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Unformat CF Compact Flash Card Data

Have you ever formatted your CF card no matter what reason is? You may get annoyed if you format it by mistake or it is formatted by others. The emergent thing you want to do is to unformat the compact flash card whose files are inaccessible. Then have you get back your losses successfully at that moment? Please do not give up if you still have no idea after so many failures. There is away to deal with your problem. It is data recovery software.

Example of formatting compact flash card by error

I can not view any photos saved on my compact flash card originally. The only operation I have performed is to format the CF card. I have no idea what format mean, so I do experiments on my own compact flash card. Now I get that it would cause me lose all my files saved on it and I want to unformat it. I have no idea, either. I don't dare to do any test on it at this time in case of something bad happen like above. Is there any way to restore all my losses? -Ellen from New York

How to retrieve lost information from the formatted CF card with data recovery software

Unformat the compact flash card, which means get back data from the formatted CF card, is not an impossible task as matter of fact. Data recovery software could help you resolve it quickly and safely. You can follow steps below to conduct your information retrieval one by one:

Recover data from formatted CF card

Preparation: Download and install data recovery software on your computer. Connect the CF card to your computer and launch the software. Then, select a proper recovery module.

1Insert the compact flash card to a card reader and connect both of them to the computer.
2Download and install the data recovery software on the computer.
3Open the data recovery tool. Choose the recovery model and target disk to scan.
4Preview contents in the list after scanning and select files need to be restored to recover.

Things should be kept in mind in order to the success of data recovery

You should be careful in every detail once the compact flash card is formatted if you want to recover files from it. The opportunity of data recovery may be reduced if you ignore just one aspect no matter how small it is. Here are some things that need you caution as follows:

1. Do not format the compact flash card again which have been formatted already.

2. Do not save any new data on the formatted compact flash card.

3. Download and mount the data recovery program on the computer not the formatted CF card.

4. Save the restored files on the computer disks, too. But you can remove them to the compact flash card after a minute.

5. Plug it out of the computer or other digital devices before you know how to unformat it.

What is CF card?

CF card, whose full name is compact flash card, is a member of memory card family. It was put forward by SanDisk at first in 1994. It is mainly used to cameras at the beginning, but nowadays CF ports are widely used to PDA, laptop, computer and digital cameras. What's more, the memory capacity of compact flash is range 8MB to 100GB. There are a number of platforms that support the CF card, including DOS, windows 3. x, windows95, windows 98, windows CE, apple system 7, Linux, and many kinds of UNIX. It still has some shortages in using. Firstly, its volume is limited. Though its memory capacity has improved these years, it still can not satisfy the development of digital cameras. Secondly, it has a bigger size than SD card. So many ultra thin digital cameras prefer to choose SD card not the CF card. Thirdly, its function is limited. The working temperature of compact flash is 0 to 40 degree.

Different reasons that lead to the formatted compact flash card situation

Formatting the compact flash card could due to many different reasons. But the result is as the same, which is to lose all data saved on it. Here are some common formatted compact flash card scenarios as follows:

1. Format the CF card in order to anti-virus.

2. Format the compact flash card for the sake of delete files saved on it quickly and permanently.

3. Format the CF card by accident.

4. Format the compact flash card due to RAW file system.

Sources and Citations

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