Free Compact Flash Card Recovery Software For Mac

Free Compact Flash Card Recovery Software For Mac Average ratng: 4,9/5 6013 reviews

No matter what kind of files you lost (papers, documents, photos, videos, music, archives, emails etc), or what types of flash card you are using (SanDisk Ultra CF, Kingston flash memory card, Transcend Flash, Canon CF, Lexar, Dane-elec Compact etc) all are supported. Note: this is a READ-ONLY recovery software. Utility support recovery from all type of memory cards including compact flash card, sD (Secure Digital) card, xD (Extreme Digital) card, mini, micro, PSP card, MU-Flash card and multimedia memory.

Summary :

The CF card is used widely in portable electronic devices to save data. When accident occurs on the electronic devices, data saved on the CF card may be influenced. Besides, users’ improper operations can easily lead to data loss on CF card. Taking these things into consideration, I decide to talk about data recovery on CF card.

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Frankly speaking, CF card used to be the most popular kind of digital flash memory card in the late 1990s. Currently, it is not so popular among users whereas its market share still cannot be underestimated. You can find this after inputting “CF card recovery”, “CF card data recovery”, or “CF card data recovery software” to Google search box.

Why are there so many people who care about CF card and data recovery on CF card? The most direct reason is that there are still a lot of people using CF card. And due to the frequent use, all sorts of accidents could be caused and finally make those people lost data on CF card.

A lot of factors can make us suffer from CF card data loss:

  • Deleting files on CF card accidentally
  • Pressing the format button by mistake
  • Virus infecting CF card
  • Unexpected reasons (such as sudden power failure and physical damage on card surface).

Of course, there’s one exception – when the data saved on CF card are of no use or when users have backups for those data, it’s not a big deal if anything happened to CF card.

Yet, the reality is often not like this. In fact, memory card data recovery is highly concerned. So, in this article, I’ll mainly focus on how to recover files from CF card in detail. After that, I’m feeling like talking about the possible reasons for causing data loss on CF card. And at last, I’ll introduce the application and using tips of CF Card.

CF Card Recovery in Different Situations

I bet what you would think of first after discovering data loss on CF card must be how to finish CF recovery.

As a matter of fact, the most important thing you should notice after data loss is to try every means to protect data in CF card, avoiding secondary damage.

Warning: Please remember, don’t write any new data into the card; otherwise, data overwriting may be caused so as to make data lost permanently. After knowing this, you should seek for suitable recovery companies or programs to start CF card recovery.

Now, I’m going to teach all of you how to recover files from CF card in detail.

Compact Flash Recovery after Accidental Deletion

Hi, I wonder how to recover some deleted photos from the memory card. I am using 7D with sanDisk Extream3. I always delete unwanted photos at every day end and this time did delete a wrong photo so wonder if there is a possibility to recover that photo. I already tried SanDisk RecuePro but it could not recover. Please advise.– from Chalie B. Sornplaeng at DPREVIEW

If you’re also stuck in the situation similar to this one, please get MiniTool Power Data Recovery V8.1 and choose “This PC” to achieve CF card recovery.

Please follow this tutorial given below:

  • Connect your CF card to the USB interface of your computer through adapter or card reader.
  • Click on the “This PC” option and choose the CF card from the right pane.
  • Click on the “Scan” and wait for the scan.
  • Browse the found files and pick out the deleted ones you want to recover. (The deleted files will be marked with a red “X”.)
  • Click on the “Save” button and set a storage path to finish USB data recovery.

If your CF card is not showing up on the computer, please try to make it appear before the recovery by adopting ways introduced in this post:

Various solutions for you to fix USB flash drive not recognized error and recover data from the not showing up/not working USB device.

Please note the following things:

  1. It doesn’t matter what kind of files you want to recover from the CF card; what really matters is what you do after the data loss disaster (please remember not to write new data to the card).
  2. This software can also help you with SD card recovery after accidental deletion and the recovery process is the same.

CF Card Recovery after Mistaken Formatting

Sandisk Compact Flash Recovery

I am using a Sandisk Extreme 60MB/s CF card. I accidentally format the card in m 5D2. There were some photos in there, in RAW format. Is it possible to recover them? Hope someone can recommend me some special tool / application to do this recovery.– from Moogles at DPREVIEW

If you also formatted your CF card mistakenly or found your CF card become inaccessible someday, you may as well choose the “Removable Disk Drive” option to recover data.

Here are things you should do:

  • Connect the CF card to the computer.
  • Click on “Removable Disk Drive” to start.
  • Select the CF card connected through USB interface.
  • Click on the “Scan” button at lower right corner.
  • Browse the scan results during or after the scan.
  • Choose what you need to recover by pressing “Save” button.

When all selected files are saved to appointed place, you can close software to end CF card recovery.

Don’t worry, even if your flash card is dead, Power Data Recovery can also help you with data recovery.

There’s also a not-so-common case when compact flash card recovery is needed: you have partitioned your CF card into more than one partition by using special tool; however, you delete one of them by mistake or virus attacked your CF card and delete partitions on it. In this case, you’ll also need to choose “Removable Disk Drive” to finish compact flash recovery.

As for CF card recovery on Mac, MiniTool Mac Data Recovery should be selected instead.

How Data Get Lost from CF Card

Some people know that data saved on any devices could be at risk, so they form the habit of backing up significant files, hoping to prevent data loss disaster.

However, the real situations are:

  1. most of them lose needed data all of a sudden before they have chance to make a backup;
  2. more than half of the card users haven't realized the importance of data backup yet.

All in all, data are often lost from CF card beyond our expectations. Here, I’d like to summarize the most common reasons for file loss on CF card. After reading that, you are expected to take measures to protect your precious data better.

2 Types of Reasons for Data Loss on CF Card

Type 1: physical failures.

Lots of data loss issues on CF card are caused by card quality problems; such disasters are often too difficult to handle with, so you should not ignore them. Besides, you’d better choose to buy high-quality memory card rather than the very cheap one with extremely low price. After all, physical data loss could bring you terrible losses.

Apart from this, firmware corruption issue is an important part of physical failures on CF card. Unsafe removal of CF card or connecting CF card to computer for a very long time can both lead to firmware corruption issue.

Note: Data lost due to physical problems are always unrecoverable. But you can still give it a shot by using data recovery software or hiring professional hard disk recovery companies to help you.

Type 2: logical failures.

Accidental deletion: you may be not careful enough so that you delete photos from CF card by mistake. At this time, you must be disappointed and feel helpless because you’re not allowed to rely on Recycle Bin to find back deleted files even if the CF card was connecting to computer during file deletion.

Unintentional formatting: you’re also likely to format CF card due to careless operation (your CF card may also be formatted by virus sometimes). In this case, CF card data recovery software becomes necessary if you have no backup or the backup is not updated to the latest version.

Forcing to move CF card: if you moved your CF card when operations (writing new data into/transferring data out from CF card) were still running, you important data may get lost easily. Besides, if any unexpected accidents like power failure happened at that time, data loss could also be brought.

Note: There’s also another special case in which you will lose CF card data: you may create more them one partition on CF card; during management, you may delete one of them (the partition can also be deleted by virus) so that flash card recovery is needed.

3 Main Limitations of CF Card

Though CF card has many advantages, it also has following disadvantages.

One: too limited capacity.

Actually, the capacity of CF card has been doubled over time, but it still fails to keep up with the fast development rate of digital camera pixel.

Two: relatively large volume.

CF card is famous for its small volume at early stage. However, as time goes by, the volume of CF card becomes slightly larger when compared to other types of memory cards like SD card.

Three: performance limitation.

The operating temperature range of CF card is not so suitable for digital camera.

Therefore, some users choose SD card to replace CF card. At this time, they need to transfer all photos and other files from CF card to SD card obviously, before they finally abandon CF card.

In this process many accidents could happen:

  • Scratching CF card when moving it out from digital camera
  • Deleting files by accident/deleting the wrong files
  • Pressing format button by mistake
  • Getting CF card attacked by virus hidden in computer

Thus, you can’t be too careful when using a memory card.

Application and Using Tips of CF Card

What Is a CF Card

CF card, also known as Compact Flash card, is initially a data storage device for portable electronic devices. In 1994, it was firstly produced by SanDisk; at the same time, related specifications were made.

Mac osx server remote software deployment. As a storage device appeared in more than two decades ago, CF card revolutionary uses flash memory.

However, since the storage density of NOR flash memory (used in early CF card) is less than that of the newer NAND flash memory, CF card owns the largest volume among early 90’s three kinds of memory cards (the other two are Miniature Card, also called MiniCard, and Smart Media card).

The good news is that CF card neither abandoned NOR flash memory and adopted NAND flash memory soon later.

Application of CF Card

Project management mac desktop app. As far as we know, CF is one of the first flash memory standards to compete with PCMCIAI which was appeared earlier and provided with a larger volume. Besides, CF is also one of the oldest and most successful standards, so it is suitable for professional camera market.

You can see a CF card in many cases:

  1. In the early days, CF card has been mainly applied to digital cameras and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).
  2. After that, CF card gradually expands its using scope to MP3 players, GPS (Global Positioning System) devices, laptops, etc.
  3. With excellent compatibility, CF card is adopted in various operating systems and hardware platforms, such as DOS, Windows, OS/2, Mac and UNIX.

Using Tips of CF Card

Since CF card is more fragile compared to hard disk, you should be more careful when using it. Here, I summarize some useful tips.

Be gentle.

CF card slot is provided with many small frangible pins which are used to transmit images, videos and other information. If you push too hard when inserting CF card into or plugging it out from computer/other electronic devices, you’re very likely to bend or break the pins. So you must be very gentle.

Hold tight.

For devices like CF card, if it falls to the ground or suffers from strong shock and vibration, data loss will be caused. Or even more serious, the card will be physically damaged.

Avoid high temperature.

The shell of CF card is made up of plastic, so overheating will lead to deformation. Due to the limited space, deformation will make card installation become difficult. Therefore, CF card should avoid prolonged exposure or direct sunlight; meanwhile, it should be placed away from heating appliances.

Keep dry and be away from magnetic field.

Mac

Both humid environment and magnetic field could make CF card damaged and data lost, so we should use and place it under proper conditions.

Recover Compact Flash Card

Verdict

With the fast popularity of digital products, flash memory card has also entered a rapid development period in recent years. It is used widely, so data loss occurs no and then due to different reasons.

I’ve summarized the common reasons for causing data loss on a CF card and the solutions to finish CF card recovery in different cases. Please read the part you’re interested in and leave a message below if you have doubts.

CF Card Recovery FAQ

If you have deleted photos from a CF card by mistake, don’t worry, you can recover them all until they are overwritten by the new data written to the card after deletion. What you need is only a reliable data recovery tool.
? What is the difference between a CF card and an SD card?

Free Compact Flash Card Recovery Software For Mac Free

One of the biggest differences between CF card and SD card is the size of the card: the former is much later than the latter. Another obvious difference lies in the capacity; the capacity of SD card is larger than that of the CF card.
Though SD card is used more frequently and widely nowadays, it doesn’t mean the CF card has been phased out. In fact, it is still used by many photographers since a larger card is less possible to be misplaced. And CF card is also used in digital SLRs.

Compact Flash Card Recovery Software

In the early stage, CF card is faster than SD card. However, SD cards are much faster than CF cards now. The write speed of an Sony SF-G can be up to 300MB/s while the read speed of Transcend Ultimate UHS-II U3 is up to 307.050 MB/s.