My Story

As a professional stock and fine art photographer I've been using digital cameras for several years. A few years ago I experienced a "card not formatted" error after taking a series of photographs for a commissioned panoramic print featuring the Grand Canyon.

I run my business from San Diego, California so the photo shoot required a 1500 mile round trip with lots of time and money invested. After returning to San Diego my camera presented me with the dreaded "card not formatted" message.

These photographs were not going to be easy to replace so I started looking for a way to recover them. To make a long story short, I was able to recover my mysteriously missing photographs and was able to complete my client's project without having to make another trip to the Grand Canyon.

Since then I've experienced similar issues a couple more times, and each time, I have been successful in recovering my photographs.

As a professional photographer I know that all photographs are valuable and in some cases are literally "priceless" so I now offer digital photo data recovery services through my company San Diego Photos.

My data recovery process works on all digital camera flash memory cards and microdrives and the recently developed flash usb cards. Some recoveries are fairly easy and straight forward and simple software is all you need. If you'd like to attempt the recovery yourself, click on this "memory stick data recovery software" link or the link at the top of the page. While the software I sell does not write to the memory stick, keep in mind that each attempt to recover missing photographs can actually permanently erase what is left. Unless you are very good with computers, I recommend sending your card to someone with data recovery experience. The natural instinct is to do everything you can to try to recover your pictures before paying a professional, but trust me on this . . . one wrong decision on your part and the pictures are gone forever. It's better to leave data recovery to the pros.

In my experience, 85% of flash memory cards are recoverable, though about 15% are not, due to internal component failure, physical damage to the card, or because previous attempts to recover the photographs has actually wiped the memory clean.

My recovery process will also recover video files and any other files on the card, including .doc .exe .raw .crw and more.

I offer a FREE flash card analysis to determine if your photographs are still on the card and if they can be recovered. If I am unable to recover your photographs, the only thing you pay is return postage. ($6)

Feel free to give me a call to discuss your particular recovery challenge. Please keep in mind, that I am in San Diego, California and I prefer to receive phone calls between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Oscar Medina
Photographer / Digital Artist
Flashcard Recovery Specialist
San Diego Photo and Prints
858.274.0665