does anyone know how to recover deleted footage from sxs cards?
 

Hi folks, I reformatted the wrong 16gb sxs card I have by mistake thinking it was another one that I had already imported into my hard drive. I reformatted it on my ex1. the footage that I deleted on the card hasn't yet been imported into my hard drive. is there any way of recovering the footage? any help much appreciated. cheers kathleen

ouch!

You might have a chance depending on the way it was deleted. it may have just deleted the directory information and the actual data might be still available. You will need a recovery tool :

Free Hard Disk Utilities: Recover Deleted Files and Lost Data | PC World

you can try these but I'm not sure what format the card actually uses.

please make sure you post the results of your efforts - I'm sure a lot of people are interested in this one

double ouch!

sorry to hear that and I am so glad I went for the Z7/S270 combo so that the tape is always on the shelf.

As said it may be possible with some recovery software as most formatting in just a directory overwrite.

It may be that it has kept the original directory info (this is what we used to do at AMS Neve just in case) as a hidden file. Contact sony prime support and they will advise you the real options.

P.S. one handy hint get a dymo machine and label all your cards, not a final solution but it may help in the future.

Stellar Phoenix have products to recover files from all types of media. You can download the appropriate version and have it scan the card. It will report back what it can recover in detail.

To actually recover you have to buy the key, online being the fastest option for that.

I have recovered gigabytes of harddisk files with their products and can highly recommend it.

George/

Hi Kathleen,

I'm sure others know more than me, but I'll throw in a couple of thoughts...

One of my colleagues accidentally deleted a card and he tried a program called "THE UNDELETE" and met with relative success.

I just cleared a card and then recorded 4 clips onto it, copied the clips onto my laptops hard drive, and reformatted the card in the EX1. Checked using the laptop, all the clips were gone.
Downloaded "THE UNDELETE", and pointed it at the SxS card, and it was able to see all the files that were deleted, and some others that were also still on the card.

I checked the directory structure against my copies on the HD and they all lined up.

The next step in the recovery required me to purchase the software... well I'll leave that one to you. Can't guarantee anything, but it looked good to me.

I think these SxS cards are like MiniDisc, the data stays on the card until overwritten, with the TOC ( Table of contents ) the bit that changes. As long as you don't write anything further to the disk you should be ok.

I think.

Best of luck
Ross Herewini
Sydney

these SxS have protect tabs on them. yu should use them to prevent this from occurring.
good luck.

In my experience, having lost footage because of a Shotput Express error, I attempted a number of card recovery options off the net with no success. Additionally, I submitted my card to Tekserve in NYC who specialize in data recovery, also with no success. In the end, I lost half a day of footage and just ate the cost of crew, time, etc...

Does Shotput Express work from the camera, or once the card is put into the laptop. If it is the latter, then Kathleen may still be able to recover the files,as she deleted from her camera. Maybe Shotput wipes more than just the TOC / directory.


Kathleen how are you going with the recovery, I'm sure everyone would be keen to know where you are up to.

hi folks, still working away at finding a solution. will let you know as soon as I find it. cheers kathleen

I've tried numerous recovery programmes which work with most file formats, but not with SxS cards - some will recover the mpeg's but they are corrupt and will not play, I've recovered the entire BPAV file structure which is identified by ClipBrowser and in fact opens the clips and shows the first second or two, then fails. Cannot output the files to mxf or anything else either.

I've run a media recovery programme on one mpeg file which made no difference, it still won't open in anything I have here.

Paul

Hi folks, just to let you know, I've had no luck retrieving the data so I've since reformatted the card. stellar phoenix were very helpful but had no luck with it. sony prime support did tell me that there was no way to recover the files but I thought I'd try it anyway. will be much more careful in future! thanks everyone for your input!

Amazingly, The tabs show RED when protected and not when armed to record. I'd call that backwards!

Red is often used for 'safety' or stop. On my shotguns, the red line is exposed on the safety button when in trigger safe mode.

But, as you point out, red is also a warning indicator and I think that's the logic of using it for REC indication. Not unlike the flashing red "ON AIR" sign outside of a studio.

So IMHO, it has to be taken in proper context to make sense.

-gb-

Doesn't really help this situation, but I've recovered many files from SDHC cards that I've deleted for testing this process. I've used Card Recovery and Recover my Files also Easy file undelete all with considerable success - the upshot is that the SDHC combo has a hidden advantage over SxS - that of possible data recovery.

All the SxS card test I did were total failures.

Paul

Paul,
these failures are more than astonishing, each SxS card being formatted
in FAT32. Did you use a PC or a Mac for recovery attempts? I'm asking as
I had this problem once when trying to recover an SD card from a Mac and
failed while the recovery from a PC worked flawlessly. Never again made
that experience and still have no clue why.

Will conduct my tests as soon as possible.

How's the weather at IBZ at the moment? Unfortunately the forecast for 4me
looks pretty bad right now.

pe.

Christoph,
Under what circumstances did you have an error with shotput express?
Please be as detailed as you can. It would be very helpful to others.

Lenny Levy

It's sunny and warm today - I tested the SxS recovery on Windoze, no mac here, and couldn't get anything to find any file remnants after a card re-format, but could find almost everything on the SDHC cards - some mp4's don't play, and I'm investigating why, it appears to be a corrupt header problem that isn't fixed with any of the mp4 "repair" software out there, they just don't work. Now I'm digging into Hex editing - not really my strong point, but always happy to learn as it may save someones files one day, if not my own.

Paul

Kathleen...

Sorry to hear the data was not recoverable. You have my sincere sympathies since it happened to me... just once.

Just FYI, here's my own workflow. It's not absolutely foolproof, but it might help.

Each of my SxS cards are clearly labeled with a number, and I shoot them in sequence.

When a card is "full" I place them in a pouch and only transfer them after the day's shoot.

When I do transfer, I'll do them in sequence, and move each card's BPAV folder into archive folders that are also similarly named and numbered. For example, Shorecast 1, Shorecast 2, etc.

I have enough cards to cover me for the day. It's a costly investment, but an important one. I believe the cost of having enough cards for the day is less than what it would cost if I lost coverage due to a mistake made while transferring footage in the field.

For example, I shot a 2-hour struggle to land a 973-pound marlin this summer. If I lost any of that footage, I would have no recourse. And it might not ever happen again in my lifetime. It would be the same if it were a wedding, breaking news, etc.

BTW, that marlin was the second-largest to ever be caught in the 50-year history of that tournament!

By doing the transfer at the end of the day I have the opportunity to confirm the footage is in my archive system before I erase the cards. And I make sure ALL of the footage has been transferred BEFORE I format ANY of the cards.

Even then, I'm still a little nervous about erasing the cards. Being methodical, and not rushing in the field amidst distractions, is absolutely essential.

Of course, you just have to be methodical - even if your cards cover a whole day of shooting.

Now imagine how "methodical" I had to be when shooting a live concert with 3 EX1's lately, only having 3x8GB cards with my own camera (the other 2 guys had 1x16GB plus 1x8GB each). Being responsible for the whole project, I was operating my own EX1 AND my Vaio laptop with Shotput installed, and 2 external disks attached. When one of my own (or the other guy's) card was full, I had to dump and reformat it for immediate use...

I was lucky, I guess, as I didn't lose any single clip from the 3 events (2 concerts, and 1 rehearsal) we were covering.

Just an anecdote:)

courageous mate
 

Piotr, you must have lootttsss of courage to do all that
at the same time and not loose overview. Congrats.

Pe.

I was able to recover some video files that were recently over written on my SxS (actually SDHC) cards. The problem now is the mp4 file is corrupt. I am currently trying to use mencoder to recover the video but I am uncertain that this will fix it. Does anyone have any suggestions?

During a busy period when there are shoots back to back matters can get out of hand quickly. After every SxS card recording, I move the sxs tab to rec inhibit. I have 4 x 32gb sxs cards plus some 8gb I rarely use(yes a HUGE financial investment but well worth it for the long haul), so after i cycle through them and backed them up, I ALWAYS check each card one at a time in the camera by checking the clips. Once I am satisfied that I can erase the clips, I remove the sxs card, slip the tab to record capable and clear all clips.

Thankfully, I have never erased any sxs card that has not been backed up multiple times.

With the nano on board for a good few months now, I essentially have double backups as I dual record everything.

I hope that your loss was not financial or reputation damaging as well.

After a lot of trouble trying to recover my deleted files from my SxS cards, I found out on another forum this site: Aero Quartet: Video gets Personal on your Mac they have this software called Treasured that can get the files from a formated sxs card or SD card, and beleive me, IT WORKS!! This guy saved my neck. I recomment it 100%

It cost me $159 but we recovered all of it! even it detected some movie files from a shooting we had a month ago! Trust me, this guy works!

Lost Wedding Video
 

Hi, guys I was hired to shoot a weeding video 2 wks ago and during the reception I tot I copied one 16gb SxS card and 16gb SD card only to discovered it wasnt so I am serious problem right because i have reused the card is there any hope of recovery.

I am missing the whole of reception clips and parts of church clips towards the end of service , I have the whole traditional wedding. I have tried some data recovery software no success and i am looking into treasures services but the problem is that I am on PC and there is no body around where I live in Nigeria.
Is it possible to send my card to pple in aero to help with recovery

Olakunle

Olakunle, if you only formatted the cards, they can probably be recovered, with software. But if you used them to record again after wiping. A lot of the footage is probably unrecoverable. If the sectors have been written over it is pretty much impossible to recover.

Sorry to sound negative. Maybe someone here can recommend a service that can attempt a recovery. But it may be pricy.

I have little option, if its probably the price for carelessness on my part which I will be willing to pay off, i can not order another wedding the most important thing is to be able to recorver it, any help in that regard will be appreciated.
thanks

Hello Olakunle,
Try "Treasured" if you are on a MAC. The best option you have with high possibility of recovering is to go to Data Recovery business. Usually "data Recovery" could recover layers of erased data from media. Good luck

I and Everybody around me is on PC but I am willing to send my cards to them if it is possible to recover the media

try this incredible software:


TestDisk & PhotoRec documentation can be found online:
- TestDisk - CGSecurity
- PhotoRec - CGSecurity
Documentation can be downloaded from
- TestDisk Download - CGSecurity

it save my a... a few times when NOTHING ELSE worked;
pay attention to menu question; if it will show you partition press"P" for folder file lists and then you can copy them to hard drive

I will give it a try before sending the cards to treasured

I just gave it a try and the unthinkable happened I can now see the video and play them but with no audio is there any way forward


It will not import into clip browser and its in .mpg format not .mp4 but I believe somehow that the audio info is still there.