I recently took some photos but am now unable to retrieve them from the digital camera. The photos are stored on a Lexar MagicGate 128MB memory stick, and were taken on a Sony CyberShot digital camera. Could you assist in retrieving these photos from the memory stick?

There are a few possible scenarios at play in this situation. First, it is possible that your digital camera is no longer reading the memory stick correctly, but the data is still intact on the memory stick. The second scenario is that the data on the memory stick has become corrupted, which is a bigger problem. So, we will deal with both these scenarios.

First, we need to check whether the data is still intact on the memory stick. I assume that you have been downloading the photos by inserting the memory card into the camera and then connecting the camera to the computer using a USB cable. In this situation, the camera is essentially acting like a glorified memory card reader, simply reading the memory stick and providing this data to the connected computer. If something has gone awry with the digital camera it may not be reading the memory card correctly, resulting in the inability to download photos from the memory stick. In this case, the best way to determine whether the data on the memory stick is still good is by using a memory card reader. This will provide a purely physical connection from the memory card to the computer, allowing you to directly explore the contents of the memory card (just like a CD or USB drive) to see whether your data (photos) are intact.

So, you will need to purchase a memory card reader suitable for the type of memory card you need to read. In your question you did not define the format of memory card, but since you are connecting the memory card into a Sony camera I assume that the card is a Duo format card. There are several different types of cards (such as CompactFlash, SecureDigital, Duo, etc.) and they are all different physical sizes. So you need to make sure the reader you purchase is compatible with the card you wish to read, otherwise you probably won’t even be able to fit the card into the reader! Assuming that you have double-checked the format of the card, take the physical card with you to show the shop salesman. Memory card readers cost around $30 - $40 so this should not be an expensive exercise.

Once you have the memory card reader, connect it by USB to your computer and then plug the memory card into the reader. Open My Computer and you will probably see that multiple new drives have appeared. If the memory card reader you purchased has multiple card reader slots (this is the case because each slot allows you to connect a particular type of card, given that each card has different physical dimensions) then a drive will appear in My Computer which represents each slot. It can be difficult to determine exactly which drive correlates to each slot (in particular, in which drive is your Lexar memory card is connected) so the best option is to go through each of the drives until you eventually find a drive which has data. When you open one of the drives, and there is data on the card, that will be your Lexar memory card. Most digital cameras do not put their photos in the root level of the card, but instead organise them into a hierarchy of folders. So, explore the memory card folder structure to locate your photos. Once you have found the photos you should be able to copy these from the memory card onto your computer just like copying files from a CD or USB drive. After the files have copied, double-click and open the photos to ensure they have not been corrupted and are still intact.

However, we now need to deal with the second scenario whereby the data on the memory stick has become corrupted. If you insert the memory card into the memory card reader device, and none of the drives which appear in My Computer successfully open and display the contents of the card, then this is the first indication there may be something wrong with the physical card. Before jumping to this conclusion, make sure you re-insert the card into the reader just in case it was not inserted correctly. It may also be worthwhile disconnecting the reader from the computer, restart the computer, and then completely re-connect the reader and memory card from scratch. If still no success, it seems that there is something physically wrong with the memory card and the computer is unable to read the card (much like inserting a physically corrupt USB drive or CD into the computer). In this case, you could take the card to a professional data recovery service, but they are not cheap and there is also no guarantee that they can recover your data. However, if the photos are precious enough that you are willing to take the chance, then you may wish to pursue this option.

The other scenario is that you are able to access the memory card, but there is nothing stored on the card. This could be for two main reasons. First, you accidentally deleted the data off the card. Second, the card is suspect and not reading the data correctly. In either scenario you will likely need to take the memory card to a data recovery specialist to see if they can restore the data from the card for you. Additionally, since there would be uncertainty surrounding whether the card is faulty I would not use that memory card again, and instead purchase a new card for future use (to avoid the situation where future photos are corrupted).