Photos from phone have vanished! HELP.

[Mouseface]

I have a Samsung Galaxy ACE S5830. It's an Android, version 2.3.4 and uses Gingerbread I think?

I can take photos and they are in the gallery no worries. They stay for days or weeks. Then at other times, they just vanish. I don't 'share' them, or send them to another file/person. I don't delete them, I don't move them, copy them or anything.

I view them, some stay, some go. It's upsetting as some are of the DC. The ones of DS in particular as he has SN so I hate the fact that they just go. I have no control over this...... it's so random.

I took some photos today and tried to send them to my Gmail account straight away and they just got 'stuck' and then vanished. The email arrived with no photos. I've done this before many times and all has been fine.

I haven't backed my phone up as I have no idea how to. I don't have any software on my laptop to do so. Back up I mean so they're not there either.

Can anyone tell me how to recover lost photos from a phone? Please?

Your phone should have come with a cable that is USB one end (plug into PC) and micro or mini USB at the other (plug into phone).

Your PC should automatically detect the phone as if it was a memory stick and a pop up window should appear, inviting you to view the files on your phone. Click on that and in the new window look for folder named Photos or DCIM. Drag and drop the photos onto your PC.

Re disappearing photos, it could be that the photos are still on your phone and that they have merely become invisible to your phone. Hopefully you can see these photos in the window mentioned above.

Hey Totally*, thanks for the reply. My phone is a bag of shite, (technical term) thanks to Orange. They have put their software over Android's on this phone, therefore making data un-secure/stable.

I've been to Carphone Warehouse this morning and they told me that 100's of Orange customers have the same issue. It's not the phone, it's the software. It will cost be ££££ to send it to Orange/T-Mobile, or EE as they now are, to have it removed and that might not solve the problem so I'm going to buy a new phone.

When I plug the phone into my PC, it can't even 'see' it! Lesson? NEVER BUY ORANGE NETWORK PHONES unless you are sure they've not overwritten your Android software.

Thank you for your help though

Your phone may still be salvageable.

Speaking generally, it is possible to 'skin' Android. That is to say, add another layer on top of Android to make it look like an iPhone for example. Orange has added its own skin which, depending on how they did it, may be switched off or deinstalled.

Re photos, when you plug the phone in, the phone is supposed to ask you whether you want to mount the phone as if it was a USB memory stick OR to simply charge the phone. You only get to 'see' the phone on your PC if you select the memory stick option.

Alternatively, take out the SD card and plug it into a card reader that is plugged into your PC.

I suspect that the Orange software has simply made your photos invisible to the phone as opposed to deleting them.

So option 1. Get ride of the Orange skin if you can.

Option 2. Try getting the PC to 'see your phone. Once connected try to find the folder mentioned above.

Option 3. Assuming that your photos are stored on the sd card as opposed to internal memory, take out the card and connect it directly to your PC or you could plug it into the photo booth machine at Boots.