CF Card Recovery: Recover Photos from Corrupted CF Cards
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Written By Sumona Chatterjee
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Approved By Tanushree Chatterjee
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Updated on 13 Jun, 2023 -
Min Reading 4 Min - Share
Summary: CF cards are commonly used on Digital cameras and DSLRs. This blog offers several ways through which you can recover your Photos from any corrupt CF card using certain tools.
Compact Flash Cards or CF cards are used as storage devices primarily on digital cameras and DSLRs. Most of the prized shots you capture using your camera are stored on these little pieces of technical brilliance. So if disaster strikes your CF card and you lose the pictures from it, you could end up losing memories of a life event, your contract with a client, or even your job. Okay, that’s taking it a bit over-the-top, but the situation of this poor guy sounds quite disturbing too:
"I have a CF card for my Nikon digital camera, but today I inserted the card in my new Canon digital camera and used it to take some pictures. When I inserted the CF card into the Canon camera, it could be recognized and started working regularly. However, all of a sudden when I was taking photos the camera shut down. On restarting the camera, it says the memory card is corrupted and cannot be accessed. To check if it is possible to copy all files stored on the card, I inserted it into my computer running Windows 7, but my computer says it cannot access the card. I’m in a panic! Is there any way to recover photos from a corrupted cf card?”
The answer to such kinds of queries is – Yes you can! In this guide we’ve compiled some great ways in which you can recover photos from corrupt CF cards; and since we’re considerate, we’ve thrown in some information on CF card data loss in general as well. So read on and explore!
Reasons for CF card corruption
There could be several reasons behind your CF card becoming corrupt or inaccessible. Two primary ones are:
- Physical damage to the card
- Logical injury or corruption of the card
Physical damage can be irreparable at times and is usually caused by the breaking of the card or magnetic damage to it.
Logical damage is mostly repairable, and there are plenty of ways to recover data from CF cards in this case. But before we go to that, it is important to understand what can cause logical corruption so that if possible, the risk factors can be avoided in the future.
A CF card can become logically corrupt if:
- You remove the card during a file transfer process
- Virus/malware infects the card
- You use the card on multiple devices and operating systems
Watch this video to know How to Fix a Corrupted CF Card
Easy ways to recover photos from corrupt CF card
We’ve classified the ways to recover deleted photos from CF cards into three broad categories. Here they are with detailed descriptions:
1. Using native utilities like CHKDSK
The CHKDSK utility is quite powerful in repairing corrupt partition tables. Hence if executed on an inaccessible CF card, it will at least be able to make the card visible to the computer in which it is inserted. After that, you can recover the data using any of the methods mentioned subsequently.
To recover partition tables on the CF card, use the command:
chkdsk g: /f /r /x
Here ‘g:’ denotes the drive letter assigned to the card (so you should replace it with the one assigned to your machine.
A word of caution –
Using commands like these to fix partition tables might be risky since they are ultimately intended to make changes to the MFT and File Allocation Table. So this step should be avoided if you don’t have a full backup of the data on the card or else you might eliminate whatever chances of data recovery you have.
2. Free Open Source CF Card Recovery Tools
They have their plus points and perform to a different level of satisfaction. The free utilities also have drawbacks associated with them. Few are entirely command prompt-based, so non-technical users might have a hard time using them. Plus in some cases, they fail to recognize a corrupt card despite it showing up on "My Computer" as a non-formatted drive. So it doesn’t work in situations where the card's file system is corrupt. Plus, it can’t pull off data from severely corrupted CF cards.
3. Paid CF Card Recovery Tools
By far the safest, most accurate way to recover data from corrupted/damaged / inaccessible CF cards is through a premium CF card recovery tool like Stellar Photo Recovery. This tool works and does a commendable job of recovering lost or deleted photos, videos, and audio files with their original names.
Since the tool has a highly interactive GUI, even non-technical users can use it easily as follows:
- Connect the CF card to the computer
- Launch Stellar Photo Recovery Software
- Select the location from which you want to recover Photos and click on Scan
- A dialog box of ‘Scanning Completed Successfully!’ appears. In the left pane of the main window, all the found files and folders are listed. The bottom-right pane lists the files stored in the selected folder. Select a file and preview it in the right pane.
- Select the desired files and choose the Recover and then Save option
Final Words
There you go. As promised, that’s everything you need to know about CF card recovery. Hope you never have to resort to it, but if you do, excellent CF card recovery tools would be your best bet. Also, read about how to recover Vacation Photos from Corrupt Lexar 800x 32GB CF card
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NO About The Author
Sumona is a tech blogger, avid photographer, & technogeek with vast experience in writing about media file recovery tips and tutorials. She has over 10 years of experience in media file recovery/media file repair technology. She is passionate about Photography, Creative Designing, Music, and Exploring lesser-known destinations.
31 comments
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My compact flash card is not being recognized by my computer anymore and I’ve different recovery apps but it won’t even show up for those apps.
Hello Bryan,
Please refer to our different blog on How to Fix “SD card won’t Mount or Recognized” Error. This will help you with troubleshooting methods to fix your CF card.
Can I put an SD card in a CF slot?
Hi Vini,
Yes, you can. However, it’s not a straightforward plug-and-play situation. You would need a special adapter that allows the SD card to fit into and interface with the CF card slot.
Is there any way to fix corrupt CF card On Mac?
You can format the CF card on Mac to fix the corruption on the card. Connect your CF card to your Mac. Then go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select the CF card which you want to format and click the Erase option. Click the Format option and choose the format type (exFAT suggested). Click on the Erase option and your CF card will be as new.
Hey Sumona, very easy step-by-step guide to data recovery.
This is just a tip for anyone who is unable to recover their data due to the card not being recognised at all (I had a 16GB card come up on the Canon 5D Mark 2 with the format error however the camera wasn’t able to format the card and the card wasn’t being mounted on my mac, therefore, being unable to access it to use recovery software). What should I do?
John
Hi John, You can contact our support team through email suport[@]stellarinfo.com or call at +1-877-778-6087. They will help you out! Thanks!
How did you solve this issue bro? I too have this issue.
Hi Kumar,
SD card not recognizing is a common issue. Troubleshoot the ‘SD card’ issue by checking the hardware connections, such as the card reader, USB cable, etc. Then you may try any of the other methods mentioned in this article.
Hi Sumona,
I highly appreciate your efforts of helping people with your great knowledge about the data recovery. I also seek your help regarding my corrupt CF card of 128GB by Lexar. I accidentally inserted my card into the camera when its battery was low and it started showing to format the card as it wasn’t readable by the camera. I tried connecting it with my macbook but it doesn’t show up there. But it does appear in disk utility. I tried stellar trial softare to recover the data but after the scan it shows that no files were there to recover. Also the scan gets completed in few seconds and i have 100 GB of data approx in the card. Please help me out.
Thank you.
Hi Manish,
Please try to format the CF card in disk utility and after inserting the card again.Hope this method helps you or alternatively
If you are considering to recover the data, then you can try our Stellar Photo Recovery.
Hi Sumona
I was downloading about 20 CR2 (raw) images from a 16gb cf card in a card reader when the download stopped after three image transfers and my Windows 7 pc told me I had to reformat the card if I wanted to proceed and then failed to recognize the device. After searching the internet for a solution I came across the Stellar recovery software and installed it.
When I ran the s/w for the first time it said the estimated recovery time was 58hours! I left it running all day and it still had only searched 5% of the cf card. I quit the program and restarted setting options for recovering raw images only. Still the same estimate. After leaving overnight only 20% had been searched so I abandoned again.
Can you please advise .me on how to proceed.
I look forward to your response.
Many thanks,
Andrew Winfield (UK)
Hello Andrew,
The scan time can improve after customising with the options in advanced settings. Please select only RAW files (CR2) in advanced settings. If still, the scan time is inconsiderably high, that means all RAW files size is very high and the scan engine is bound to take its estimated time. However, it is advisable to check with the preview option {by running the demo option of stellar phoenix photo recovery software} to ensure the recovery of those valuable files.
Hello Sumona,
Ive noticed you’ve assisted lots of people,
I have appeared to have lost all images taken this morning (RAW) on a SanDisk Extreme Pro CF card.
Ive run Rescue Pro and TIFF files were detected, but I am unable to get any further.
It tells me there are 183 files (which sounds correct)
Any help would be greatly appreciated….
Hello Carmen,
Please run the demo version of Stellar photo recovery software (link given below), try to check the desired files in preview option.
If the files are visible then you need to purchase the software from the official website to save the files.
Link – Download Link
Please note – Kindly select “RAW” file filter in advance settings