Recovering lost videos

[CSXBOY]

So on May 8th, I was out in Iowa chasing the 2816 in the rain. Then my sony handycam gets water damaged even though I had an umbrella under it. So after I used a hairdryer to dry it off and it worked again but I lost all of my videos prior to when it happened

I've spent the last 2-3 hours trying to fix it and this honestly might do it for me in this hobby. Does anyone have any suggestion of third party programs or methods to recover the videos? Any help would be nice. Hope you all have a good sleep tonight.

[Saturnalia]

First, I know it’s too late now, but if you ever experience a camera malfunction or get it wet, first thing to do is remove the SD card, and dry it separately, and transfer any data before risking it in the potentially malfunctioning device. That’s because the camera could start writing over, corrupting or reformatting the drive, destroying files.

One potential option is Sandisk’s data recovery tool, I’ve never had to use it but I do know it’s out there and comes with a subscription for many of their higher end cards these days.

[David Collins]

Ouch.

[CSXBOY]

First, I know it’s too late now, but if you ever experience a camera malfunction or get it wet, first thing to do is remove the SD card, and dry it separately, and transfer any data before risking it in the potentially malfunctioning device. That’s because the camera could start writing over, corrupting or reformatting the drive, destroying files.

One potential option is Sandisk’s data recovery tool, I’ve never had to use it but I do know it’s out there and comes with a subscription for many of their higher end cards these days.

Thank you for this advice. Can you send me the link for the Sandisk data recovery tool? Is it on the Sandisk website?

[CSXBOY]

Ouch.

I did get photos of the steam train and most of the trains I caught before it all got lost. So its not a total L. I've heard from other railfans get robbed and cameras got stolen or destroyed. Guess Im okay to an extent.

[~Z~]

I've used Recuva in the past for pulling files off of hard drives that have had master boot record or other disk issues, and have used it on compact flash cards as well to "undelete" photos or from cards that had a "quick format" performed on them. Haven't used in a few years though, but hopefully the software still performs about the same.

Then my sony handycam gets water damaged even though I had an umbrella under it.

I'd suggest having the umbrella over it rather than under; helps keep the rain off the camera better.

[CSXBOY]

I've used Recuva in the past for pulling files off of hard drives that have had master boot record or other disk issues, and have used it on compact flash cards as well to "undelete" photos or from cards that had a "quick format" performed on them. Haven't used in a few years though, but hopefully the software still performs about the same.

Then my sony handycam gets water damaged even though I had an umbrella under it.

I'd suggest having the umbrella over it rather than under; helps keep the rain off the camera better.

I did have an umbrella over the camera. That was just a typo. I also tried recuva but it did not work.

[Michael]

One other recovery software program you can try is Disk Drill
https://www.disk-drill.com/
But my guess it the video file never was completed so it is not recoverable with this simple software