SD Recovery question

[Cronic]

So looking for a recommended recovery program. A friend has an SD card (sandisk extreme pro) that is saying needs formatted when she puts it in. She found a recovery program, but instead of showing nef/raw files, she said there showing as jpeg. Can anyone reccomend a recovery program that can get back the raw files (she swears they weren't in jpeg)?

 

[Wirko]

I can't recommend anything specific but there's something to note: the camera may have been set to record both raw and jpeg. The recovery software may have been set to only look for photos, and it may have a limited list of file extensions for photos. Like, jpg/jpeg/png/bmp and so on, but not raw/nef/cr2. So check the settings first. Make sure all file types (file extensions) are included.

The recovered files should never be saved to the same SD card. The programs are probably clever enough to avoid that but again, do check the settings.

 

[Cronic]

Thank you I'll be going to look at it Tuesday so I'll make sure it's set to look for all. I had a friend suggest 2 programs, one says it supports .nef

 

[Ahhzz]

I can't recommend anything specific but there's something to note: the camera may have been set to record both raw and jpeg. The recovery software may have been set to only look for photos, and it may have a limited list of file extensions for photos. Like, jpg/jpeg/png/bmp and so on, but not raw/nef/cr2. So check the settings first. Make sure all file types (file extensions) are included.

The recovered files should never be saved to the same SD card. The programs are probably clever enough to avoid that but again, do check the settings.

EXACTLY this. Most programs will let you select "Documents", or "Pictures", and won't look for RAW files. Have whatever you choose look for EVERYTHING

 

[Wirko]

Thank you I'll be going to look at it Tuesday so I'll make sure it's set to look for all. I had a friend suggest 2 programs, one says it supports .nef

If your friend noticed immediately after formatting that something went wrong, and didn't take any more photos with that SD card, then it will be a trivial task to get all the photos back. Any program made for that purpose should be able to do it. It doesn't need to know anything specific about NEF, you just have to tell it to not ignore it.

Take care, though. "Free" software from companies that otherwise sell software often means you also get some nasty adware on your computer. I'd try one or two of the open source alternatives first, even if they are less user-friendly and may still carry a payload that you don't want. Something from this list, and be careful what it asks you during installation:

Top 5 Best Open-Source Data Recovery Software (2025)

Can open-source data recovery software be as good as commercial alternatives? Let’s take a closer look at the tool available to answer the question.

www.handyrecovery.com

 

[Cronic]

So it formatted fine, but she got a new computer that didn't have a card reader. So the SD reader she got was cheap ( since bought a good one) and it ended up corrupting 2 separate cards with wedding photos. She spent 1500 to send the first one away, and was just trying to explore a cost effective way to recover. And if she can buy a program for it, it would be good incase this happens in the future

Disk drill is the first one we're going to try, if the free version shows the files were going buy the paid version and recover them *fingers crossed*

 

[Cronic]

Final update on this, diskdrill did work, recovered all 200gb of photos from card. Ty!. Side note I do beleive the program she used didn't support the .nef file type