Macintosh computers comeswith a basic program to help recover data.
The Apple Macintosh's OS X operating system comes with a data recovery program as part of the system. This application, called Disk Utility, comes with every Macintosh computer and can recover data from a damaged or corrupted disk. Disk Utility will work to recover photos from a digital memory card in most cases, but for deeper problems with the card, you may need a third-party disk recovery application.
Instructions
1. Plug the memory card reader into the USB or Firewire port on the Mac, depending on which type you use. Insert the memory card into the reader. If the digital memory card has not been damaged too severely, an icon will pop up on the desktop in the Finder, the Mac's basic operating system window.
2. Open the Disk Utility application. You can find it by going to a new Finder window, clicking the "Applications" folder and then the "Utilities" folder. Once you open the application, it will search for all the disks connected to the Mac. It will show you the internal hard drive, any external hard drives connected and powered up, optical media such as DVDs or CDs inserted in drives and the memory card.
3. Select the digital memory card's icon from the list on the left in the Disk Utility application's window. This will give you basic information about the disk and four options in the right-hand side of the window: First Aid, Erase, RAID and Restore.
4. Run First Aid on the memory card before more elaborate procedures. At the lower right, two buttons will be enabled: "Verify Disk" and "Repair Disk." If you already know you are having problems with the memory card, you can skip to Repair Disk. Click the button and wait for the program to repair the memory card. It will tell you if it has made minor repairs or if it cannot repair the disk. If it did repair the memory card, immediately go back to the Finder and copy the images off the card to a folder on your hard drive. Then go back to Disk Utility and use "Erase" to reformat the card. You also may have to format the card again in the camera, but by doing this you can run "Repair Disk" again in Disk Utility to make certain there are no problems remaining on the card.
5. Click the "Restore" button at the top of the window and follow the instructions if using "Repair Disk" does not work. This will allow you, in most cases, to copy your photos off the card and onto the hard drive using Disk Utility. You will need to have enough hard drive space to transfer the information from the memory card. Then drag the icon of the memory card into the area labeled "Source" and drag the hard-drive icon to "Destination." Click "Restore." Once the process is complete, you should be able to recover the photos from the restored version of the memory card that now resides on your hard drive. Then delete the information on the memory card, erase it and reformat it in the digital camera.
Tags: memory card, Disk Utility, hard drive, Repair Disk, digital memory card
