...to be upset that i have lost a load of photos and videos from my phone...(but it has got me thinking...)

[LizziePizzie]

Its my fault and I am expecting the comments of "You should have backed up, make sure you back up in the future".

Basically I was having problems with my phone, and the advice I received from Orange was 'back up, wipe phone and restore'. So I did.

However, I stupidly wiped the memory card too, thinking that the back up and restore software also included that too, but it didn't. I should have backed them up seperately, but I didn't, and when i restored my phone and started using it - I noticed they photos and videos were missing.

I have lost about 12 months of photos and videos from my DD life. (This is only my phone and I do have plenty of photos on my proper camera and videos on my DV camera but there were unique moments I only caputred on my phone. Most of the better photos were uploaded to FB but all the videos I have lost.

MY MIL's responce this monring was, well tough, you'll not do that again. Get over it and wel that's life. (However she is gutted that I also lost a photo of her with Joan Baez hugging after a recent gig.)

It got me thinking, are we spoiled with all this media we can use to record our lives and those of the people we love around us? 30/40 years ago my MIL's generation were lucky to have a camera to record moments in time and we have phones, cameras ipads/pods/touches to record every moment we chose. Does that make the pain of loosing someting you have any less painful? Just how obsessive am I now going to be with backing everything up in the future?

PS - There are a couple of pieces of software I have been told about to try and restore the images/videos so I am going to try that tonight after I get home.

YANBU and yes we are. I love going through my mum and dads old photo albums looking at all the pictures of us as kids....we also used to love it when my dad used to do a slide show!

I am so bad with photos, they make it onto the computer and then thats it, half the time I dont even put them on a disc. Thats one of the things on my to do list - put on a disc, print out and put in an album.....mm, as if thats gonna happen anyday soon, lol

I had a load of photos that were very old and of places/houses that no longer exsist,and ruined them in a flood , just after moving house.

I am still saddend about this, 15 years later and i'm not one for pictures. I now kick myself for not taking more when my last dog was younger, as stupid as that sounds.

All you can do is try to comfort yourself with still having some good photos.

The good thing about modern photography is that you can sift through what you want to keep, before printing and store lots easily/safely, paper is to easily damaged.

we lost some photos. Then it occurred to us that you dont sit there often looking through photos. So it didnt really matter.

That is such a shame.

I only have 2 photos of me as a kid so am a bit of an obsessive but haven't ever printed out photos I have taken on any of my phone - don't know how to do it - and so have lost lots.

If you've not used the card since wiping it, there is a very good chance a data recovery firm will be able to find the files if you can't do it.

^ what SoupDragon said (may not even need an expensive data recovery firm)

If you're written the photos/videos off anyway and you want me to try (no promises mind) I'd be very happy to take a look - I have the right tools. It makes me sad to think of losing stuff like this. :(

But you're right, this sort of thing is fragile - just a slightly different sort of fragile than negatives and prints.

Lizzie I hope you manage to recover them somehow. I know the frustration of losing photos. It stays with you...

The problems that face us are not just backing them up, but how to keep them readable in 10 years time by whatever software is available to us then. Might be like trying to find something to recognise a document that we'd whipped up on our ZX81...

I lost all the photos on the memory card of my phone recently, and I managed to recover most of them using software available on the internet.

The process was straightforward & it only took a few minutes.

Fingers crossed you will get your precious photos back. :)

Update - I tried online software but it only saw 8 files (none of them the lost images) and then wanted to charge me, so I abandonned that idea and have left my card with a computer repair shop in town. will keep you posted on the success.

computer repair shop said no :( :( :(

Aparently blackberry corupt the data when they format it :(