A weekend passed. The following Monday, I came to the office and started sorting through all the pictures. Close to the end, I noticed that I didn't see the group shots. I started looking through everything I sorted, the Recycle Bin... essentially everywhere. They were nowhere to be found.
Could they have been accidentally overwritten by the camera? Were the files truncated/corrupted? So many possibilities, but all with the same result: I did not have the important picture.
Anyone that ever used a file recovery utility before knows that it's a "hit 'n miss" process. If the sector has been overwritten, you're just not going to get your file back. But, it's worth a shot. Got a free utility and started doing a complete surface scan. I didn't expect the thing to reveal ±600 deleted/corrupted/truncated photos. Sifting time.
It took about 20 minutes to find the series. They shared the same filename as the last few shots I took at the event after the group shots. Not surprisingly, all four were truncated. When I opened them up to see the damage, I was shocked. Witness for yourself.
* To add a bit of "padding" between my job and the blog, the pictures were replaced but the truncation is kept intact.
Within 15 seconds after I picked my jaw off of the floor, I salvaged the last picture and saved it.
