I have a very old digital camera [from around year 2000] that has no removable memory and i want to run a recovery scan to see if there are any deleted files on it. I'm [preferably] using a Debian based system but i also tried Windows. When i plug it into the Debian system it shows up in the file browser as USB Dual-mode Camera and no files appear when i open it. In Windows [XP] it does not show up at all in Explorer and the pictures can only be accessed with some Arcsoft photo software.

user@user:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0553:0202 STMicroelectronics Imaging Division (VLSI Vision) Aiptek PenCam 1

1. Is there any chance of recovering files?
2. How can i tell what type of memory this camera uses? I opened it up and it is just one circuit board with two black chips on it and a few other components.
3. How can i tell if this camera even has non-volatile memory? For all i know it might have lost all the files when the batteries died.
4. Can i mount this as a drive so i can run recovery software?

I've no idea if this is the camera you mean, the manual is for the AIPTEK PenCam 1.3. It says that without batteries you will lose your AVI files but pictures will remain. Dunno how that works. I've got an old AIPTEK PenCam Trio VGA which states that you lose everything when the batteries are removed, the instructions are for a Windows installation, with most of the clever bits being handled by software, you've basically just got the shutter button to play with.

It has 128Mbits of flash memory and 128Mbits of SDRAM apparently.

Hope that helps.

Play Bonny!

No it is a Radio Shack brand and its not a pencam design; its a standard point and shoot design. I don't know why it shows up as Aiptek Pencam in lsusb. Maybe they use the same chip/hardware. They do sound similar as there's only 2 buttons on the camera.

Theres still a page for it on Radio Shack's website but the user guide wasn't of any help to me.
http://support.radioshack.com/produc...e=Toys&Reuse=N

No it is a Radio Shack brand and its not a pencam design; its a standard point and shoot design. I don't know why it shows up as Aiptek Pencam in lsusb. Maybe they use the same chip/hardware. They do sound similar as there's only 2 buttons on the camera.

Theres still a page for it on Radio Shack's website but the user guide wasn't of any help to me.
http://support.radioshack.com/produc...e=Toys&Reuse=N

No it is a Radio Shack brand and its not a pencam design; its a standard point and shoot design. I don't know why it shows up as Aiptek Pencam in lsusb. Maybe they use the same chip/hardware. They do sound similar as there's only 2 buttons on the camera.

Theres still a page for it on Radio Shack's website but the user guide wasn't of any help to me.
http://support.radioshack.com/produc...e=Toys&Reuse=N

since it connects via usb, i guess you can use it like any ol' external storage?

maybe you can use photorec to recover the files.
iirc, you don't even mount the drive to use photorec, so you'd be wanting to look at "ls /dev" to see how it registers.

The problem is that it doesn't mount as a drive. It is in the file browser as a camera and I probably could copy files to it but it doesn't show up in disk utility or anywhere else as a drive. I tried photorec but it only shows my hard drive and CD drive. I am using an interactive version of photorec by just typing "sudo photorec" into terminal. Perhaps there is a non-intereactive mode that I don't know about and would offer more options? I don't know how to see how it registers from ls /dev so here is the output it gives me.

ls /dev

agpgart loop2 sg0 tty23 tty49 vcs
autofs loop3 sg1 tty24 tty5 vcs1
bilibop loop4 shm tty25 tty50 vcs2
block loop5 snapshot tty26 tty51 vcs3
bsg loop6 snd tty27 tty52 vcs4
btrfs-control loop7 sndstat tty28 tty53 vcs5
bus loop-control sr0 tty29 tty54 vcs6
cdrom lp0 stderr tty3 tty55 vcs7
cdrw MAKEDEV stdin tty30 tty56 vcs8
char mapper stdout tty31 tty57 vcsa
console mem TailsBootDev tty32 tty58 vcsa1
core midi1 tty tty33 tty59 vcsa2
cpu_dma_latency net tty0 tty34 tty6 vcsa3
cuse network_latency tty1 tty35 tty60 vcsa4
disk network_throughput tty10 tty36 tty61 vcsa5
dmmidi1 null tty11 tty37 tty62 vcsa6
dri parport0 tty12 tty38 tty63 vcsa7
fd port tty13 tty39 tty7 vcsa8
full ppp tty14 tty4 tty8 vga_arbiter
fuse psaux tty15 tty40 tty9 vhci
hidraw0 ptmx tty16 tty41 ttyS0 vhost-net
hidraw1 pts tty17 tty42 ttyS1 xconsole
hpet random tty18 tty43 ttyS2 zero
input rfkill tty19 tty44 ttyS3
kmsg rtc tty2 tty45 uhid
log rtc0 tty20 tty46 uinput
loop0 sda tty21 tty47 urandom
loop1 sda1 tty22 tty48 usb

i don't remember if photorec needs the device to be mounted or not...

here's what i'd try:

• exit the X server or boot into recovery. important: no x server and no gvfs and such is running
• look at ls /dev
• plug in the device
• look at ls /dev again
• if you're lucky you will see one or several new entries.
• try sudo photorec /dev/XXX (whatever you found)

ps: i also don't remember the exact syntax of photorec, you might have to use some option, like '-d /dev/XXX'
try 'photorec -h'

If the camera does not mount as a drive then it is using the MTP protocol and therefore does not have a device ID. Normal recovery software will not work unless you can mount the camera as a mass storage device which is probably not an option. The manual states that all pictures will be cleared when you replace the batteries so I would assume they were lost when the batteries died.

on a 15 year old digicam? are you sure?

oh.
i guess this settles it then.

Actually the camera is probably using PTP versus MTP which was released around 2000. MTP is an extension to PTP.

@sssb
From the Radio Shack website you give on posts #3, #4 and #5 (Whazat all about? ) you get this from the Owner's manual I'd therefore reckon that any pictures that were on it are long gone. Has it had the same batteries in it since 2000? I rather think not, plus any batteries left in it for 15 years are likely to leave everything badly corroded...

There are no batteries in it now, are there?

Play Bonny!

Thanks. I will give that a try as soon as I have time.

I think I saw PTP somewhere but I can't remember where now :\

Sorry for the duplicates. The first two attempts did not post until over 12 hours after I submitted but the third attempt was instant. My fault for submitting three times because I thought it wasn't working. I attempted to delete the duplicates but could not.

The batteries have been in there for a long time but not since 2000. They still had enough juice to power the camera up and there is no corrosion surprisingly. I replaced them for good measure but the camera was plugged into USB so it didn't lose power while I replaced them.

It's possible that it has had power ever since the pictures were deleted but I doubt it. I think I will still give ondoho's suggestion a try for a good learning experience.