A photographer shot over a card that still held a client job. Deleting is recoverable and formatting is usually recoverable; overwriting is neither. This page is about what was left, and it is the most honest number on the site.
A professional photographer needed footage from a commercial shoot that had been on a Samsung EVO Select microSD card. New material had since been written to the same card. Consumer recovery software found nothing usable, and a client presentation was approaching.
The distinction that governs this whole job is the one people find hardest to accept. A deleted file is marked as free space and stays until something lands on it. A quick-formatted card has a rewritten index and intact contents. An overwritten file has had new data physically written into the same cells — and there is no technique, at any price, that retrieves what was there before.
The card was electrically perfect: no controller fault, no bad blocks, no physical damage. That is the awkward part of these cases — nothing is broken, and the loss is complete in the areas affected.
The diagnostic established three things. New footage had overwritten part of the earlier shoot rather than all of it. The file system structures had been damaged in the process, so what survived was not reachable normally. And a meaningful volume of the original material still sat in unallocated space, untouched by the newer writes.
We were straight with the photographer at that point: a full recovery was not available, and the realistic question was how much of the shoot fell outside the overwritten regions. That is a better conversation to have before an invoice than after one.
The card was imaged read-only behind a write blocker before anything else, and all work ran against the copy. Because the file system could not be trusted to describe what remained, the image was carved by signature — scanned for the byte patterns that begin video containers and RAW image files, with each file reconstructed outward from its header.
Video is unusually forgiving of this treatment when it is only partly damaged. Where a clip's opening structures survived but a later section had been overwritten, the recoverable portion was remuxed into a playable file rather than discarded, so the photographer got the first part of a take instead of nothing at all. Fragments too short to constitute usable footage were logged rather than returned as clutter.
Everything recovered was played end to end, not counted. Partial clips were reported explicitly as partial, with their durations, so the photographer could see what was usable for the presentation before deciding anything. Embedded timestamps survived, which allowed the recovered material to be placed back in shooting order.
About 65% of the shoot returned — the material that had happened to fall outside where the newer footage landed, plus intact RAW stills. Enough to salvage the presentation, and considerably less than everything.
We publish this one because a run of 97s and 100s on a case-file page tells you nothing about a firm. Some jobs come back partially and the reason is usually physics rather than effort. Overwriting is the clearest example there is.
Deleted files survive until something lands on them. Formatted cards keep their contents behind a rewritten index. Overwritten data has had new information physically written into the same cells, and no laboratory retrieves it. If a card holds something you need, take it out and stop shooting — the next frame is the risk, not the failure. Cards and USB media are from £250 +VAT after a free 48-hour diagnostic.
Get the device to us for a free diagnostic and a quick note on what went wrong — an engineer looks it over and puts your exact quote in writing before anything is started.
The route to your data starts with the device reaching us. Box it up securely, tuck your contact details inside, and send it across — after the free diagnostic, we put your exact price in writing before a single step is taken.
Sending it by post? Go with a tracked, insured service. Prefer to bring it round? Our door is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm — just pack the device as described above beforehand.
Prefer to get a sense of things first? Complete the form with a bit more about the fault and an engineer will look it over and send back a tailored quote.
We’ll get back to you soon. Anything pressing, call 01865 593000.
No — not the overwritten parts. New data written into the same cells replaces what was there, and nothing retrieves it at any price. What can be recovered is anything that fell outside the overwritten regions, which is often a substantial proportion but rarely all of it.
Deleting marks space as free and leaves the contents until something lands on them. A quick format rewrites the index and leaves the files in place. Overwriting physically replaces the data. The first two are usually recoverable; the third never is.
Take it out immediately and stop using it. Every further frame written reduces what remains, and on a card with a partly overwritten shoot the difference between stopping now and shooting another card’s worth is substantial.
Sometimes, in part. Where a clip’s opening structures survive and a later section has been overwritten, the recoverable portion can be remuxed into a playable file — so you get the beginning of a take rather than nothing. It is reported as partial, with duration, rather than passed off as complete.
Cards and USB media are from £250 plus VAT, fixed in a written quote after a free 48-hour diagnostic. Where the diagnostic shows the material was overwritten, we say so before you commit rather than after.
Kick off with an instant online quote, or ring us and talk it through first. Either way you’ll know a clear, fixed price before any work starts.