Recover Deleted or Lost Photos for Free

Posted on March 16, 2010 at 6:30 am

There are many programs available to recover deleted, missing, or corrupted photo files, several of which we have previously reviewed. For example, if the picture files are simply deleted or quick formatted, Recuva is a good choice, but it will not recognize files on an SD card that is undetected by Windows.

Art Plus Digital Photo Recovery was free two years ago when we first discovered it, but now charges a fee. Also, check out our previous list of the five best photo recovery programs.

Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) is as simple to use as either of the aforementioned programs, but recovers files Recuva will not find, and does not charge a fee for image recovery (although they do have software to recover other file types for a fee).

ZAR’s install file is 2.53 MB, and takes just a few seconds to download on a broadband connection. After installation, a license window appears stating this is an evaluation version that will only scan four folders—but image recovery is free. So, click Next to bypass this screen.

We are then asked to select the recovery type. Choose Recover images from the digital camera memory card and click Next.

Then, choose the drive where the deleted files you are trying to recover are located. In the example below, ZAR sees the computer’s hard drive, as well as a card reader.

However, the status of the card reader is “unknown,” as we are using a card that has suffered an untimely death with about 100 pictures still on it. There was no explanation for the card death—it simply stopped responding while in the camera. Windows does not currently recognize the card.

Choose your card reader, then click Next.

As ZAR scans for your pictures, a control windows appears on the right with various options. It asks how long you want it to wait for Bad Sectors on the disk to respond, and how many times should it retry to access these sectors.

You have the option to forget bad sectors all together, which is useful if the scan is taking a long time. It also asks you how big the disk is—Increasing the size will help ZAR look at more sectors of the your disk. In our example, the card is 2 GB.

Unfortunately, ZAR was unable to find anything but bad sectors on the dead SD card in our example. But, in its defense, no other program has found anything on the dead SD card either.

An entire scan took about four hours, but again, the disk in the example is completely corrupted. A disk in better shape would have much better results. ZAR is a viable free option for data recovery, so long as you have time to recover your files and Windows acknowledges your card’s existence.

Once your pictures are recovered, if they do not look as splendid as they should, try our previous article, Repair and View Corrupted or Damaged Images.

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