[Review] Lexar Image Rescue 5

[Review] Lexar Image Rescue 5

Not once in the last nine years have I accidentally erased a memory card.

Update 1/2018

From the Lexar Home Page: As of August 28, 2017, Longsys has acquired the Lexar trademark and will begin selling current and future products under the Lexar brand.

Lexar Image Rescue 5 is currently available (as of 1/2018) to be downloaded from their site.

Operator Error, Images Erased

I have my Nikon D4s settings panel preconfigured so I can quickly erase a card contents AFTER I have ingested the images onto my central computer.

Somehow I activated this delete card setting while in the field. Then even after thinking, I had answered the Nikon warning screen correctly, poof, the images were erased. Not Good. I had just witnessed some great god-lights under the canopy of pine trees which had stuck some white water. Those images were now erased entirely because of my error.

I calmly went through my head what my options were for file recovery. I knew that I could use Image Rescue by Lexar. My laptop was fully charged and inside my car at the trailhead. The sunlight for my morning shoot was just about over so I packed up and headed for the car.

Tried to Recover Images with Lexar V3, Did Not Work

I popped my Sony XQD 64gb Series (180MB/s) out and placed it into my 17″ MacBookPro PMCIA Sony Express Card Adaptor and opened up the Lexar software….Nothing Happened…The sweat started to form on my forehead.

Wild thoughts about the new Sony XQD card and memory limits percolated through my head. I knew using file recovery software was the last resort and there were no guarantees. Once a long time ago I had used the software, and the format I had shot with could not be recovered. I ended up retrieving JPG’d but not the RAW files. I was hoping that the software was going to at least reclaim the JPGs but right now I had nothing.

As I drove back to the home base, my thoughts were on how to exclude elements that might be causing the software not to work. My first course of action was to head to the Lexar site and see if an UPGRADE to another version was available, perhaps my copy was not current. The Lexar website did not offer an upgrade path. However, I did find out that I was two revision behind.

Upgraded to Lexar Image Rescue V5,

So I updated/purchased for $33, Lexar Image Rescue 5 and installed on my MBP. Then I inserted the XQD card and right away saw the card on the selection panel and activated the recovery process.

Recovery Workflow for Image Rescue 5

With a 64Gb card, the recovery of the files took almost 45 minutes. I kept coming back to stare at the blue progress bar. It was taking some time, but it was plugging away and spitting out some cryptic status code text, all proceeded smoothly.

It was here that you come to appreciate LEXAR engineering and their professional software and manufacturing and service. I am not aware of Sony or any other card manufacturers has software to help data recovery.

All the while the recovery was going on, I kept wondering what format I was going to get back, I was never prompted to make a selection as you did in version 3.

Success. All 63 RAW Deleted Images Recovered + 1,000 more!

Once completed the software then starts rendering thumbnails, I only needed 64 images, but I let the software do its thing, and it recovered 1,123 images. It had found images from December 2013. I selected all the pictures and then was prompted to store at a new location.

I had recovered all my deleted images. To my surprise, all files were also in their Nikon NEF format, with all the camera metadata intact.

Lexar Image Rescue 5 worked flawlessly and I recommend this software and manufacture highly.

You may be eligible for Lexar Image Rescue V5 for Free

Note that the Lexar website says that if you purchase a Lexar Pro series card that you qualify for the software for free. Whatever your situation, you should get a copy and have it loaded on your Mac or PC for that unforeseen occasion.