Restore Photos to new SD Card

[zizzibaddi]

Hello there! I have transferred all the images from the SD on my Alpha 6000 to a Win PC's Folder

I have then upgraded my SD Card on my Alpha 6000 and restore all the images but the camera won't show them

It will show only the new pictures I have taken

 

How do I make my Sony Alpha show the photos again?

 

Thanks a lot in advance

[Olaf W.]

You need to copy all contents of the old SD card, keeping the structure of directories.

[zizzibaddi]

I have backed up only the folder containing the pictures, not the whole hierarchy, how would I build it again then?

I just need some sort of "import photos" maybe from the camera itself

[Pieter]

You cannot just copy a few photos to a new SD card and expect the camera to recognize them. Each picture taken is stored and referenced in an image database. The camera only recognizes images which are present in the database, so like Olaf says: you need to copy the entire database and all the contents from one SD to another for your old files to be recognized. You can then delete the files you don't want in-camera, so the image database stays synchronized with the image files that are actually present in the SD card.

[zizzibaddi]

Ok, I understand but how can I recreate the database? I have backed up only the photo 's folder, not the whole thing and the old SD card has been formatted and used on another camera

[zizzibaddi]

I do not expect the cam to see all the image if no database is there. That is why I am looking for a way to re-import them

[Pieter]

Unfortunately, I doubt you can if you don't have the original database.

[zizzibaddi]

Hello everyone,

I am extremely surprised you did not know that and therefore a bit disappointed but

There is a very quick command on the Sony Alpha 6000 Menu to rebuild the whole database in seconds

You just go to Setup and search for Recover Image DB which will ask for a confirmation and then processing for 5 seconds and boooooom.....all the old pictures are now visible within the Camera itself

The above has been documented here: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1540/v1/en/contents/TP0000808687.html

And here:

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by zizzibaddi

[zizzibaddi]

4 minutes ago, Pieter said:

Unfortunately, I doubt you can if you don't have the original database.

You doubt that while I was sure there should be a way and found it 🙂

[Pieter]

Good you figured it out and shared it with us then 🙂

[zizzibaddi]

Absolutely!

Took me about 30 minutes every day for the last 3 days to find eventually an official procedure, not even a workaround.

It has been documented by Sony itself

Hope whoever needs that would find the YouTube video and find it usefull

Cheers

[FunWithCameras]

I am curious why you did this.

I take from a dozen to several hundred, sometimes thousands, of images in a shooting session. I cannot imagine keeping all of my photos in the camera (hundreds of thousands of images with one camera, tens of thousands with my latest camera (only some months old).

Do you not take many photographs? Or do you keep only a few on the memory card? And why on the memory card?

I think you are the first person I have heard of who has had this experience. I am glad you solved your problem.

[zizzibaddi]

4 hours ago, FunWithCameras said:

I am curious why you did this.

I take from a dozen to several hundred, sometimes thousands, of images in a shooting session. I cannot imagine keeping all of my photos in the camera (hundreds of thousands of images with one camera, tens of thousands with my latest camera (only some months old).

Do you not take many photographs? Or do you keep only a few on the memory card? And why on the memory card?

I think you are the first person I have heard of who has had this experience. I am glad you solved your problem.

Yeah..your curiosity makes sense

I also take about 300 shots in a shooting session and I use several SDCards

One specific SDCard stays in the Cam all the time and it contains hundreds photos which have already been backed up but have to stay on the SDCard as well for testing and playing purposes

Back then I was taken thousand photos a week, nowdays I just use the camera ocasionally so I am shooting much less, so no need to swap SDCards. I take pictures, I download them, I delete bad one but leave some on the SDCard and need to be able to view them on the Cam itself or fire them to a TVSet via HDMI Cable

And yeah I might be pretty unique and I can't recall if this happened to me in the past

One month ago I backed up the Photos folder to change the SD and go on a trip, then I realized the photos were no longer viewable by the cam so I needed to fix the issue and I achieved that yesterday then I shared a video about it

Maybe it won't be useful to millions people but I am happy to help even a few

 

[FunWithCameras]

Thank you for explaining - it's not a common thing, but it's good that there's a simple solution to the problem you experienced.

[zizzibaddi]

You are absolutely right. Not a common issue but it is an issue somehow and it is extremely good we have now a solution. I was sure there was one but could not find it anywhere....all the videos....all the articles were about "exporting photos from the SDCard to a computer" and not the other way around.... thanks for your interest in this matter

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by zizzibaddi