I just tried to view some pics from an XD card on my laptop. It started to copy the files to the laptop so I clicked to stop that as I just wanted to view them. Now it seems I managed to wipe the whole card....and it's my mother's, with pix going back ages....Is there ANY way of retrieving them?? I get 'card error' when I put it back in the camera...am desperate for any help you can give!!

You can get software (both free and paid for) that can salvage images from a card.

Can't recommend any as I've never needed to use one, but the one that sticks in my mind is the aptly named Don't Panic.

...already panicking but thanks for the tip!

Go to your local photo shop and see if they can read the card. (You do not have not have print them)

found a program that shows the pics are still there, only snag is I need to pay to retrieve em, but hey it will be worth it! Thanks again!

I've used Smart Flash Recovery recently with some success. Go here: http://www.smartpctools.com/recovery/index.html and scroll down the page to Smart Flash Recovery at the bottom and click Free Download to download. It's free but has a couple of minor nags when you close it that can be turned off for next time.

Thanks for the tip. I downloaded it, scanned the dodgy disk and it showed it had scanned 400+ files, which is about how many pics are on it, but it says 'no deleted files on this disk', which is weird seeing as they have obviously been deleted somehow... I will have a tweak and see if I missed something. Thanks for your help!

I wiped a SD card and recovered the jpgs using :
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/zaimagerecovery.html

It's free and it worked for me.


Mike

Also
Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery

http://www.z-a-recovery.com/digital-image-recovery.htm

(maybe the same as above)