Monday, Monday: Technology Woes

It is already late afternoon and I am just thinking about writing my blog.

I’ve done laundry, grocery shopped, and recovered 1,711 files (yes, you read that right – one thousand, seven hundred, eleven files – 149 of which were videos) from a SD card that claimed there was nothing on it.  I also just went through all my passwords and deleted records of inactive accounts, recording new versions of keywords used to get into my online life.  Somehow, I think life was easier before all this technology!

I was spazzing out yesterday because I had misplaced this SD card. About six months ago, I decided to use two cards  – one for a simple point and shoot Canon camera and another for my DSLR Nikon 5200. The reason I did this was because I had some problems with corrupted files that might have arisen from shuffling the SD cards between these two different devices. I bought a smaller, 16GB card, for the Canon camera and labeled it Canon. For the Nikon, I bought a higher quality, and larger SD card of 32GB. This is the card that went missing.

I had just used it in my camera to shoot some photos of some type of raptor I could not identify.  It was a mere four days ago! I know I took it out of my Nikon to look at the photos on my computer. And, then, I must have needed to look at something on the other SD card.  I am guessing this was probably some piece of jewelry I had created and was trying to add to my inventory in an Etsy shop I run.  In any case, I took the Nikon SD card out and laid it down. I was sure I had put it in a spot I usually leave the cards – on the end of the kitchen island where I often work on my computer.

But, when I went to shoot more photos of the raptor that had returned yesterday, the card was nowhere to be found.  It was just about 24 hours ago. I looked everywhere. I asked my son, who shares the card with me because he borrows my camera to take photos and videos of his artwork. He gave me a card (32GB) and proclaimed, this isn’t it – it’s been in my computer for a couple of weeks.  I acknowledged that but said I just wanted to check it. So, he handed it over and I looked at it on my computer. There were about twenty “loose” jewelry photos, when the card was opened.  By loose I mean that they were not in a file with a label. There was, however, a file labeled with the standard, D5200 when I’ve shot with the Nikon. Upon opening that, it was empty!

Hmmmm? Okay. I returned it to my son, telling him what I found. Nothing. He said, well, it must not be what you are looking for then. Right?! I guess. I went on a walk with my husband and explained the circumstances. He agreed with my son, if nothing was on it, it wasn’t the card.  He suggested I move on and look elsewhere.  He’d help me look.

But, but, but….. I tried to explain. Why would there be a file for that camera if nothing is in it? Surely, if I had used the card in camera, I had shot some photos with it.  Meanwhile, I looked at the SD cards I had. All had photos, none with the eagle photos or recent photos I thought were on the card. And, by recent, I mean photos going back to last fall – soccer photos – hundreds of them, and photos of artwork – hundreds of those.  I needed to find that card.

By this morning I was just about to let it go and chalk it up to being gone. But, something kept nagging me about the empty file on the SD card. So, just prior to grocery shopping I slipped the card into my computer (again) and ran some recovery software.  About half way through the scan I wasn’t hopeful. It said it had found about 100 photos and three videos.  Hmmm?  If that’s all that is on the card, then, it is not the one I am looking for.

Then, all of a sudden, the numbers changed! And, got exponentially bigger! By the end of the scan that took about 45 minutes, it had identified 1,711 files, 149 of which were videos!  Yes! This was my missing disc!

After lunch, it took me about an hour to toggle all the files to recover (there was not a “recover all button” – which I would highly recommend to the developer of this software).   Once all 1,711 files were toggled to retrieve, I hit “recover.” Nope – not yet. I had to pay for the recovery software!  Oh yeah, I remember this in the past. I had to run similar software in 2013 after photos of our family trip to Kauai went missing.

You might be wondering, were my seventeen hundred photographs worth the $50.00 for the software (which can be used again and again). You bet! ALL of the photos from the late season soccer games (the team made it to our state tournament for the first time ever) were on this disc. Plus, video of my artist-son airbrushing his soccer cleats in which he played is on this disc. More video of him creating an oil painting of singer Billie Eilish was on this disc. Yes, I had to buy the software. I can tell you I didn’t even stop to really consider not.

So, after I loaded the right version of the software (the newest version) I was able to rescan and download to an external hard drive the files. Whew! I think this disc is done, however. Whatever caused the files to disappear is still probably lingering in the background of the disc. Everything is backed up. Tomorrow, I will go get a new disc for him and a separate new disc for me.

Ugh! Technology! It really was too much for a Monday! I sure am glad I listened to my gut and paid attention to the nagging little feeling about the card! Files Recovered!