Recovering photos from SD card

Hope that some of tech guys can help me out please. I will give the back story below (warning, it is long), but my main question is this: Can I use file recovery software on my computer to recover photos that were deleted on a SD card by ANOTHER computer?

Backstory: My neighbor, who I've been good friends with for several years, has been trespassing on my property recently because he spotted a beaver building a tiny dam on our tiny creek. It is located about 75' on our side of the property line. My wife and I noticed the beaver around the same time and I put my trail camera out to catch some photos of it working at night. The next day, there were photos of my neighbor (who doesn't have a job) coming on to my property right after my wife and I go to work in the morning, carrying a rifle and looking around for the beaver. He proceeds to tear open the dam, then comes back in the afternoon and sets up a blind just over the property line. I see photos that night, and send him a civil but stern message that we dont want him hunting on our property. He never writes or calls back. The next day I have a bunch of new photos of him, no rifle this time, tearing open the dam again. I personally confront him last night, and he goes on about not being able to sleep at night knowing there's a beaver establishing itself in a place where it could possibly cause flooding in his woods. I assure him that if it starts encroaching on his land that I will pay to have it trapped and will personally tear down the dam, but that I do not want him to take it upon himself to hunt and trespass on my property without permission. He says okay, but he keeps telling me what a mistake I'm making. Today, I check my trail camera when I get home and there are no photos from the time I set it out last night at ~6:00 pm until 11:55 am this morning, after which there is a photo every 30 seconds to 5 minutes because it was windy all day and leaves/branches kept tripping the motion sensor. This made me suspicious because the last three days there is a photo every hour at least because of wildlife or wind. I downloaded some file recovery software and tried to recover any photos that might have been deleted, but only recently deleted photos came up, plus some from over two years ago. There were also some corrupted photos that I tried to open using IrfanView, but got a message about the file header being unreadable.

Anyway, thanks for any help you guys can provide.

 

not really :/

 

Possibly, only way to know for sure is to try it. Details such as what filesystem the SD card used and whether it was reformatted or just had the files marked as deleted matter. Try to undelete them and see....

 

Add a second game camera without him knowing.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. I did try the software and successfully recovered photos I deleted, which is what made me wonder if the software only recovers photos I deleted using my PC, but not my neighbor's. It may be that nothing tripped the motion sensor and I am just being overly suspicious.

I thought about that, but opted for the cheaper method of putting a few dabs of candle wax on the seam (you have to open it to get to the SD card) and taking a photo of the wax pattern. That will at least tell me if it is being tampered with.

Honestly, I am about done with the whole situation, it is taking up too much of my time. Thanks again for the useful suggestions.

 

glad you got them. I've been both successful and unsuccessful at recovering from sd card. I'm not sure but i think it matters if the pics were erased or if the card was formatted.

Get yourself a Nest Drop cam and it will send you an email alert with photos. Next time the guy shows up call the police and tell them there's an intruder on your property. Then pop some popcorn and log into your cameras live feed to watch the cops put magic bracelets on him.

 

recovery depends on how the [device] considers a file erased

most devices leave the file they just change the name of the file and remove pointers to it

SSD's might completely erase files

flash cards on the other hand, are faulted in that there is a fixed number of writes the cells can do before they become garbage (SSD are the same but they have much longer life).

so sd cards have a little bit of logic in them to use each cell once, and move to the next, and rotate through...and when the whole card has been used, then it starts at the beginning. this ensures that as the card is used, it is used up evenly....basically maximizing life of the card.

so, when deleting from sd, it may just remove the pointers, and only erase previous contents when something is due to write to those cells again.


this all changes depending on the maker, the card, and even the revision of card.

doesn't matter which computer wrote what unless there is special delete software that really strips it out. this reduces sd card lifetime tho

 

Gotta love short bus riders who think they have free range of other people's property. Call the game warden and tell him you have someone poaching on your property and let them do the surveillance and capture. Just move your camera to an unknown spot and watch the fun. Then you still have to live next door tho. Dude should have come to you with his concerns about it before taking matters into his own hands on someone else's property where he has no right to be without permission. Good luck with it.

 

Thank you, this is exactly the info I was looking for, makes perfect sense!!

Thanks man, and you're right. My whole issue was with him thinking it was okay to do whatever he wanted on my property. I actually understand his concern about the beaver as they can be pretty destructive, but I just wanted to watch it for a bit, and had always planned to trap and move it if it started being destructive to his property. I researched regulations and called our DGIF office to confirm that simply entering onto someone's property with a rifle without permission is a class I misdemeanor ($500 fine), and I have about 20 good photos from the trail cam showing him carrying his .22 around on our property. I didnt do it because I hate getting government involved in neighbor squabbles, it is a waste of their time.

It appears the whole thing is moot now, no sign of the beaver yesterday or today.

Thanks again for all your advice!!

(Cropped out his face)

 

do you think he got the beaver?

 

I do not think you should call the police on your neighbor unless absolutely necessary, it just escalates things do not ask me how I know...

Maybe have the mutual respect talk with him, where you discuss how you must give respect to get respect and he will say he knows this and then have no choice but to give it. It works most of the time. Suggest that if he needs to borrow a tool or something you are there and vice versa, slip in the fact that he is not to go on your property AT ALL unless authorized in advance, just like he would expect of his property. Best to confront it head on and always remember the wise words of Dalton...



If all else fails freeze chunks of Roundup in an ice cube tray and then launch it with a wrist rocket onto the nice parts of his lawn... Passive-agressive FTMFW!

 

Not sure. His blind is still down there, so hopefully not.

 

Good advice, and agree.

 

There's an program (windows) that i used in the past for recovering deleted files, its called Recuva.
Works pretty good, not sure if its still around.

 

I know someone who used that program to recover deleted pics off a Memory Stick he bought from an attractive woman on craigslist. I'll leave the rest up to the imagination.

 

lemme guess

pictures of cats and a journal about cramps. got it

 

Probably a bunch of duck face pics on there too haha.

 

Or abortion receipts

 

Or sandwich recipes

 

Probably a PDF of 50 Shades