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[OM] Re: A not so favorable report on PC Inspector Smart Recovery

Subject: [OM] Re: A not so favorable report on PC Inspector Smart Recovery
From: Tim Hughes <timhughes@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 07:43:57 -0800 (PST)
I recovered some badly damaged CF  cards using the plain old Norton Utilities 
and many people
probably have them for general pc maintenance. Not a bad place to start if you 
have them. Not
specific to jpeg recovery but very solid software.

In addition you can usually get them for free with a mail in rebate and upgrade 
from old version
as a bundle with anti-virus etc. from your local pc super store. I have not 
actually paid for any
Norton tools for as long as I remember but always have a current year copy of 
the utilities,ghost
and anti-virus.

For non-fat disks Restorer 2000 Pro has stood me in good stead, but it is not 
free. It will also
do Fat disks.

Tim Hughes

--- Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I'd start with the recovery programs offered by the likes of the CF card 
> manufacturers.  I don't know any details but I think they'd be the most 
> likely to offer a lot of function.
> 
> The biggest problem with Smart Recovery is that it started off assuming 
> the entire card was toast.  In fact, the FAT was undamaged and contained 
> almost all the information required to recover everything quickly.  And 
> even if the FAT was damaged it might still be largely recoverable. 
> Smart Recovery might even have been able to recover all or part of the 
> damaged JPEG if it had been smart enough to find it.  It couldn't do 
> that nor even find the good files that were beyond it.  Probably written 
> by a 13 year old kid.
> 
> Chuck Norcutt
> 
> John Hermanson wrote:
> 
> > Can you recommend a recovery program that does see raw files.  I 
> > formatted a CF card, shot a half dozen raw pics and Zero assumption 
> > couldn't see them either.
> > 
> > ___________________________________
> > John Hermanson
> > Camtech Photo Services, Inc.
> > 21 South Lane, Huntington NY 11743
> > 631-424-2121 | Olympus OM Service since 1977
> > http://www.zuiko.com  |  omtech1 AT verizon.net
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >>Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>A couple of days ago John Hermanson reported that he had heard good 
> >>>words about the capabilities of a file recovery program for flash cards.
> >>><http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm>
> >>>
> >>>I downloaded the program (bypassing one error message) and thought that 
> >>>I would probably wait years to try it out.  I've never had a problem 
> >>>with any of my CF cards.
> >>>
> >>>Well, I didn't have to wait long.  While out shooting today with the 
> >>>camera set for both raw and large JPEG's I shut the camera off 
> >>>prematurely.  I thought the OFF switch was a soft switch and that the 
> >>>camera wouldn't power down until any I/O activity was completed. 
> >>>Apparently not so for the 5D.  The raw file was successfully saved but 
> >>>the JPEG was still being written when the power dropped and that file 
> >>>ended up corrupted.
> >>>
> >>>I had thought I was through shooting but eventually turned the camera 
> >>>back on an and shot another fourteen frames beyond the corrupted one 
> >>>which, at that point, I didn't know was corrupted.
> >>>
> >>>When trying to download with Downloader Pro I got an error message 
> >>>saying that an I/O error had been recevied from the media and the file 
> >>>was corrupted.  The download stopped after the error without fetching 
> >>>the remaining fourteen good frames.  It did tell me, however, that those 
> >>>files existed and I was able to successfully download the remainder by 
> >>>specifically selecting them without the corrupted file included in the 
> >>>download request.  In other words, just ask it to go around the bad spot 
> >>>and not try to go through it.
> >>>
> >>>Since the raw file had been downloaded there was really no reason to try 
> >>>to recover the JPEG.  However, since I knew I had prematurely shut off 
> >>>the camera at the point of failure I suspected that the file was, at 
> >>>mimimum, incomplete but I was curious to see what Smart Recovery would 
> >>>be able to do.
> >>>
> >>>Well, the answer is not inspiring.  First, it can only recover JPEGS. 
> >>>It knows not of any kind of raw files.  Secondly it's just plain pretty 
> >>>dumb.  After running for about 2 hours through my 1.6GB of images data 
> >>>it managed to recover only the JPEGS up to the same point that 
> >>>Downloader Pro had gotten to in a couple of minutes.  Did Smart Recovery 
> >>>  report an I/O error and corrupted file as Downloader Pro did.  No. 
> >>>It just quitely quit completely as though is had successfully read 
> >>>everything on the media.  There was no hint of any error condition ot 
> >>>that there might be recoverable data beyond the point of the error.
> >>>
> >>>I recommend that everyone skip this one and find something else.  This 
> >>>one is not ready for prime time and I have just uninstalled mine.
> >>>
> >>>Chuck Norcutt
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >>
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > ==============================================
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> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> ==============================================
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> ==============================================
> 


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