Missing Photos on Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

[Android Central Question]

So I may have made the dumb mistake of not backing up these photos, I understand that.

So I'm prepping for a trip and at one point there was no room on my SD card, so recent photos had been saving to the phone directly. I cleared up some room on my SD card and wanted to move all the photos that were on my phone to that SD. I was in gallery and selected the photos to move. Everything seemed to work, except videos we're unavailable showing up with a grey question mark (all the photos were still there). Decided that maybe a restart would help, so did that opened up gallery and still the issue with videos was still there (photos all still there). Then all of a sudden the photos started to mass disappear from the gallery as I had it open. What happened to these photos?

All the photos that were previously on my SD card are all still there (July 2016 to December 2018). I'm just missing the photos I had from that period on missing now. I never deleted the photos and I did have access for a period of time after the move, so I'm wondering if there's any solution here to recover those photos. If I've lost the videos, that's just something I'll deal with but I really would like to get those photos back.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Using a file manager app, look in the directory on the SD card where you moved the photo and video files, and see if the actual files are still there.

 

[dylanwilson92]

Thanks!

I never really set a directory to send the pictures to. There was two folders in my gallery, both called "Camera". One was saved to the camera, the other to the SD Card. I selected everything in the one saved to the camera and selected "Move to" and sent it to the other camera folder which is saved to the SD Card.

I've checked the SD Card -> DCIM folder and it's not there and it's not in any obvious locations (again my knowledge of the backend is limited).

The confusing part for me is that it seemed to have partly worked as I saw the photos for a period of time after the move, sensing that at least it somewhat worked (only issues with video).

 

[B. Diddy]

You probably already did this, but look in the /DCIM/Camera directory on the SD card.

 

[dylanwilson92]

I have. The photos from 2016 to 2018 are on the SD Card -> DCIM. Nothing is in the Storage -> DCIM.

 

[B. Diddy]

It's possible the SD card could be corrupt or counterfeit. Install SD Insight to see if the card is genuine or counterfeit. Counterfeit cards are programmed to report more storage than they actually have, and if you try saving more than the card can actually hold, then files can start getting corrupt. (Be aware that SD Insight might not work on all Nougat or above devices.)

If it's a valid card, then go to Settings>Storage, Unmount the card, remove it, and insert it into your computer. Can the computer read these files? Backup as much as you can right now, then run chkdsk to look for bad sectors: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...guide-using-chkdsk-fix-corrupted-sd-card.html.