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Disaster Prevention and Recovery Part 2
By Falcon
"Do you mind if I see that last shot?" my client asked.
"Sure," I responded as I turned the camera back towards him.
"Hmmm," he said as he pressed his glasses nearly against the LCD panel, "can't see a damned thing."
"OK," I said, "let me get my laptop."
We spent a few minutes looking at the RAW image in Canon's DPP. I showed him roughly how the photo would be processed so that he could visualize the final product. "Fine," he said, "lets talk about options for a few minutes." And we did. But a few minutes lasted nearly half an hour. When our conversation ended, I walked back to the laptop, took the CF card, put it back into the camera and formatted it. After all, I had just copied the RAW images to my hard disk. When the session ended, I returned to the studio, processed the photos and posted them to our web site.
About a week later my client called. "Hey, Falcon," he said, "great work but I don't see the photo you and I looked at on your laptop. I really think that one said it all."
"It isn't on the web site?"
"No."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not."
With my client still on the phone I checked the web site. He was correct. The photo wasn't there and neither were sixteen others. "I am not sure what happened," I told him, "but let me see if I can find it. Perhaps I saved it somewhere on my laptop. Let me get back to you."
I checked the laptop. The RAW image was nowhere to be found. In fact, all seventeen - the one he wanted to use and sixteen others - were gone. Fortunately, I found the TIFF created by DPP. For some reason I still can't recall, I must have processed the RAW image while he and I were talking.
So, what happened? I will never know for sure but my guess is that I really hadn't copied the files to the laptop before I reformatted the card in the camera. Apparently I was distracted by my conversation with my client and had forgotten to copy the RAW images. We had attempted to recover the images but the cards had been used so many times since then that there was no trace of the missing images.
This isn't the only time distraction has lead to potential loss of critical data. On assignment at a wedding several years ago now my flash batteries "died" sooner than expected. I had just taken a CF card out of my camera in order to start uploading to the laptop. Once again someone distracted me. I remember looking down at two identical CF cards knowing that one had been backed up to the laptop and the other hadn't. There wasn't time to examine both in the laptop in order to sort things out. The cake was about to be cut and I had to move quickly. I looked at JD, my business partner, and asked him if he knew which one was which. "Don't look at me, man," he said. That day I had a third CF card and despite the pressure of the situation I made the correct decision - I left both cards on the table by the laptop and used the third card. When the cake had been cut and the toasts made, I had time to determine which card was which. Had I made the wrong decision, precious memories would have been lost forever.
Why begin an article on disaster recovery with stories about CF cards? Because both incidents illustrate a very important point: The best way to recover from a disaster is to prevent a disaster from happening. There are certain facts of life as a professional photographer. One of those is that distractions happen all the time. Another is that as much as most photographers are control freaks, often the one thing we seem to have least often is control. Distraction and lack of control lead to unexpected problems and some of those can be disastrous. It doesn't take much to format a card that hasn't been backed up and then use the card again. Once a card is re-used, any data that had been on the card is lost forever.
So, how does one make sure a distraction doesn't result in a fatal loss of data? Well, there are some things one can do. For example, we use sets of cards. There are two cards in a set and each card is labeled. Assuming I am not so distracted that I can't remember two simple numbers, I need only turn the card over to check the number. Usually, that is enough to stop me from formatting a card that has yet to be backed up. If I can't remember, I immediately isolate the entire set and use the second set. If all else fails - and it has - I keep a fifth card in a zippered pouch on my camera strap. If nothing else, the fifth card enables me to begin backing up a set of cards in order to ensure that all images have been copied.
Here are some guidelines that we use that might help prevent data loss before a card is backed up:
- Have at least five memory cards that together equal or exceed the total disk space required for your most demanding event. For example, I currently
have two 8 gig cards and two 4 gig cards and one "fail safe" 2 gig card. Together they give me 25 gigs of storage. For my camera, a Canon Eos 1Ds Mark II,
that is enough to do an entire wedding without downloading to my laptop. That way, even if my laptop hard drive become full or if for some reason the
laptop fails, or if I can't take time to download, or become so distracted that I can't remember which cards have been downloaded, I can still finish the
wedding.
- Divide the memory cards into three sets and label them accordingly. So, 1.1 and 1.2 for the cards in set one, and 2.1 and 2.2 for the cards in set two.
The fifth card is labeled with the word "Safe".
- Develop rituals to help maintain focus and discipline. For example, I always turn a card that hasn't been uploaded over so that its back is up. Cards
ready to be used are face up in my zippered card pouch. I don't need to look for numbers or remember which set I am using. If the card is face up, it is
ready for use.
- Never mix sets. Never use cards out of order. Never removed the fail safe card from the camera strap pouch unless the situation is truly an emergency.
If you have to use it, make sure you put it back in its zippered pouch.
- Before formatting a card for reuse, do a manual comparison of the numbered sequence of images on the card and those on your backup device. If the
numbers match or if some are missing, stop, isolate the card and its companion until the problem can be resolved and use the next set.
- This rule is much more important than it might seem - NEVER - I repeat NEVER delete a photo from the CF card while it is in the camera. Why? Simply put,
in rule four we talked about quickly comparing numeric sequences in order to make sure no data has been lost during transfer to the backup device. It is
better to retain one bad image than to have to stop and think during an assignment why a single photo is missing. Time is more expensive than digital memory.
- Format each card after data has been backed up not once but twice. This is important for two reasons:
- It makes it easy to determine if a card has been backed up. If there are photos on the card, chances are it hasn't been backed up.
- File systems can become corrupt - especially since deleting an image doesn't really remove the data. It just changes the name of the file
to one that indicates the image or file has been deleted and the space assigned to it can be reused. Formatting twice assures that the possibility
of corruption will be minimal.
- When in doubt, back up the card again. Better to have two copies of one hundred or more photos than no photos at all. Remember, once a card has been
written over, successful data recover is not possible.
- Prepare for the inevitable. At some point, no matter how careful you are, you will make a mistake and data will be lost. Include in your workflow a
mechanism for addressing this possibility. For example, at the end of every assignment, before we format our memory cards in preparation for the next
assignment, we make sure no data has been lost. Then and only then do we format the cards yet again. This takes time, of course, sometimes an hour or
more, but this is time well spent.
- Make sure that you have software that will allow you to immediately attempt to recover data. In fact, it is best to have two different data recovery
applications. Not all data recovery applications are equally effective and in fact some are better than others in specific situations. We actually have
three different recovery tools: two specifically for CF cards and one that is excellent for hard drives.
- Think fail safe. If things begin to unravel or if your system for determining what has or hasn't been backed up fails, isolate the cards in question and
go on to the next set.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me at Falcon@NyghtFalcon.com.
Falcon Bio
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