Tip Jar: Saving 'Lost' Photos
The Duo dredge the Tip Jar for help with snapshots gone mysteriously missing.
The Tip Jar puts in another appearance, this time dispensing an "unforgettable" nugget of wisdom for those whose camera memory has just rolled sevens.
You know the feeling: you've just taken some amazing pictures, but your camera's memory card appears to be empty. Or at least it doesn't seem to have stored your shots. Or you've accidentally deleted an image--or a bunch of them.
You may have lost everything, muse the Duo, but there's a good chance you haven't. That's because memory cards store information much the same way hard drives and floppy disks do. When you erase a file, it doesn't really go away. All that disappears is an entry in the directory.
That means you may be able to recover the file. The best advice? Stop shooting. Do absolutely nothing to the card so you don't accidentally overwrite the files you want to keep. Then get some software that can fix the problem, and run it on your computer to get your files back.
Angela and Steve have tried one such product, called PC Inspector Smart Recovery, mainly because it happens to be free. It's not the most polished piece of software in the world, but it does the job. If you engage in digital photography, cautions Angela, download a program such as this and keep it around.
