I like to think I’m fairly competent when it comes to computer things. I really don’t tend to trepidation – I dive in; after all, most things I learned on a computer I learned through doing. Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t rank myself up there with today’s naturally adept and expert 5-year-olds of the developed world, but I can hold my own – certainly within my own generation!

I was pulled, however, quite abruptly out of my comfort zone yesterday when I looked through the photos on my camera. I had just taken some pictures of my spare bedroom to post on facebook to get some suggestions for lamps for that room. In addition to those pictures, there were supposed to be (note: “supposed to be”) pictures of my trip back to Newfoundland last week, as well. As I reviewed the photos on my camera, however, I realized that most of the pictures from my trip were not there. I was quite saddened. While I wanted to have them all, there were pictures of me with two of my aunts that were of particular sentimental value – I don’t know if I’ll have another chance to get pictures of them.

I hadn’t completely given up hope, though. I took the SD card out of the camera and popped it into the port on my laptop. Error message. Hmmm… tried again. Error message – something about file names being too long or some such thing. Hmmmm – again.

The only thing I knew to do then was open the card up and see what was on it. Off I went: Start, Computer, and Removable Storage (see – not completely incompetent!). In addition to the few photos I had previewed on the camera, I found a WHOLE bunch of who-the-heck-knows-what folders and files – with gobbledegook symbols for file names and extensions. That explained the error messages I was getting.

I quickly cut and pasted the surviving pictures from the SD card onto my hard drive before they, too, disappeared. Then I did what most people do these days: I expressed my disappointment on facebook and left the SD card in the port in my laptop, while I tried to deal with my complete inability to figure out how to get it fixed!

Within moments, ideas about data recovery apps and software were offered. I downloaded the first one and bravely set out to try it. Huh. Four different options of things to do. I was stumped and too afraid to try any in case I ruined the card and recovery became impossible. Of course, that’s kind of funny in and of itself because before the ideas were posted in the comments to my status update, I thought it was ruined, anyway. But hope had been dangled, and however fragile it was, I wanted to keep it alive. So I chickened out and moved on to the second suggestion.

That one only had three options, but I still had no idea which to try so for the same reasons, I abandoned that one, as well. By then the third one had been suggested and it came with a lovely descriptor of being user-friendly. Ah ha!! This could be JUST what the doctor ordered. And so, I downloaded the third recovery software. Sure enough, it was very user friendly. It had a lovely Wizard that walked me through, step by step. Unfortunately, though, it only recovered two pictures that I did not already have, and none of the pictures of my aunts.

However, I was now emboldened! Success can be a great motivator, you see. And, I reasoned, if the easy one worked, one of the more complicated ones might work even better! So I tried the second one again. I deduced which of the three options was most likely the one I needed and off I went. It recovered a couple more pictures, but still, none of the now elusive aunts. Ah, but I was in full swing now, my laddies! Off I went to the last remaining software! And, like the third of everything for Goldilocks, it was just right! I think it recovered all of them. It recovered all the ones I remembered taking, at any rate, so if there are any missing, I’m blissfully unaware. 🙂

Also blissfully unaware are my aunts, who have happily been rescued, despite not even knowing they needed it.

And I managed to regain at least some modicum of my tech-dignity. Phew!