SD card data lost?!

[Titan_Bigtoe]

I had my digi cam in my pocket which then fell out on to the road as i was getting in the car. Didnt think much of it at first untill my friend wanted to look at the 100+ photos i'd taken the previous night - only to find them all gone. Well not all gone, the last photos i took just before i dropped it were still there. Anyway, i found it strange that dropping the camera would erase all data from a SD Card (which all photos go to on that cam). So i stuck it in my Card Reader and viewed properties and it says Used: 120 megs, Free: 8 megs... which puts it spot on for all the photos i';d taken. Anyway, i cant find these images anywhere within the card. The 2 folders i have when i open the card are.... "DCIM" (where the photos usually go) and "MISC" (which i've never used before. Viewing the properties of DCIM shows that it contains 0kbs and the MISC folder contains 1 file called "AUTPRINT.MRK" (1kb). ANYWAY! i know that the card still contains the data (well, not for a fact)... so how could i go about viewing/recovering these files. Any help at all would be great.

[Jeff the Brit]

You might try this free program. It' s intended for rescuing deleted files but may help you in this case.

[procir154]

Once I get home I will see if my data recovery program will work on SD cards. I have never tried it on SD cards but for hard drives it does a very good job of recovering data from corrupt or dead drives.

[Platypus]

If it's not too late, I would suggest trying the program linked by Jeff before using a general recovery program. Software specifically intended for recovery of image data understands the proprietary file structures often used by camera manufacturers, and should have a better chance of recovery whilst the card is in whatever is left of the original condition as created by the camera. If a recovery attempt by a general drive recovery program is unsuccessful, changes that could be made to the layout of these data structures may prevent the dedicated recovery program from utilising its specific understanding of the file formats. At least ensure the recovery program operates in a read-only mode, so it will not render further recovery attempts more difficult if it is not successful.