A quick question regarding memory cards in cameras...

[Schlubalybub]

Basically, my mum's partner has a problem with his camera. Recently he went away and took a load of photos. As he was loading the pictures up on to the computer (Fujitsu Siemens running Windows 2000, if that helps at all), he could see them on the computer and was opening them to look at them when the pictures vanished. Now all the camera says is "memory card initialising" when he tries to use the memory card. Does anyone know if he can salvage his pictures and what he can do to rectify the error on his card?
Thanks

[Alastor]

This is a very random shot and may well be of no help at all, but if the pics are still there on the card, taking out the card from the camera and try with a separate card reader might perhaps help.

Maybe the best thing to do is to take it to a camera shop and get professional advise.

[Grymmditch]

Honestly that doesn't sound good. Although, "initializing" could mean different things from different manufacturers. My first guess would be some kind of formatting which would wipe the card entirely, but not that's not what it definitely means, necessarily.

What does the support portion of the camera manufacturer's website say? I'd look there first for answers.
What kind of camera is this? How exactly are you trying to view the pictures on the card, from the camera itself, or a built in card reader on the computer? You'll need to provide more specific information about exactly what happened, the more specific, the better.

[Schlubalybub]

um, it's a fujifilm finepix 6900Zoom digital camera. Ray started loading the pictures from the camera straight to the PC using an USB cable. As far as I am aware, he had loaded the pics onto the PC (or at least most of them, he hasn't told me if he's managed to upload them all before they disappeared) but started opening them on the PC and they all vanished...
I've told him to take his memory card to either a computer shop or Boots photo lab and they'll hopefully be able to tell him if his pics are still there.

He's been using this camera for years, he's probably managed to take hundreds of thousands of pics using the same memory card (he used to be a photographer and used digis with memory cards in before he got this one)so he's a bit confuzzled by this one to be honest...

[Hysteria]

In some cases you can get the photos restored. My point and click digital camera has an option in the menu which allows you to do this, or if the photos were really important sometimes if you take it to a camera shop they can do it for you.
But yeah, it doesn't sound good unfortunately

[Kevin]

First thing to do is see if you can read the card in a memory card reader.
If that works but you still can't see the images then you can try an image recovery tool such as this -
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/
That app saved my bacon a few weeks ago after I'd accidently formatted a memory card.

[Schlubalybub]

Thanks everyone- he took it to a camera shop in town and they salvaged everything on it and got it onto disc

Thanks again!

[Alastor]

Glad to hear you got them saved!