So I filmed a very important show on my video camera last night and everything went swell... I watched the footage on my camera and then also on my computer. I hooked up it through usb (I know- stupid) and transferred the majority of the files onto my computer, but there was one really long file that I didn't transfer because my battery was running low... I unplugged the memory card safely and charged my battery, but when I turned my camera back on, the memory card was empty.. I literally freaked out... I dont know what happened but this file was so important to me, it was the whole show pretty much, and now its gone...


Is there anyway to recover these files? When I plugged the SD card into my computer, I can find the .MTS files but I tried converting them to .mov and they are all screwed up... They just play the audio and not the video... Its for my final project in school and its so important,

help?

Well the first thing to do is not to connect it to the computer or camera anymore because every time you do some of the required data might become overwritten.

What you do have to do is create an image file of the sd card.

If you use windows just download an app like Dmde then connect the sd card to the pc and run Dmde. In the menu select the sd card device and create/copy it to an image file. Make sure you select it to be saved on your pc hard disk.

Now once you have the image file you can then run Dmde on the image file and see if you can find the missing data. The free version of Dmde will allow you to recover single files of any size so that might work well for you in this case.

Good luck!

Thank you! I have a mac not pc.. What would i do in this case?

I think I would create the image file on a friends pc or laptop.
That would be the easy way!

If you want to do this with Mac software then you would probably have to purchase some software like Datarescue 3. I think the filing system on the sd card is probably fat so I would recommend using pc recovery software.

ok any other suggestions? I don't have a pc or friend with one actually...

Let me explain myself what happened in more depth with my gh2 camera.

So i filmed a show last night. I recorded the whole set (45 minutes) in one shot, and then I had some other bullshit shots that were extra... When I got home I plugged in my camera through usb (i know- dumb) and imported the shorter files into final cut and left the long shot on my camera because my battery was low and I wanted to charge it so my camera wouldn't die while transfering files... I unplugged safely and charged my battery, then tried to import again and nothing. I unplugged my camera and looked on my camera but it says no valid pictures to display... I put my sd card in the mac directly and still nothing. No .mov files like usual but I did find about 10-15 clips of .mts files... I converted these files to a few different formats with a few different converters and it ended up only being the audio and a still image, no video.. I don't know what to do but I could use two things out you guys, and I really appreciate your help.

1. Is there anyway I can recover these files? I know its confusing but I am going to try the geek squad.

2. What should I do in the future to import files into final cut?... (Final cut pro x freezes a lot so maybe importing through that isnt safe?)

If you value this movie really high, you'd better go to a reputable data recovery pro. That will cost, but they know exactly what to do.
If not not so high, you may use R-Studio for Mac. Then create an image of the SD card, scan it, and try to find the movie file. R-Studio for Mac isn't free, but you may try it to see whether you can recover the file before buying it.

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R-Studio Data Recovery Software

ok thanks ALT,

so heres the new update. I bought this 60 dollar program and other recovery programs (still haven't tried r-studio) and they all end up finding the same thing.. a bunch of .jpegs that were not on there and also a bunch of .mts files... I can hear the audio with the .mts files when I convert them but no video.. Anyone ever experience this before? Do you think r studio will be any different than these programs? None of them can recover the actual .mov file just .mts files which I cant seem to get to function, even after converting..

I am fairly certain r-studio products will run in trial mode the imager will work fine in trial mode no restrictions to make the image. What size SD card is it ? If you get the image made I can look at it for you just have to get a copy of it.