Help! How do I download photos from Micro SD?

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slowwww

Veteran
Location
Surrey
Sorry, probably a numpty question
We gave my eldest a Samsung digital camera prior to her skiing holiday and she has come back with 300+ photos on it!
I have a DSLR and a compact which use Compact Flash and Smart Data respectively, but this camera uses MicroSD.
I use a SanDisk card reader to download from my data cards, but this doesn’t have a slot for MicroSD.
I have obtained a ‘host’ card that the MicroSD card plugs into making this the same size as a standard SD card, but while my card reader flashes when this is inserted to recognise a data source has been inserted, the computer won’t recognise any data on the MicroSD.
I then got a USB stick type thingy that the MicroSD card plugs into, and again this flashes, but no data is retrieved. The camera doesn’t have a data port and lead and so I can’t download this directly.
I download all of my photos into Photoshop Elements, but have tried downloading this into ’My Pictures’ on Windows, still to no avail.
Do I need to download new drivers for my laptop to enable me to do this, and if so can anyone recommend any? I run DriverDoc software regularly to seek to ensure such things are up to date.
Any help would be appreciated.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
How old are the card readers. I would buy a new one as most SD cards are SDHC (high capacity) and the older readers can't see them.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Does the laptop have an SD port on it. Most have. You can put the micro SD into the SD adapter then in the SD port . Oh you have put them in the right way round
 

shouldbeinbed

Rollin' along
Location
Manchester way
As above, the more worrying prospect is that the card or camera writing to it has corrupted the data in some way and while the computer is seeing it, it can't interpret it.

1st option = take the card to Asda or similar that had a plug and print photo kiosk system and see if that recognises the data, if so then you can be reassured that the card is ok and you just need to buy a suitable card reader & make sure your computer is up to date with the latest drivers/readers etc for picture viewing (be amazed if it isn't tho)

If the kiosk system can't see your images either then you most likely need to see a specialist computer or photographic place to try to recover the data and fix any corruption issue that is precluding it opening properly. Not as drastic as it sounds, data is almost invariably there and the good recovery tools are very good at finding and fixing things, it'd be a pretty catastrophic failure to have really lost or not recorded it.
 

mybike

Grumblin at Garmin on the Granny Gear
It might be worth putting the micro SD back into the camera to see if it can read the card still. Micro SD cards can be easily broken inserting or removing them into an adaptor, be careful.
 

jonny jeez

Legendary Member
Does the Samsung camera have WiFi...if so try exporting that way.

Also, are you totally sure the 300 shots are on the SD memory and not an internal memory of the device, in which case they may need moving to the sd first.
If not, then plus one on the age of the sd adaptor...
 

sight-pin

Veteran
This is all very much over my head,
All i do with my micro sd cards is click on the start, then computer, removable disc,DCIM, media.etc... Although thats probably no help at all i guess?
 

TVC

Guest
Does the camera not have a USB at all? How does the battery charge?
 

Rezillo

TwoSheds
Location
Suffolk
How old are the card readers. I would buy a new one as most SD cards are SDHC (high capacity) and the older readers can't see them.

This would be my bet as well. It is a bit worrying that the usb reader isn't working either, unless it is also an old one. Some of the microSD to SD adapters can be dodgy so worth trying a different brand.
 
OP
OP
S

slowwww

Veteran
Location
Surrey
Does the laptop have an SD port on it. Most have. You can put the micro SD into the SD adapter then in the SD port . Oh you have put them in the right way round

A brief search I found a previosuly unidentified slot which proved to be an SD card reader!

Photos downloaded, daughter delighted and family's faith in dad's technical abilities restored, and so thanks to you all!!
 
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