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How to Recover Pictures After Reformatting a Memory Card

Reformatting a memory card is a one-step process that prepares the card to be used in your digital camera to take additional pictures. After reformatting the card you can no longer see the digital pictures that were saved to it; however, the files are still on the card and will remain on the card until the space is used to save a new picture. There are many free recovery programs available for download that will recover pictures from reformatted cards.

Instructions

- 1
  Remove the memory card from your digital camera after it has been reformatted.
- 2
  Insert the card into the card reader on your home computer or a card reader that is connected to your computer. Wait a moment for your computer to acknowledge that the memory card has been inserted into the computer.
- 3
  Connect to the Internet and download a recovery program. For Mac users, Camera Salvage can be used and for PC users there is Pix Fix or PC Inspector Smart Image Recovery. Open the program after it has downloaded to your computer.
- 4
  Click "File" in the navigation bar of the program and select "Start/Scan" from the drop-down menu. Click the icon representing the reformatted memory card and the program will commence its scan.
- 5
  Click and save the files to your computer's hard drive from the new window that will open up once the scan has been completed. After the recovered images have saved, you can use the memory card again.

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