cannot be played.A single 4K clip can break into far more individual pieces than any static image.Rejoined on true frame boundaries
Packing it and posting it: movement is what finishes off a damaged drive, so pack your unit into a solidly constructed container and fill any empty space with padding material. Get a quote first, by calling us or using the form, and once you receive your quote send your unit tracked and insured to our Guildford intake lab, or drop it off there yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). We pay for the trip home. Would you like your packing materials reviewed prior to taping up your box? Please call first. All of this information is detailed within our guide to packing and posting.

A file count proves nothing.

The size gives it awayEvery RAW (NEF, CR3, ARW) contains an embedded thumbnail JPEG specifically for the camera's display screen. A standard application extracts that thumbnail, notes the RAW image as recovered and continues to process. That is how a 50MB frame arrives back weighing 5MB.
Large files rarely sit in one pieceEmpty space sufficient to hold a large file in one piece is rarely available on cards. An elementary carver stops at the first gap and loses you the corner of a JPEG but the entire RAW image or the entire clip. How the pieces are split and in what order is defined in the file format itself; it is how one reads the format definition that makes the difference.
Every RAW format breaks differentlyTIFF is contained under CR2, hence it is relatively resilient to damage. CR3 has migrated to a newer container with differing rules. NEF images usually show evidence of damage as green and purple bands running across an image. ORF, RAF, RW2, ARW and DNG require specific processing and no single commercial program processes all of them.
What a deletion actually removesWhen deleting on FAT or exFAT, you simply release the cluster chain used by a deleted file; when formatting you release all cluster chains at one time. There is absolutely nothing wiped from the card and this is why recovery is possible, and why your next photo may land on a previously lost picture.

From the box arriving to your files going back.

01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

As soon as your parcel arrives here, an engineer assigns a case number that same day, prior to determining what has really failed, which is the first thing done and costs you nothing. In addition to a note of what can and cannot be recovered from your drive, you will receive at the same time the fixed, written price for restoring what can be recovered. You can accept this quote, or decline it, which will result in no further obligation on your part and nothing owed to us.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNothing owed at this stage
02

The card itself is never touched

Prior to performing any operation on your card, we create an exact sector-by-sector copy of your card. Every subsequent operation thereafter runs against this copy. Your original remains unaltered throughout and travels home exactly as it arrived.

The clone comes before anything elseYour card goes back untouched
03

Repair the table, or carve the frames

In repairing your table, everything will return to the way you had it: file names, folder structure and date/time stamp applied by the camera for each item. When repair is impossible, carving takes its place: every format is read against documentation provided by the manufacturer and each full RAW image is reconstructed from whatever number of separate parts made up each one. Providing an image preview is not a result.

Names and folders as you had themFull frames, not the previews
04

Every frame put on a screen

No job will ever leave our premises without every image recovered having been viewed at full size on a monitor and examined visually by someone. A report count means nothing. What matters is what is shown on the screen.

Looked at, not countedWhole frames, not thumbnails
05

You see the file list before you pay

You will see what has been recovered as a list first, after which a bill exists. Accepting the list means that a bill will be issued. Rejecting the list means that a bill will not be issued, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The recovered data travels from here back to you via new media purchased specifically for your project, with the cost of postage paid by us. Your case is not resolved (i.e., "closed") until you personally view the files on a computer of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the jobThe post home is ours

What arrives most often

  • There are three components to one RAW wrapper: sensor data, metadata and a thumbnail JPEG stored for viewing purposes on the camera's screen. A tool can extract the thumbnail, tick off the RAW image as recovered, and leave your actual photograph where it is.
  • Type B CFexpress is merely NVMe in disguise: insert Type B CFexpress into a CompactFlash reader (or a slot designed prior to NVMe) and a completely serviceable card will be deemed faulty.
  • Carving video is the hardest of all: a 4K clip can potentially break into hundreds of separate parts. Consumer programs reassemble all such parts in whatever order they find them. What matters is knowing exactly where one frame begins and another finishes.
  • Storage in eMMC devices leaves nothing to post independently: within a dash cam, an action cam or an inexpensive laptop, files reside on a flash chip that has been soldered directly onto the board. Such storage soldered onto boards will not be accepted; if you are unsure about which type of storage your device has, please ring us beforehand. Smartphones and tablets remain excluded from this service regardless of their storage systems.

What the card does next decides the job: as soon as you see something has gone wrong, take it out of service immediately, and the position is good. Continue to work with it, and every new image needs a place to go, typically those exact frames which you were hoping to have back. Stopping, or our looking at the card, costs you nothing. Cards and sticks are £250 + VAT, a drive is £300 + VAT, both written down, and on most jobs here you only pay if we recover your data.

One job, followed all the way through.

LDN · ADR-2026-3377JOB LOGGED ✓

Free software gave thumbnails; the wedding album needed full frames

Since the wedding the card had remained untouched (no additional frames had been added and no information had ever been written to it), and this is why the image of the card copied off so perfectly. Free software had previously tried to process these images and produced six hundred thumbnails, but none of them were good enough quality to print. Processing the scattered pieces of every CR3 image allowed all 640 to be rebuilt at full size.

640 frames back at their full size72 hours at the bench

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Remove the memory card from the camera and store it safely.
  • Use another memory card while you are waiting for this to be settled.
  • We will require details about the camera used to record the missing files and how the memory card was formatted.
  • Even if software has already been run on the memory card, obtain a quote first, then send it in regardless.

What sets us back

  • Formatting a memory card to correct the error
  • Inserting the memory card back into the camera and trying again
  • Running another program at the same memory card
  • Assuming 5MB previews are the completion of the job

Questions answered before you commit.

Are the free recovery programs any use on RAW?

It depends upon what you shot. A JPEG off a card that was placed directly in a drawer, often enough; RAW or video, not likely. These programs report a find for anything which looks remotely like an image; therefore when a thumbnail exists inside a frame and appears to be that shape, the count goes up while your folder continues to fill with 5MB throwaways. First copy the card, then measure what comes out compared to what one true frame from that camera should weigh.

Nothing I recovered will open. Why is that?

Almost always, one of two things has happened. The preview was extracted from the RAW data and the frame itself was left behind, or only the first part of a multi-part photograph was recovered and the program halted at the gap between parts. Both scenarios mean that normally the sensor data remains on the memory card. Rebuild the frame based on the layout specifications provided by its manufacturer and it will come back together, provided that nothing else has been placed in that area since.

My camera formatted the card. Are the pictures gone?

Normally not. Formatting creates a completely new empty directory level above the original directory containing the photos while leaving the photos themselves in their original locations. Put the memory card away immediately after it has been formatted and the position is preserved. Every subsequent frame shot will eat further into the existing frames.

Can photographs be pulled off a phone?

Not at all. This laboratory does not process handsets or tablets and there is no exception to this rule. The place the photos were copied to is acceptable, however: a memory card, an external drive, a laptop drive, or the drive holding the HEIC folder made automatically by a computer when a handset is first plugged in. Get a quote first, via phone or with our quote form, then post one of these or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). There will be something for us to work with. Hang on to the phone, and better to know now than later, once a parcel is in the post.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

A card that reads empty → What is left after a delete → The format was a mistake → Every device we take →

Nothing gets worse while the power is off.

It doesn't cost you anything for us to look at it. All we do is give you a breakdown of what opened and what did not, plus a single fixed price to complete, written down before you agree to let us continue. On most jobs, you only pay if we recover your data. Please don't turn on the drive until you get that breakdown.

0203 0868633

Get it assessed Sending it to Guildford