You return from vacation , you rush to transfer photos from your digital camera to the computer and

Patatra , there are more than 3 photos of the 150 you had taken ... No need to go out a handkerchief ,

Perhaps you have lost almost nothing Because if the files do not Appear in the file system , the data is

probably still on the flash card . Now there is a free tool to recovered files longer available : photorec

project testdisk . This is the right time to Implement !

This tool scans a disk partition to search for data files like photographs . The nature of the disk (or

flash drive ) is irrelevant and the analysis is done using raw disk data , ignoring files That are or

were staying . Thus it is possible to find Pictures that are no longer there for some time , then That

is what you thought before !

Of course the blackberries you write new data on the flash card before you recover lost photos and

less Likely you are to recover . I know this must-run recovery as soon as possible or buy a new card to

continue your shots . If you do not have the opportunity to take a computer with you , I know before you

take from a USB key or Linux LiveCD with testdisk in homes.

Installation

Among many testdisk is the standard software included with Debian Linux. Versions for other systems :

such as the excellent Mac OS X or Windows ® Also available are significantly less recommendable , but it

will install by hand . Indeed , under Debian and derivatives , installing testdisk this way the command

line :

$ Sudo apt- get install testdisk
Also you can prefer to do this with your graphics software manager, but for a single package , the

command line version is by far the fastest !

Notes :

if you have an Eee PC , you must first declare additional deposits to install testdisk hassle .
obviously we do not concern ourselves with the Following non-free systems Mentioned above!
Collect photos

photorec works in console mode and as administrator only for security Reasons [1] . Therefore it must be

run by example with the Following command :

$ Sudo photorec
Recall sudo That Executes a command as administrator root. Be careful to adjust the size of your console

if you have a small screen : it takes at least 25 lines of text height photorec not suggested otherwise

That You leave! Recovering your photos will take place in this way :

choice to analyze disk
choosing the type of partition
choice of the partition to analyze
choosing the type of file system
choice of the area to be Analyzed (or unallocated tracks)
choice of destination directory
launch scan
In the end ticket screenshots will need to help you better understand the nature of the first 6 steps.

At the end of the scan, we will find in the directory recup_dir.1 / created by photorec recovered files

but with a name unrelated timeline photos

$ Ls recup_dir.1 /
f101189.jpg f13341.jpg f30421.jpg f46717.jpg f63213.jpg f76581.jpg
f102605.jpg f1421.jpg f32045.jpg f47437.jpg f63997.jpg f77261.jpg
[...]
It Seems That In fact the name is simply created from the file location on the partition . It is really

annoying When It Comes To put the photos in chronological order. This is where the EXIF date will pull

us through ...

Note : The scores Analyzed by photorec are mounted read-only . So even if you were wrong disk, there is

no risk if it is not that wasting time unnecessarily !

Rename files

EXIF date additional information are included in the photo files from the room. There are , of course

data taken as apertures or shutter speed , but there are mainly the date of shooting . The idea is to

use this information to rename photos to make them again in chronological order.

Notes: Also this can be advantageous in the case of photos from various devices , file numbering is

different and they do Not Appear Therefore all at once collected in chronological order .

For this there are several tools : such as exiv2 or renrot . It is the Latter That we use , it is Able

to rename the photos but Also to run automatically When the camera records orientation information in

the EXIF date . This is a tool That can render good service in other situations For Those Who take very

many photos , for example. Installation Gives very classically command line :

$ Sudo apt- get install renrot
Then renrot offers many options for ITS implementation includes:

-D specifies the directory where photos
-E specifies the file extension to process photos
-N changes the model name automatically generated file
- Dry- run the tool launches in test mode , no file modification
Has there still a problem : only root Has the right to modify the files were found with photorec That

since we Launched it as administrator ... Therefore we must begin by restoring the proper permissions :

$ Sudo chown-R $ ( whoami ) : $ ( id - gn ) recup_dir.1 /
Recall That chown changes the owner and group ownership of a file or That lists $ (...) in a command is

Replaced by the result of the command whoami That contains That gives the current user identifier ( you!

) and id - gn returns the name of the primary group of the current user .

We can then test the renaming files with the Following command :

$ Renrot recup_dir.1 -d / and jpg -n- date% Y % m% d% H hour% M % S - dry-run
Here we get names like date20080821 - heure142943.jpg know dated August 21, 2008 2:29:43 pm and time .

Once you are satisfied with the name , there is more to eliminate the - dry-run . In our homes we Obtain

the Following files:

$ Ls recup_dir.1 /
date20080815 - heure212854.jpg date20080901 - heure214039.053.jpg
date20080821 - heure141857.jpg date20080901 - heure214039.054.jpg
[...]
One advantage of renrot on exiv2 Is that if you have pictures taken on the same date and at the same

time ( burst mode for example) , add renrot without question the number of the file back to

differentiate These pictures while continuing to rename . By cons nothing guarantees that were obviously

a series of photos still in good order ...

You are now ready to face situations That previously thought lost. For children who start playing with

cameras and confused "delete " with " delete all " [2] , I guarantee photorec works miracles !



choice to analyze disk

photorec offers a list of disks in the system by giving Their size and name to facilitate choice .





choosing the type of partition

A USB stick or flash card is always partition type for Intel purchase so there is normally no thinking

here . Unless you have had a problem with your hard drive and Whether it is scanning .





choice of the partition to analyze

Like this: normally it is a FAT partition if you have not reformatted .





choosing the type of file system

It may Seem repetitive , but it's still a FAT file system need to choose !





choice of the area to be Analyzed (or unallocated tracks)

Here you can choose to scan the disk areas That are not supposed to be occupied by files, or Entire Disk

. It is in the unallocated That we will find files you thought lost areas.





choice of destination directory

It is simply the directory where the famous directory recup_dir will land . As Mentioned in Inglese

certainly , it is important That this directory is not in the partition being Analyzed !





During scan

During scanning photorec Has kindly pointed out the estimated time remaining . This is not luxury as it

is actually quite long . As a bonus We also know in real time the number of retrieved by file type.





photorec Has completed the ITS work : here was recovered 123 pictures on a flash card 64MB, it must be

nearly flawless ! For videos by cons, I never managed to get a full functional file.