R7 photos turned black on both SD cards

[Chickadee12]

I was on vacation and had filled one SD card and was on the second card, when I went to review my shot the screen was black.  I looked at the info page (the one that includes the histogram) and all the photos on both of my cards showed nothing.  The histogram was a white bar at the left side.  There was still information on my settings and a file number and size, but no images on either card (about 12,000 images) I had a spare SD card so I stuck that in the camera and took a picture and pressed the review button and the new image was there.  I have searched everything and can't find a possible explanation on why both SD cards show black pictures.  The images were there earlier in the afternoon.  There was another participant on the trip with a R7 and she had a question about how I set my camera up, so I checked the menu to see how I had set up a particular button.  Perhaps I hit something?  I shoot in Raw3.  I have downloaded the pictures to my computer/Lightroom and they show static when lightened.

HELP!

Anne

[Chickadee12]

I just checked and the video files are all ok and were not "erased" 

Anne

[ebiggs1]

"...no images on either card (about 12,000 images) ..."

I don't know if I have a solution for your current situation but I strongly urge you and everybody to stop using huge SD and get several smaller ones. Switch them out often so all your photos are not subject to disaster all at once.

If you have a major top brand SD, they all have recovery software you might try that. Also while on the subject of top brand make sure you buy only top brand SD and buy from a known good retail store. Amazon is not a good source unless you are getting it directly from Amazon. Most time you are not and most people don't know or realize that.

eBay is another bad source so be super careful buying form eBay. Try the recovery software it won't hurt.

[Chickadee12 · Accepted solution]

Turns out that when I looked at all the photos, I had about 7500 black ones and lots of good ones.  It happened all within about 30 minutes - the end of one card and the start of the other one.  Something must have happened (something resting on camera perhaps) so when I looked back at my photos I only saw the black ones.  Whew - all ok.  Great advice tho from ebiggs1!