Never seen anything like this before!
I've had data loss, couple of times my fault, most times PC fault, or memory card issues.
But this one caught me totally off guard, and still has me stumped.
So I got a few images, can't remember exactly how many now, but my usual fool proof routine is:
* Card into ext card reader.
* Transfer using Nikon transfer.
* Opens ViewNX2 automagically to review images.
* select some that have some potential, edit in CNX2
With all that done, I saved my first image(the locks on the gate image .. HERE)
So this image is the original version pre crash/loss.
It's original file name was DSC_2989.
In some of my efforts, I took a series of snaps, to create a panorama.
So, in ViewNX2 again, select two images to pano, convert to tiff, open in PTGui.
All good so far.
in doing that, I still had VNX2 open, and displaying one of the other(non pano) images .. some yellow flowers, I think one of the last images of the day, so wayyy over to the end of the film strip(in VNX2).
Had PTGui make the pano creation thing, worked out OK, then back in VNX2(which was minimised) to see the final PTGui tiff file it saved.
This is went wrong!
ViewNX2 was now in a totally different directory area(My Pictures), not where I left it minimised in the new images for that session.
Strange! It only does this if you move the images it's showing using another application. It gets confused as it no longer sees the image it was supposed to be displaying .. and defaults. Default is to go back to the My Pictures folder.
Anyhow, didn't think anything of it, just tried to navigate back to my new images .. except they were not there! .. all gone. Not just one or two, all gone.
Made no sense at all.
The locks images saved before was there, the Pano folder with the tiff files, two images and the PTGui saved tiff file were in there too ... just all the raw files in the folder I created for that session were gone.
First thing I thought was that I may have accidentally deleted them .. but I didn't delete anything at any time.
Checked recycle bin .. nup! lot of old files from wayy back ... but not these new raw files.
Getting stranger!
Used Recuvva to scan the specific directory I transferred the raw files into... found lots of other files around the directory, none spcifically within.
Getting even stranger than stranger!
It was like I'd never transferred them.
Used Easeus Recover .. same deal as above .. which I knew would be.
So back to the CF card. I have Nikon Transfer to delete the images after transfer, so Recuvva used on the CF card now.
Found all of them, but they were differently named to how I name them via the camera. I use DSC, DSD, DSE .. etc + plus the cameras natural numbering system as a semi chronological method of file naming my files.
The Recuvva recovered files all had SD_file number, and the numbers were all off by a about 10.
So it gets even stranger again. Recuvva shows you the expected possibility of recovery for each file. It showed two or so unrecoverable, most excellent.
Did what I could, and it recovered the unrecoverable ones.
But it didn't recover all the excellent probabilities!
About the last 10 or so, it missed.
So, back to Easus recovery: it showed all files, but gives no idea of the probability of success, it just does it's thing.
Hit the go button, and now .. it gets stranger than the original stranger than strange madness .. Easus recovers the files that Recuvva showed as excellent, but couldn't recover!
But Easeus didn't recover the files that Recuvva did!
Never seen anything like this. I never wrote to, or deleted anything off the SSD(where all the images were transferred too) during this twilight zone timeframe.
Couldn't understand why one recovery program couldn't recover some images, and the other could, and vice versa.
Lost about 3-5 images .. with the new file naming could be sure how many exactly .. not worried as I wasn't overly enthused by any.
And it 'corrupted' one image, as a raw file. The locks on the gate image in the link above.
VNX2 has the ability to batch file rename, so I used it to rename the files(from SD_... ) to my preferred D800E_DSC...
all good, except for that one corrupted one.
On initial viewing of the recovered files, VNX2 displayed it as per normal. CNX2 and CNX-D displayed it corrupted.
VNX2 generates jpg preview files from the embedded preview file within the raw file. So whilst the raw file may be corrupted, initially, the embedded jpg file wasn't.
Once I made a change to the corrupted file in VNX2, it then re rendered the embedded preview file to display the corruption now. No going back, but I kind'a like the corrupted version now.
So in the above link, I show the converted original image before all the stranger things occurred.
Below I show the now corrupted version:
As can be seen, there are three images in this one. No idea why the fuchsia coloured area tho .. that's wayyy out there corruption.
But the thin RHS shows two sections of an image. They all appear to be the same image, just jumbled up a little.
Having looked at it, I think the two RHS sections are reversed, that is the pinky bit should be above, the the normal coloured part below, and they are on the correct side of the image .. just separated.