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I have unintentionally formatted the SDXC card from my Sony camera and realised that I had not downloaded all the Photos and Video from it. I have tried various recovery programmes a couple of which are showing at least 3 to 4gb of data on the card but in file formats that cannot be opened and read/displayed. These are .INP and .INT The Camera used was a Sony RX10M3 and the SDXC card is a Lexar Professional 64GB To date I have tried, RECUVA, ZAR, EASEUS DATA RECOVERY, LEXAR DATA RECOVERY, all without success. The nearest has been EASEUS but the recoverd files are not in a readable format. I think now the problem is more about how can i read the .INP and .INT files as these appear to have been recovered from the card but nothing I have, including the Sony software that goes with the camera will open them.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ It may be worth adding details of the recovery programmes you've tried so people don't suggest ones that haven't worked for you. Some programmes also have different "modes of operation" (usually affecting how long they take to run) - so if you could include those details as well people may be able to suggest which other modes may be worth trying (if they have had success in your scenario). \$\endgroup\$
    – db9dreamer
    Aug 11, 2018 at 12:03
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    \$\begingroup\$ Possible duplicate of How can I recover deleted photos from an SD Card? \$\endgroup\$
    – Romeo Ninov
    Aug 11, 2018 at 12:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Possible duplicate of How to recover raw files from formatted SD card? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Aug 14, 2018 at 3:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'd suggest superuser for that question, it is mainly about computer operation... there is mostly no difference whether a camera or a computer put the files on the card... \$\endgroup\$
    – rackandboneman
    Aug 15, 2018 at 21:39

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PhotoRec always did a good job when I needed it. JPEG and RAW .

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

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  • \$\begingroup\$ PhotoRec is very well known, free and often recommended so it almost feels if there's nothing bad about it. Yet, in some cases I used it it was quite outperformed by other tools. First of all it produced 100's of useless thumbs and failed to detect 30-40% of high res photos. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joep van Steen
    Apr 17, 2021 at 22:58
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Many Sony cameras send the equivalent of the ATA TRIM command to the card (ERASE). Takes only a few seconds to execute. So question is if the card was formatted in camera?

ERASE command does not actually erase, but it modifies translator. It sort of 'unmaps' all LBA blocks at firmware level. If you now try to access any of these sectors card just returns zeros without even reading them. No file recovery tools can recover data as all they get to see is zeros too. To recover the data you'll need one of those:

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And accompanying software

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Unfortunately probably too expensive for an individual case + using these tools comes with s steep learning curve. Most data recovery labs have this hard/software or very similar (there's 2 more manufacturers of similar tools). The hardware portion allows you to 'dump' the contents of the NAND memory while bypassing the controller. The software can then be used to emulate the controller (ECC correction, descrambling etc.) and build a virtual translator.

If your intention is to send the card to a data recovery specialist it is important to disconnect the card and make sure it does not get power. If it receives power, and it may even if the Sony camera is switched off, garbage collection has the chance of actually erasing unmapped sectors.

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