Requesting help. Lost all files into one big 3GB+ file

[DAVIDTRAN]

Hi Moderators and ML family. I am a contributing early adopter of the release for the 60D ML.

After many successful uses, recently, after a trip, and before I backed up the files, all my CES and Vegas pictures were lost. IIRC, I had to restart the camera more than once but I don't remember for what reason or error.. I think I forgot to turn off the camera to change a battery or to change a lens or something, I don't remember.

Now all the files went onto that one big file and I cannot copy that file to another location to remedy it.

A fresh card however does allow the camera to be operated.

It was necessary and recently found because a message that said the card could not be read showed up on powering on the camera with that card with the lost photos in the one large file.

I would like to know if anyone can tell me how to recover those photos. I need it because they're irreplacable and also documents things on that day surrounding weather conditions I promised to document that I cannot reproduce and promised  someone.

Thank you in advance if you can help or be of any usefulness.

[1%]

look up testdisk... you can try to use it to recover your stuff.

[DAVIDTRAN]

I googled it. Just checking that you know this is not a deleted files problem, correct? This is a problem where Magic Lantern put all those pictures into one big file that I can't seem to figure out what it does. This program would address that?

[DAVIDTRAN]

Trying not to do that until I know for sure that I won't be overwriting the pictures that were there.

[1%]

how are they in one file? Is it one giant .cr2? dng, mlv? give some details there as nobody has heard of this issue before.

testdisk is non destructive... it copies the files from the card onto your hard drive.

[DAVIDTRAN]

Yeah I was like WTH when I saw it like that all in one file too. You asked everyone available on the dev team for me already? Thanks, that was fast! Usually I expect these guys to be real busy and take a long time..

At the moment, I was able to take pictures further on that card, and then copy them off, but now it says, "Card cannot be accessed. Reinsert/change the card or format card with camera." In the PC it says the card isn't formatted. However last time, it was actually readable...

No I'm an advance PC user and it's definitely not a common file I have ever seen before. And yes it was one HUGE three gigabyte (and some change) file. All I know is that all video/photos were lost (not accessible via the camera or via reader). I don't recall it being a cr2 dng or mlv file, but I'm not sure. They don't sound like something I saw.

I will try the Teskdisk. But if you have other solutions, then please come back at me. If you don't hear anything, I wasn't successful.

[1%]

So you wrote to the card again after? And then it failed again? I think its pretty much clear what it is... and no point in really doing recovery now. You may get something back, likely not. I don't need to ask everyone on the dev team to tell you card failed and writing on it again greatly reduces chances of recovery.

[DAVIDTRAN]

update
Teskdisk brought back many files. Very nice. Thanks on the suggestion. I figure something in the shutdown procedure or maybe battery dying abruptly corrupted the boot area f the SD card. Once I used the program to rebuild it, I was able to use the other photo program to recover files. However if you just open the card, it's empty. Hope that helps you. If you would like further help to replicate it, let me know..

seeing your new post after I refreshed.
No that is not what I said at all. I'm not sure if you are trying to be rude, but one can think that way if you say something sarcastically as saying overwriting data would make it unrecoverable. Which isn't necessarily true, anyways.

What I said was I was able to take photos after that large file happened. Just because you haven't seen it happen before doesn't mean all scenarios you know up to this point is like mine. I will tell you this, but I am reconsidering helping any further, if all the data is in one file, then if you think about it, there is no old data to be overwritten, anything I would need is somehow put into storage in some strange way that I did not do.

Also as for that asking the dev team thing, I thought you had asked them already. I wasn't trying to offend you by telling you to ask them for me for a second or third opinion. But if you have never heard about it before, instead of saying "No one has ever heard of it before," and not helping, it would make more sense to ask around. Because I was sure you didn't ask around in the first place when you made it sound like you did. And by saying you don't have to ask the dev team about what I really asked you instead of thinking I asked you something so basic. SMH. I told you I know more than the average person, so don't talk to me like I don't know obvious things like if you overwrite data that it would make it hard to recover. I was merely asking what happened and how to not make the program do that ever again. But if you don't know then that's fine, leave it to others who do have a better grasp on it to comment.

[1%]

Its happened to 3 SD cards for me... randomly. Sector 0 turns to some weird AAAA string and the card becomes unreadable. 2 cards had to be RMA'd, one card was just like yours and came back. Everything else on the card was readable after sector 0 and all there.

All batteries were full, one cam was 6D, the other 600D. No crash. Just power up to card unreadable.

Previous to this... 400D, gig, 32gb CF dies. Card unreadable in camera and says to format on PC. FS is corrupted. Everything came back which is good because they would have been really pissed.

I'm not trying to be a prick but SD cards do fail just like any other type of media. It doesn't have to be something ML did... 400D didn't even have ML. There was a thread here recently where a CF card showed all garbage file-names, they posted screenshots. There is hardly anything that can be done to make this never happen again.

When your card is acting funny at least scan it in the PC and see whats up, don't keep taking pictures you're not willing to lose. Also HXD hex editor can open raw disks so when the computer says its unformatted you can see what is really on there.