Broken camera memory card?

Now you understand why good memory card management is so important.

Here is the work flow I follow with my memory cards to keep them in good shape:

1) Format the memory card WITH THE CAMERA before using it to take photos for the first time

2) Shoot photos/videos

3)Download the memory card content to your computer using a USB card reader if the computer does not have a built-in card reader

4)Verify the transfer was a success

5)Back up the files on your computer to another hard drive (or CDs)

6)Format the memory card with your camera (and not with the computer)

Do this at the end of every day that you take photos/video

Now, to answer your question...the only one place I know and trust to recover important data is KrollOnTrack http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/data-rec... I have used them for 20+ years to perform data recovery on hard drives and their service is second to none.

EDIT: Depending on how badly the card is broken, I would disagree with BriaR. I have sent things to OnTrack before, and they have the knowledge and technology to recover the almost impossible.

I have sent them a "dead" hard drive that was formatted twice and then thrown on the ground by a disgruntled worker. They disassembled it in their clean room and recovered 95% of the data going platter by platter.

They will look at your card for free to determine how much they can recover. Then you decide if it is worth the cost for them to proceed.

If you have physically broken the card then it is history - no recovery possible. Your photos are lost.

Memory cards are designed to hold data in your camera until you can download it to a PC. You have learned a very hard lesson!

You may be able to use recovery software, but given the nature of memory cards the likelihood is that the photos are gone forever.

Should have downloaded them sooner. Memory cards are not reliable as permanent storage devices.