HELP! Need to recover accidentally deleted footage from a Canon XA10!

[seajackson93]

Hi team,

I borrowed a camera from work to film a concert back in December and I thought I had already saved the footage across......so I then deleted said footage before returning the camera to work, only to discover a week later........they're gone! (obviously). I use 3 other cameras for this job, except the footage I need is from the main camera that I kept as a stationary Long Shot.....which was going to be my main source of footage for the edit I'm putting together.

Now, this camera has been used heaps of times for various projects over the last 6 years at least, so my question is: do you know of a recovery program that allows you to recover only a few files at a time? Because with the programs I have, they're trying to recover 6/7 years of footage AT ONCE which will take FOREVER to download. I only want to recover the 6 I stupidly deleted!!

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

[BurnUnit]

Not familiar with the XA10 specifically, but does it have the ability to record to a removeable memory card as well as its built-in internal memory? If so, dig into your manual and see if it's possible to COPY files from the internal memory to a removeable SD card or such. Maybe it will be easier to download or recover the files from an SD card in a card reader. Stranger things have happened.

Are you using any kind of "Canon Connect" software on your computer to try and download your files? Did you get any kind of a Canon utilities disk with your XA10?

[communitylad]

Thanks ever so much for all advice BurnUnit.

I can confirm Recuva is superb! The most recent footage has been recovered without error, footage from a few months ago has been heavily corrupted but thats backed up, i'd accepted that it was gone so i'm feeling bloody marvellous.

So to conclude, if you've accidentally deleted your footage like a fool and you're feeling down, RECUVA is your bruva. 

[BurnUnit]

You're quite welcome! It's a good group here and most everyone seems to enjoy pitching in and helping out when they can.

The only reason you might have to feel foolish would be if you didn't end up learning a better workflow for handling your video files. It's fine to leave them on the camera if you have the need and the disk space, but I suspect you'll make it a habit now to move or at least copy your freshly shot files onto your desktop or laptap for safekeeping.

[communitylad]

You're absolutely bang-on there my friend. Just bought another hardrive 🙂