Need CF card data recovery for files (Whine alert!)

[Lotto]

Well it's been a heck of a couple weeks...started scanning mil's family pictures. 6.5 G later (almost halfway done) things start happening.

1st my printer refills cost more than a new printer with ink..so researched and replaced my printer.

My cd-r burner then stopped responding...totally dead. Put in an old cd-r reader and bought a dvd burner.

Then my hard drive (still under warranty) stopped spinning. Had most all (except most current financial data) data backed up...but lost all my setups, programs etc., and most recent pictures of my son playing soccer. :( Many art files that I toyed with gone.

Had to reload stuff on an old temporary drive until my hard drive is back from Maxtor. The version of Windows XP I had to switch to doesn't support my old scanner so, (after a week of searching the net for drivers, updates etc) replaced my scanner. Spent 2 weeks testing out various ones features etc.

New Hard drive arrived back (very quick service). Did a last sync to my pda on the old. Replaced the new hard drive, reinstalled windows etc. Decided to do a backup on my pda cf card before I have to sync with the new drive. My new 1G CF card chokes, it's too full. (As I had saved an extra backup when my hard drive chocked). Now I can't access any data from my pda! My pda backup of course on my old hard drive that stopped spinning, is gone. Lexar of course provides you with a free version of an image recovery program, but it's on the cf card! Not downloadable at their site.

Anyone know of a free removable disk recovery program? The datas all there, just no room to recover it from the pda.

Most programs seem to let you find the data, but not recover it without buying a $60 program, or they just find pictures. :(

I feel so very much out of commision. (I won't mention my husband's car needed a $500 speedometer, mine needs tires and is starting an antifreeze leak, my kid just got over strep throat and now has the flu). I think I'm broken. Please help before I scream.

Sorry, I apologize for my whine, but I'm at my wits end with things this week.

[Dave Beauvais]

We have a site license for BadCopy Pro (http://www.jufsoft.com/badcopy/) at work, which has worked wonders on users' otherwise unreadable floppy disks. They come to us with disks they can't read, we recover data from them, and become their heroes for about four minutes. (Then they go back to hating us because we don't allow them to be admins on their machines. :-) ) I've also used it to recover data from a CF MicroDrive on one occasion. It claims to work on flash media, as well, but I've never had a need to try that. I suspect any removable media with a FAT-based file system will work.

The trial version will analyze the media to see if recovery is possible, but you must buy the program to actually recover data. It costs US$39.50 for a single user license. Once purchased, the software can be used as often as you like. Depending on how important your data is, $40 is really not that much money. I know you were looking for free software and unfortunately, I can't help you there.

[Lotto]

Thanks for your response. Had trouble downloading it earlier today, but now have the trial running...we'll see what we can find. Looks like there aren't many options out there.

Thanks again.

[Lotto]

Well Bad Cop found nothing. :(

I had used another program which after trying so many I can't remember which one it was. That did find all the images, but doesn't recover files.

I did talk to Lexar support and they are going to try to recover it for me.

My question now is...

Is this a fault with the PPC or the CF card, that allows it to become too full to access? I always expected I would get a 'not sufficient space' warning and the backup would have stopped before losing all my data. Seems an insane way to produce a product. Where did it fail?

[szamot]

Well it this is that important to you consider these for all your recovery needs. GetDataBackFat even though it will not allow you to recover data automatically without being registered you can do it manually, Pain in a butt but at least it can be done for free.

[Lotto]

I could not find any way it allowed me to do it manually. :(