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Archive 2008 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

melvinho
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p.1 #1 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

The poo just hit the fan. I accidentally overwritten around 40% of the photos and I couldn't recover them. There was no backup. It's entirely my fault. I lost the signing of papers, the kiss and some of the formals, bascially the most important part of the ceremony is gone. What should I do now? What's the best course of action to take? Full refund? Free e-session? Run for my life? HELP!

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:20 PM

Sam Hassas
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p.1 #2 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

Full refund.

Go with God my son.

~Sam

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:28 PM

mauriceramirez
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p.1 #3 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

Full refund. E-session time's over. Free book. Hope you got some *really* good heroes.

Buy more cards and a portable backup drive. But you've probably learned this lesson.

-m

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:28 PM

asimsoofi
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p.1 #4 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

How you don't have a backup amazes me.

Full refund and retire from wedding photography. Go work for someone else until you have an iron clad workflow.

/asim

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:32 PM

Mike Mahoney
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p.1 #5 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

May the Lord have mercy on your soul.

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:34 PM

DmitriM
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p.1 #6 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

Give them a full refund. Then maybe offer a few hours of your service for recreating some of the shots.

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:41 PM

lindabrowne
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p.1 #7 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

What have you tried for recovery? I tested out my Hyperdrive Colorspace recovery tools on a cf card last summer and was surprised to see how many files it was pulling back after it has been fully rewritten on. What are these files worth to you? to the couple? A hyperdrive is several hundred dollars (not to mention you'll also have an additional backup system -- buy more cards and back up at least twice before reformating!!). Don't give up on recovery until you've tried as many methods as possible.

Not only a lesson on backing up, but also on business insurance to cover the expense of recreating the shots.

Edited on Dec 17, 2008 at 08:00 PM · View previous versions

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:46 PM

thethinkcouch
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p.1 #8 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

in addition to what everyone has already posted.

i'm really hoping that your contract covers you. if not, you should totally get one from PPA. they're selling them for $50 i think, and it covers you for everything in a court of law.

good luck and try to stay positive,
//ed

Dec 17, 2008 at 07:55 PM

adimage
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p.1 #9 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

Give them a full refund, a free book and a free photosession so that you will avoid getting killed.

Then think about a professional workflow and a reliable backup system. You should not really play with these things.

For instance in my case, this year two hard drives got broken and I did not loose any wedding (except for some time to put everything back in place).

BACKUP IS YOUR FRIEND...I am sorry that you learned this the hard way.

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:08 PM

martines34
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p.1 #10 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

If you still have the CF cards you can try recovery tools on them. SanDisk makes one. It is worth a try. How much more can you lose.

I feel sorry for you.

Dumb mistakes teach us smart lessons.

Let us know if you are able to recover any images.

Edited on Dec 17, 2008 at 09:03 PM · View previous versions

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:11 PM

curryphoto
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p.1 #11 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

I feel for you man. It's never happened to me, but I have heard that even if files are overwritten on the cards, they actually still exist, and may be recoverable using some recovery software. Good Luck.....

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:12 PM

Bill Gass
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p.1 #12 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

This is why there should be a second shooter. Good Luck.

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:14 PM

Todd Ramsey
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p.1 #13 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

Last Friday I just lost about 40 photos of new hire employees at work. I had a duplicate of the files on my workstation as well as the company server. I checked it before I deleted the files from the cards. I don't know what happened but they were gone. I had not emptied my recycle bin and I searched the hardrive for the filenames and came up enpty handed. I ran the Sandisk RescuePro that comes with the flash card and I recovered not only the missing files I was searching for but also some photos of bluebonnets and some birds eggs from April of 2004!

Give it a try and you might have some luck.

Todd

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:18 PM

sidewazzz388
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p.1 #14 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

WOW!!! Good luck dude

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:18 PM

btrippy
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p.1 #15 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

martines34 wrote:
If yo still have the CF cards you can try recovery tools on them. SanDisk makes one. It is worth a try. How much more can you lose.

I feel sorry for you.

Dumb mistakes tech us smart lessons.

Let us know if yo are able to recover any images.

You'd be surprised how long this stuff lingers around on the cards. Try the above, you might get them back. Otherwise, full refund and hope they don't sue.

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:31 PM

RedWhiteandRed
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p.1 #16 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

I strongly suspect you can get the files off of the cards - even if they were written over a few times.

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:38 PM

the_rebel
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p.1 #17 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

Yup,
You just need to find a data recovery specialist in your area and i'm pretty positive they'll be able to retrieve the files.. If the home recovery doesn't work

I had a recovery company here in Toronto recover data from a hard drive platter that was SHATTERED. The disk platters were absolutely destroyed but they managed to do it.

Dec 17, 2008 at 08:55 PM

Mike Mahoney
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p.1 #18 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

the_rebel wrote:
Yup,
You just need to find a data recovery specialist in your area and i'm pretty positive they'll be able to retrieve the files.. If the home recovery doesn't work

I had a recovery company here in Toronto recover data from a hard drive platter that was SHATTERED. The disk platters were absolutely destroyed but they managed to do it.

And the cost?

Dec 17, 2008 at 09:09 PM

Matt Khoury
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p.1 #19 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

define: "overwritten"

google, Get Data Back

I used that on drives that were deleted twice over and had windows installed twice over (when i used windows). Got everything back.

First rule of thumb. Don't panic. If you can't get everything back, THEN issue the refund.

Dec 17, 2008 at 09:57 PM

Sam Hassas
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p.1 #20 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

Matt Khoury wrote:
define: "overwritten"

google, Get Data Back

I used that on drives that were deleted twice over and had windows installed twice over (when i used windows). Got everything back.

First rule of thumb. Don't panic. If you can't get everything back, THEN issue the refund.

Gosh, Really? That's incredible. I didn't know it was that retrievable.

~Sam

Dec 17, 2008 at 10:06 PM

mineymole
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p.1 #21 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

What is PPA....?

Dec 17, 2008 at 10:12 PM

David.G
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p.1 #22 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

I used Sandisk Recovery Pro once, and it pulled images from a vacation trip 2 years earlier from a card that had been reformatted at least 6 times.

Dec 17, 2008 at 10:12 PM

gfrasur
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p.1 #23 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

I'm curious how business insurance or a specific type of contract would help here. What could the OP be sued for, particularly if he gives the client a full refund?

Greg

Dec 17, 2008 at 10:20 PM

abacus
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p.1 #24 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

#1 define "owerwritten".

Things can generally be recovered even if they are overwritten from Hard Drives. Department of Defense standard is to wipe disk 5x with passes of all 0s then all 1s to make sure it is not recoverable for that reason.

With Flash cards it's a bit harder.

Hard drive sector can give hints as to what it's state was previously (0 or 1) because there are variances in how magnetized that 0 or 1 is as it gets written. With memory it's harder because it's not a magnetized/demagnetized material but it holds electric charge so I don't think it leaves much of a residue as to it's previous state.

So I hope it was from a HD and if it was a memory that you did not save anything over it...

PM me as many details as you can and I may be able to recommend something for you.

Dec 17, 2008 at 10:25 PM

cordellwillis
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p.1 #25 · Lost 40% of the photos. What should I do?

mineymole wrote:
What is PPA....?

google "Professional Photographers of America"

Dec 17, 2008 at 10:25 PM


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