I have a Fujifilm FinePix 50i Digital Camera. One day I found my 128MB
Smartmedia card was full when I was taking photos. Then I started
erasing the mp3s in the card to get more space (the camera is also a
mp3 player, using the same Smartmedia card). Then I continued to take
a dozen of photos.

When I playback the photos, I found that all the photos taken before
erasing the mp3s were gone!!!!! Those were my grad. congregation
photos.... please help me...

Facts:
1. I'm sure I did not choose format/delete photos buttons when I erase
the mp3s. I chose "erase all songs" menu

2. I've tried several data/photo recovery softwares but none of them
work

Question:
1. I've searched in google directory and it showed up some data
recovery service companies specialized in recovering such media like
flashcardfix.com and flashfixers.com. But the flashcardfix.com stated
that they can't help if I've deleted/formatted the card with Fuji
camera as Fuji camera writes data over everything during
delete/format. Poor..... Could anyone confirm this for me?

2. Even Fuji camera really overwrite during delete/format. Is it
really no way to recover the data? (cost is not really a concern)


3. Is there any such kind of photo recovery service company which has
office in Hong Kong?

---

Clarification of Question by littlealan-ga on 10 Nov 2002 22:50 PST

putergeek,

I did not erase the images for this case. I erase the songs/mp3s to
re-claim the space. And I used the camera itself to erase the songs,
not via Windows Explorer.

How did you erase the images?  If you erased them from your computer
via Windows Explorer, for example (and NOT the camera, itself), this
could be your problem.  You should always delete them from the camera.
 But all hope is not necessarily lost:

With the smartmedia card in it's card reader, go to Windows Explorer
(windows key-E) and in the left-hand pane, right-click on the drive
letter that represent your smartdisk reader.   Choose Properties. 
Next, hit the "tools" tab and select "error checking".  Be sure to
fill the "fix errors automatically" box.  And, hit ok.

You may have a picture or two that you'll find didn't turn out, but
most of the pictures should still be there.  Once you've copied the
pictures to your hard drive, remove the card from the reader, place it
in your camera and format it.  Then, always delete the unwanted
pictures from your camera.

I experienced this problem when I was deleting the files from the
computer.  Since I've been deleting the pics from the camera, itself,
I haven't had a problem with this. This DID work for me and I was so
happy with the results that I'm confident in posting this solution in
here, but I take no responsibility if you discover that you could not
recover the images. In this instance, the files were all corrupted
before you scanned the disk for errors, and this method did not
corrupt them.  This is the only solution that I've found works with
images that fail to show on the smartmedia disk.  When I was done
scanning the disk, I found a file on the disk that failed to show
correctly in Photoshop (or any other program, for that matter). 
Fortunately, it wasn't a necessary file.

Good luck!

I have to clarify something:

<br><i>You may have a picture or two that you'll find didn't turn out,
but
most of the pictures should still be there.  Once you've copied the
pictures to your hard drive, remove the card from the reader, place it
in your camera and format it.  Then, always delete the unwanted
pictures from your camera.</i>

I felt I may confuse some people with this particular section.  What I
meant by this was:

After you scanned the disk for errors and let the program fix the
errors, then check the disk to see if the pictures did show up.  If
they did, copy (do NOT move) the images to your hard drive.  And then
preceed to format the disk in your camera.

The last sentence in this paragraph refers to any future pictures you
take, not the ones already on the disk.


TIP:  If you right-click'n'drag the pictures from the disk to the hard
drive via Explorer, you'll get a pop-up menu asking you what you want
to do.  At this point, you can select "copy".  If you move them,
however, it'd be just the same as erasing them-which is what we're
trying to avoid from this point on.

Also, be sure to format the disk every once in a while to maintain the
health of the disk.  Of course, again, this should be done in the
camera.

I'm sorry.  I keep rambling, but one other word of advice:

It may be in your best interest to purchase another smartmedia card
for your mp3 player.  I'd be hesitant to mix medias--images and sound
files--on the card same card.

With the cost of smartmedia cards out there, you may find it to be
cheaper and more advantageous to purchase a mp3/cdr/cdrw player,
instead.  I have one, myself; and I can fit 10 cd albums on one disk
in mp3 format.  That's close to 11 hours of music.

Or, you can stick with the mp3 player that uses the smartmedia card,
but it's wise to purchase a separate card for the player and leave the
existing one for the camera.  The cards are coming down in price.

However, if you decide to keep the existing card for both, you'd
probably be better off saving the files and formatting the card before
using it for the alternate device.

This software may be able to recover your photographs:

http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/

I've never used it, but I'm sure many, many people have since October,
2001.  Why?  Because of the story that was posted at the following
site (and at many other sites) early that month:

http://www.counterterror.net/wtcpic/

If it worked for that photographer, it might work for you.