Most of us have a device for backing up the data and irreplaceable photo's we've captured and scanned through the years. If you don't you then really should. But what do you do when the original images and/or data stored on your media card never even make it to the hard drive? When the media card itself becomes corrupt and refuses access to the images stored within?

Very recently I had the pleasure to photograph my 14-year old son's band "Last Minute Breakdown" on their first professional recording studio session. I can't think of any photo shoot I could well afford to lose better yet this one!

Imagine the horror when I discovered that my xD media card could not be read! After several attempts with the camera and other PC's I was about to give up and simply reformat the card when I realized there had to be a way to reclaim the data. A quick Google search of my dilemma led to CardRecovery from WinRecovery Software.

Available in both Windows and Mac OS versions, the website description claims...

"CardRecovery is the leading photo recovery software for memory card used by digital camera. It can effectively recover lost, deleted, corrupted or formatted photos and video files from various memory cards. It supports almost all memory card types including SD (Secure Digital) Card, CF (Compact Flash) Card, xD Picture Card, Memory Stick, MicroDrive, SmartMedia Card, MMC (MultiMediaCard), MicroSD, MiniSD, SDHC and more."

The procedure was simple... run the software, select the drive letter of the "unreadable" card and watch as CardRecovery performs a safe read only scan of the media. Once completed select the thumbnail images you wish to recover and save them (for obvious reasons) to a location other that the already corrupted drive.

The scan is very thorough and will also reveal any images once thought deleted that have yet to be overwritten... which as claimed, makes the product ideal for anyone who has inadvertently deleted all images from their media card.

Fortunately for me CardRecovery worked incredibly well and I was able to restore all but two of the images. One being the very last image which must have been part of the initial corruption process and another that just didn't fully respond to the scan.

Thanks to CardRecovery my son's first experience in the recording studio is saved in sight as well as sound!

The downloadable version is only $39.95 online via the WinRecovery website. A CD version can also be purchased for an additional $14.95 (including shipping).