Old memory card photos? How to get them off safely

Clearing out a drawer, a loft or an old camera bag often turns up memory cards from the early days of digital photography: a chunky CompactFlash card, a tiny xD card from an Olympus or Fujifilm camera, a Sony Memory Stick, or an early SD card. They may hold the only copies of photos from fifteen or twenty years ago. These cards usually still read, as long as you use the right reader and avoid a few mistakes that can wipe them.

Work out which card you have

The name is usually printed on the label. If not, the size and shape will tell you:

• CompactFlash (CF): about the size of a matchbox and quite thick, with a row of small holes along one edge. Used in many DSLRs and higher-end compacts.
• xD-Picture Card: very small and thin, slightly rounded at one end. Used mainly in Olympus and Fujifilm cameras.
• Memory Stick: Sony’s family of cards: the long original Memory Stick, the shorter Memory Stick Duo and PRO Duo, and the tiny Memory Stick Micro (M2). Found in Sony cameras, camcorders, older phones and the PSP.
• SmartMedia: very thin and flat with a gold contact area on one face. Common in cameras from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
• SD and MMC: the familiar SD shape. Older cards are plain SD (usually 2 GB or less), later ones are SDHC (4 to 32 GB) or SDXC (64 GB and up). MMC cards look similar but are often thinner.

Find a reader that supports it

Most modern laptops have an SD slot at best, and many have none. For older formats you need a USB multi-card reader that lists your card type. Readers that take CF, SD, Memory Stick and xD are still sold. Points worth knowing:

• SD vs SDHC/SDXC: new readers handle old SD cards fine. The problem is the other way round: a very old reader or camera may not recognise SDHC or SDXC cards. If an old reader doesn’t see a card, try a modern one before assuming the card has failed.
• xD cards: some later xD cards (marked Type M or Type H) didn’t work in every older reader or camera. If one reader doesn’t see it, try another.
• Memory Stick Duo and Micro often need an adapter to fit a full-size slot. Make sure it sits fully in place before you insert it.
• The original camera is another route. Many cameras can connect by USB and show up as a drive. They will need charged batteries, and you need the right cable.

Copy first, look later

Old flash memory can be fragile, and an ageing card may only read reliably a few times. Make every read count:

1. If the card has a lock switch (SD cards do), slide it to Lock so the computer can’t write to it.
2. Insert the card and, as soon as it appears, copy the whole DCIM folder, or every folder on the card, to your computer.
3. Only then open and browse the photos, from the copy rather than the card.
4. Make a second copy somewhere else, such as an external drive or cloud storage, before you put the card away.

Most of these cards use the FAT file system, which both Windows and macOS read without extra software.

What not to do

• Don’t format the card. If Windows says the card needs formatting before it can be used, or a camera reports a card error, say no. That message means the computer can’t read the file system. It doesn’t mean the photos are gone, and formatting makes recovery much harder.
• Don’t let the computer “scan and fix” it. Repair tools can rewrite the folder structure and lose file names or whole folders.
• Don’t keep inserting and removing it if it appears and then vanishes. Each attempt is another read on weak memory.
• Don’t force a CF card. The pins are inside the camera or reader, not on the card. A card pushed in at an angle can bend them, and a bent pin can short the card or the device. If the card meets resistance, stop and check the slot with a torch.
• Don’t take photos with it in the old camera to “test” it. New pictures can overwrite the space where deleted or damaged files are.

When the card itself has failed

If the card isn’t detected in two different readers, shows the wrong capacity, or the photos copy across but open grey, half-drawn or not at all, the card may have a failing memory chip or controller, or a damaged file system. This is where professional recovery comes in. Inside a card the photos are still stored on the memory chip, and a lab can often read them directly and rebuild the files, even when no computer will recognise the card.

We recover photos from all the formats above, along with camera cards, USB sticks and external drives. See our memory card and flash data recovery service for details, or request a quote online.

Found old cards that won’t read?

If an old memory card holds photos you can’t replace and won’t read, stop trying and call Data Retrieval on 020 7064 4996. We offer a free assessment with no obligation, so you will know what can be recovered before you decide anything.