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Help help reformatted memory by mistake & lost all photo's

A

angelaone

Lurker
Hi all

Please excuse me if this has been covered before but I couldn't find it after much searching.

By mistake I reformatted the memory instead of the sd card and I have lost all my photo's and videos and some other stuff, but I am desperate to get the pics/vids back if at all possible.

I hadn't backed up, I know I should have but I have been ill for a while and just hadnt got around to it. I only got it in September and I'm still learning to use it.

I have tried recuva and minitool power data recovery but even when my phone is connected to the laptop the programmes can't find the phone. I have checked the my computer and it shows the phone connected but still the programs can't find it.

Can anyone offer advice as I'm devastated that I have lost my photos.

Thanks
:(

Angela
 
Welcome to Android Forums, and I'm sorry to hear of your loss. I can sympathise, having done the same recently with several hundred MBs of pictures in my camera. :(

With the phone connected via USB you should have two removable drives shown in My Computer, assuming that you're using Windows. If, as an example, these are shown as E:\ and F:\ then you should tell the recovery software to scan E:\ as that will be the internal storage. It's always the lower letter, and if the program also displays the capacity it will be shown as 12MB.
 
I have used Nero rescue agent, part of Nero burning software to find deleted items on a flash drive and a cd before, might be worth a try if you have Nero software on your pc.
 
Hi all, thanks for the replies.

I have nero on my pc so will try that but have been struggling to get the programs to "see" the phone as an extra drive when I have it connected, I am using windows and it shows when you use "my computer" but not when I'm using one of the programs to try to recover the photos/videos.

I plan to keep trying so any further advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Angela
 
If the removable drives appear in My Computer then Recuva should see them.

Using its Wizard:

1. Select "Pictures"
2. Select "On my nedia card or iPod
3. Start

After a minute or two it should display a list of all image files located on those drives.
 
Sulg you say yours shows up as 2 separate drives in My Computer, however mine shows up as a seperate device under "Portable Devices" which I can then go into and choose Card or Phone. I assume this is why the Op couldn't find them when browsing.

Is this layout due to Kies, so yours displays this way due to a custom ROM, or is there a setting on the phone somewhere to change this? I would actually prefer them to show up as drives like my Desire did
 
Try going into menu>settings>wireless+network>usb utilities then click "connect storage to pc"

Why this is under "wireless and network" and not under "storage", God only knows!!!
 
jeremy_inc said:
Sulg you say yours shows up as 2 separate drives in My Computer, however mine shows up as a seperate device under "Portable Devices" [...]

Is this layout due to Kies, so yours displays this way due to a custom ROM, or is there a setting on the phone somewhere to change this?
Click to expand...

I believe this is due to Kies loading the MTP device drivers, so Windows treats it like a media player. Try enabling "USB debugging" in Settings/Applications/Development - I think that will prevent this.

Note that you'll likely have to disable it before using Kies to backup, sync or transfer files. Also, check there's no option set to run Kies automatically. It's been a long time since I actually had it installed so this may be my imagination, but istr such an option within the application.
 
Slug said:
I believe this is due to Kies loading the MTP device drivers, so Windows treats it like a media player. Try enabling "USB debugging" in Settings/Applications/Development - I think that will prevent this.

Note that you'll likely have to disable it before using Kies to backup, sync or transfer files. Also, check there's no option set to run Kies automatically. It's been a long time since I actually had it installed so this may be my imagination, but istr such an option within the application.
Click to expand...

USB debugging shows the drives up, but are greyed out with no details like size left etc.
If I uninstall kies will this do the trick? I don't see I'll ever use it.
 
Like slug said. There are 2 types of connections using USB with PC.

First is MTP. If you connect with the USB straight away and with Kies on board, you are using that. In 2.3.3, you go to an MTP screen and you need to press the home button to exit to homescreen. In 2.3.6, you don't have to. The MTP is available within the homescreen itself and is shown in the notification bar. Kies is useful for upgrade of firmware officially.

Second connection is via USB connection. Go to Settings/Wireless & Network/USB and connect from there. You need to go to the USB settings before plugging in the USB cable to use this. What the USB debugging does is skip the few steps so you can connect straight away (which I don't use). This makes the storage memory in the phone like a thumbdrive.

Cheers
 
The USB storage way through the settings menu works perfectly, just wish i could enable it through the notification bar like I could on my Desire, as I'm probably not going to go through the menu every time.

I tried uninstalling Kies, but the MTP drivers still load, so I guess I'm stuck with it this way for the time being.
No big deal, thanks for your help
 
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