Flash Memory Card Rescue

This photo at the White House, and many others were salvaged from a smashed SD card by the team at Circuit Technology Center.

What do you do when a flash memory SD card containing photos of President George W. Bush and your client in the White House breaks into pieces, leaving you holding one of the tiny microchips you know full well should be inside?

The answer probably won't surprise you one bit: Take a deep breath and try to remain calm. This will provide you with no practical benefit. It will, however, afford you just enough time to really mull over how completely screwed you might be.

After an epic effort to gain access to the White House and nab a camera that would actually be allowed inside, a photographer was able to take hundreds of photos and a few hi-res video clips of his clients and G.W. at the White House, only to see the Flash memory SD card that contained all the data snap to pieces in his hands like a cracker. A really small, really important, $30 cracker.

Broken Flash memory SD card. The Flash chip with the important digital images was salvaged and placed on a new SD card.

This is precisely the situation photographer Justin Kase Conder found himself in back in 2008.

For more about the unusual salvage job done by the team at Circuit Technology Center, please read the story directly from the source, the photographer who found himself in this tough spot, award winning photographer, Justin Kase Conder.

A photographer, the White House, and a smashed SD card: A data-salvaging saga

Several members of the Circuit Technology Center team contributed to this feature story.