Digital Camera Card Question

[Andi]

I am confused and hope that maybe you can help me with an explanation:

Before I went to London at Tuesday I had removed all pictures from my SD card.
On Wednesday I went to a store which has Kodak photo printing machines and put in the card.
It showed me the photos I had made in London during the last two days, AND it showed me photos I had made in November!
A lot of photos actually, over 100.
I thought "ok, maybe they have been in another folder, I will check this when being back home".
So, back home, I put the card into my computer and checked. But I can't find these photos anywhere! Only the new ones made in London.

Where are they, where do they hide? How could the machine find, display and read them (I let print two of them as test)?

[theJudeAbides]

Did you delete the pictures while you had the SD card in your computer? What happens for me is that when doing this, the pictures are actually moved to a hidden "Trash" file which is located on the SD card and not permanently deleted until you empty it (similar to what happens with normal files on your computer).

When you remove the card do you right click the icon on your computer and select "safely remove object" or do you just pop it out? On my computer, when I go to safely remove the card (and I've deleted some files), a dialog will pop up asking me whether or not I want to empty the trash, to which I reply yes. The computer then "works" for a few seconds deleting the files and then the icon disappears, and I remove the card.

It's always a good idea to "safely remove" items like SD cards, Flash Drives, External Hard Drives, and other separate physical devices before actually physically disconnecting/removing them. It only takes an extra second or two of your time and is a good way to prevent loss of data/other types of confusion.

[hatcher]

I have a similar problem with my flash drive, deleted pictures show up I put new ones on it and go to the picture place. The techs there told me that I would have to re-format the drive to get rid of the deleted pictures. You could be experiencing the same thing. Try reformatting the card and see if that helps.

[meeotch]

Jude is 100% right about this. You should not need to reformat your SD card. You just have to go the extra step of actually emptying the trash for the files to be deleted.

[Andi]

Ok, I now tried this with the safely remove. But there came no question about emptying trash.
But now I can see a "Recycle" icon on the card. But when I click on it there are only 98 MB included.
If I right-click on the card, and then click on settings, it tells me that 500 MB are used. So these pictures must be indeed there somewhere.

[meeotch]

I believe you are running Window, correct? Try this: with the SD card not in the machine, empty your Recycle Bin. You should now have the icon where there's no paper in the bin. Then, put the card in, and open the Recycle Bin from the desktop. There should be icons in there for the pictures that you had initially "deleted." If they aren't, then your SD card most likely is corrupted from an initial improper eject of the card, and you might have to reformat it, which shouldn't be too hard. There's most likely an option to do that from the contextual menu (right-clicking on the card).

[Andi]

Ok, thank you.
I guess formatting is really necessary.
So you think that happened while removing the card not safely?
But why only the photos from that time in November? And not others as well?
Since I have digital cameras (late 2004) I never safely removed them. Just putting the card in the card reader and pulling it out when completed.