Yes, I am a bit late posting today. It seems that my computer SNARFED my photos. That’s right, through its nose. Let me explain!
I have a nice write-up, (in hand writing,) about a top-secret post on making Chicken Stock in Your Crock Pot. (Complete with some FAIL moments!) There were a good 20 or so photos I took to document the process. All that needed to be done was to go through those photos, adjust them, then post. (I shoot in RAW like all the cool kids.)
Then the gods of all Hard Drives frowned upon me.
It’s a relatively simple task – dump the pictures into a SORT folder on my hard drive. Label it 1-17-2012, even through there are pictures of the Family during Christmas. Don’t worry, they will be sorted later, see?
Hold your breath in anticipation while the 2.3 gigabytes of information are being transferred to the desktop. Of course, when the photos appear on the folder’s preview pane with squiggly lines, and dark bands running through them, try not to think the worst. It has to refresh, right?
Oh, but no – I have offended the Gods somewhere. It is not to be. Wait! I shoot in RAW, right? Ahh… perhaps the JPEG images are the only casualty of the corruption, right? The RAW files store the information straight from the camera. It’s all good, remember to breathe….
And…
Oh, no. The RAW files look worse than the JPEG thumbnails.
CALL CANON CUSTOMER SERVICE RIGHT AWAY…
Seems like today has a silver lining. Half way through “All of our agents are…” Durfas the Nice answers. “How may I help you?”
I try not to sound frantic…
“Uh, I have a small problem with my Rebel T2i… there are bands running across the pictures.” I say this, proud that I am still breathing and only have a small twinge of pain in my chest.
Durfas, (she is so nice,) replies, “Are the pictures showing up normally in the viewfinder?”
What a great question. I pop in the card, flash off a couple of pictures, and yes, they are appearing fine on the viewfinder… I put the card into the reader, and look at the folder from the desktop…
“They look okay on the viewfinder…” I reply, “and they look fine on the folder here.”
I cut and paste them into the SORT folder again. Damn! They are corrupt again! So… it’s not the camera, but maybe…
“Durfas – I need to checks something quickly…”
I grab the card, slap it into the Canon, take a picture of my kitchen, then race to the laptop. Out the card goes, into the laptop… holding my breath, I wait…
“That’s weird… they seem fine on the laptop.”
Durfas sighs as I let out my breath. She sounds convinced that it’s not my camera, as she says, “Did you open them using the EOS Digital Solution Disc?”
Oh SNAP! No, I didn’t even install it, assuming it was bloatware…
“I’m just glad that for now it seems like it’s the computer, not the camera. Thank you for your help, Durfas.”
Now what?
Looks like I will first check my computer out to resolve any issues – be it a virus, or hardware. After that, I will have to see about rescuing those files. I am not so worried about the photos of the Chicken Stock (I can always retake those…) but the family photos would be nice to rescue.
Does anyone out there know how to rescue a possible corrupt CR2 file?? Let me know in the comments…
