I accidentally deleted some important photos from my Sony camera’s memory card. I’m not very tech-savvy and really need help retrieving them as they were from a special event. Any advice or tools I can use to get them back?
Oh no, losing photos from a special event sucks! But don’t worry, you can often recover deleted photos from your memory card. It’s happened to a lot of us, and the good news is that there are some pretty reliable tools available.
Firstly, stop using the memory card immediately. The more you use it after deletion, the higher the chance new data will overwrite the old photos.
You might want to try out Disk Drill. It’s an excellent data recovery software which can help you get those precious photos back. It’s pretty user-friendly, so even if you’re not super tech-savvy, you should be able to navigate through it.
Here’s a quick rundown on what you need to do:
- Download and Install Disk Drill: Get it from their official site to avoid any malware.
- Run the Program: Insert your memory card into your computer and run Disk Drill.
- Scan the Memory Card: Select your memory card from the list of available drives and start the scan. Disk Drill will look for your deleted photos.
- Preview and Recover: Once the scan is complete, you should see a list of recoverable files. Preview them to make sure you’re recovering the right ones, then select the photos you want to restore and hit the recover button.
It’s pretty straightforward, and the software can recover a variety of file types, so it’s handy to have around for different recovery needs.
Additionally, if you’re not comfortable with DIY recovery or if your photos are really critical, it might be worth contacting a professional data recovery service. They can sometimes retrieve data that software can’t.
Hope this helps! Remember to back up your photos in the future to avoid this stressful situation again.
You probably have a good chance of recovering those photos, but like cazadordeestrellas said, the key is to stop using your memory card ASAP to avoid overwriting the data. Here’s another software you might wanna check out if Disk Drill (a great tool btw) doesn’t work for you or you just wanna try something else.
Give Recuva a shot. It’s a data recovery software from the makers of CCleaner. It’s pretty straightforward to use, and it’s free unless you opt for the professional version.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Download and Install Recuva: Get it from the official site to avoid any junk or malware.
- Run the Program: Plug your memory card into your computer and launch Recuva.
- Start the Wizard: Recuva will launch a wizard to help you through the process. Just follow the steps to select your memory card and choose “Pictures” when asked what type of files you’re looking to recover.
- Scan Your Memory Card: Recuva will deep scan the card to find the deleted photos.
- Recover Your Photos: Once the scan is done, you’ll be able to see a list of recoverable files. Select the photos you want to restore and save them to your computer (not the memory card).
Also, you can consider PhotoRec. It’s more technical, but it’s mighty powerful and can recover photos even from damaged storage.
If all else fails, you might wanna take the card to a professional data recovery service as they have tools that can sometimes do the job when consumer software can’t. Yeah, it might cost you, but if the photos mean a lot, it could be worth it.
And just a word to the wise—back up your photos regularly! Save them to an external drive, cloud storage, anywhere so this doesn’t happen again. 
For those who found this answer helpful or are curious to try Disk Drill, you can download it from their official site: Disk Drill.