Devices · SD & camera cards
A card never fails on a quiet day — it waits for the wedding breakfast, the middle week of the trip, the transfer of the one and only copy. 'Damaged' and 'empty' cards posted from Exeter give nearly everything up in the lab, provided nobody has had a go at them first.
Talk it over with an engineer
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| What it says | What it usually means | Step one |
|---|---|---|
| Canon bodies: Memory card error / Cannot access the memory card | Its file system makes no sense to the camera | Card out, no more shots |
| Canon again: Card cannot be accessed. Reinsert/change the card | Contacts, or the controller itself | Formatting is no 'fix' — don't |
| Nikon bodies: This memory card cannot be used. Card may be damaged | Unrecognised or corrupted | Skip the camera's format option |
| Card is write-protected / Card locked | Usually the side switch; otherwise a failing controller sealing itself | Switch fine? Then the fault is internal |
| You need to format the disk in drive X: | RAW, says the PC — the photos are still on it | Decline it |
| No memory card (with a card inserted) | A dead controller, or dead solder pads | One for a chip-level read |
Your device is logged under its own case number the day it arrives. An engineer finds the fault, tells you plainly what stands a real chance of coming back, and writes you one fixed quote. Nothing is charged for that look, nothing obliges you, and paid work starts only when you say so.
First comes an exact bit-for-bit clone — after that, no tool, ours or anybody's, touches the sole original again.
If the file system will mend, it's mended on the clone. If it won't, every photo and video is carved out by its header signature — RAW types included.
Rather than just counting files, we open the recovered shoot frame after frame, confirming each picture displays whole and at full resolution.
Before any fee falls due you see a full listing of everything recovered and approve it. Your files travel back on brand-new media, return postage on us, and the case stays open until you've confirmed everything opens on your own machine.
A number that doesn't exist: nobody has published a reliable measure of how many SD cards on sale are fakes. Manufacturers and labs call it widespread, we book them in most weeks, and every precise percentage in print is made up. What is certain: data written beyond a counterfeit's true capacity is gone beyond anyone's reach.
Midnight: a 512GB SanDisk holding a whole wedding. Morning: empty. A forensic clone came first; the filesystem was rebuilt on the copy and a deep carve swept up anything orphaned behind it. Every frame went back to the couple, and the photographer held on to the client.
Best not. A format writes new file tables over the exact structures we rely on to put your folder names and files back together. Leave the card be and the recovery comes out fuller and tidier.
Yes. Every RAW type — NEF, CR3, DNG, ARW, RAF among them — has its own signature we can carve on, and the same goes for video. Most cards on the bench come from working photographers.
Not every time. A monolith card holds everything in a single die; if the break spared that die, we can still read it at chip level — even though the card itself is finished.
Nothing moves through quicker than memory cards: most are done in two to three working days, faster still when you're up against a date. Tell us your deadline and we'll work to it.
Each power-up of a failing device takes more data with it. Open a case first — the look-over is free whichever way it goes.