Data Recovery best practices

Speaking as someone who has accidentally blown away a full card of photos (from a wedding, no less), I don't think it's possible to overstate the important of this subject.

Personally, if you haven't had a card failure, or a failure of concentration that causes all your photos to no longer be on the card, then you need to look for methods of recovery that work for you.

After the initial panic, the denial, and the subsequent cursing, I started looking for something to help me recover the photos. What I found (eventually) was PhotoRescue Wizard. Now, the great thing about this product is that you can download it, and make sure you can make use of it - if it can recover the photos, you can see the thumbnail versions - then you can buy the product (assuming you can see the thumbnails) and, of course, use it forever more.

For me, it worked great. 300+ photos recovered, and I didn't end up nailed to something by the bride.