Inaccessible Images

[FelixW]

Hi MP's, I have images that are stuck on my Air 2S's internal 8Gig storage. This is not the SD card you load into the drone or any of the storage found on the Smart Controller. Does anyone know how to access these images. I can not download them as the resolution is higher than 4K those I can see them with the Smart Controller. I really like the shots and it would suck if I had to let them go it's also just weird that I can not get them off the Air2S : (( Sid note I am running the latest firmware on the aircraft and controller. Thanks in advance for any advice. : )

 

[sbunting]

You should be able to connect your bird to a computer via usb. The internal memory on the drone will be assigned as a drive from which you can move them to the computer.

 

[Sady]

You should be able to connect your bird to a computer via usb. The internal memory on the drone will be assigned as a drive from which you can move them to the computer.

I concur

 

[FelixW]

Hi Guys, I did try that though my OS Win 10 pops a dialogue box that says "the drive needs to be formatted before it can be used!" : (( Is there a special piece of software I would need to read the memory on the drone?

 

[sbunting]

Hi Guys, I did try that though my OS Win 10 pops a dialogue box that says "the drive needs to be formatted before it can be used!" : (( Is there a special piece of software I would need to read the memory on the drone?

Download DJI assistant 2 and that should load the drivers to see the drive properly.

 

[FelixW]

Yes I did ver. 1.2.5, which DJI has discontinued. When I run the app there is a GIF illustration prompting you to plug in the USB. After connecting the drone via the USB noting happens, which is to say the software (Assistant 2) does not react to the presence of the drone. Windows 10 simply says the drive needs to be formatted before it can be used : (( This is so weird I wonder if I should reach out to DJI??

 

[sancap]

Yes I did ver. 1.2.5, which DJI has discontinued. When I run the app there is a GIF illustration prompting you to plug in the USB. After connecting the drone via the USB noting happens, which is to say the software (Assistant 2) does not react to the presence of the drone. Windows 10 simply says the drive needs to be formatted before it can be used : (( This is so weird I wonder if I should reach out to DJI??

Try downloading this version and or borrow a Mac.

 

[sbunting]

That is asking to format, it is seeing the physical drive, just not the logical drive with a drive letter assigned to it. That said, the internal memory would appear to be corrupted. Before I'd try DJI or any recovery tools, I'd try a few things. One, with the drone on and attached via USB, I'd reboot the Windows machine and see if it can mount it during the boot process. If that doesn't work, I'd try a different USB port and reboot again. If this persists, you may attach it to a Mac if you know someone with one. If it fails to mount during reboot, then I'd download this free tool.https://accessdata.com/product-download/ftk-imager-version-4-7-1 You'll have to give them your email address, but it's a free tool worth having. Open the tool and go to File > Add Evidence Item and choose physical drive. I can't tell you which drive number is will be, but you'll be able to identify it by its size, which I believe is 8 GB. Once it mounts, you can drill down under partition, and then FAT32 or exfat, likely the latter, and then root. Under root, you should see your folder and files. You can right click on any folder or file and copy them out to your local computer. Once you recover your data, you can format the drive. Personally, I let the drone do the formatting as it knows best what it wants.

 

[FelixW]

Hi All, I tried the more recent version of DJI Assist., mentioned above, and it did recognize the drone but only allows access to the Log's and nothing else. I did download all the available logs hoping that maybe the images would be in there too but no it was only a DAT file. I will try the reboot method and see what happens. On the Mac system I am running into the same issues : (
After try all above advice I will update later this aft. Thanks to all for your time so far : )

 

[FelixW]

Sir, looks like I owe you a coffee : ) ftk-imager-version-4-7-1 worked like a charm! I have attached a screen grab of the software doing it's thing if anyones interested and one of the images you helped save..... you can decide if you think it was worth it......

 

[sbunting]

Sir, looks like I owe you a coffee : ) ftk-imager-version-4-7-1 worked like a charm! I have attached a screen grab of the software doing it's thing if anyones interested and one of the images you helped save..... you can decide if you think it was worth it.....

Glad it worked… Windows or Mac want it to be perfect to mount. FTK just reads what’s there And gives it to you. You can even use it to view Mac or Linux file systems and copy out the data. It does at lot for a freebie. Great shot! Glad you got it…

Best to you…
Steve

 

[FelixW]

Good point about the Linux because that is the file system that DJI uses for the drones internal storage which is why Win and Mac couldn't read it : O
Thanks again to all for your greatly appreciated help : )

 

[sbunting]

Good point about the Linux because that is the file system that DJI uses for the drones internal storage which is why Win and Mac couldn't read it : O
Thanks again to all for your greatly appreciated help : )

Well, it's not quite that simple. Despite DJI running Linux, at the user level, i.e. your GUI interface with the bird, it won't read native Linux formats. I've deliberately formatted MicroSD cards as ext 4, etc and it will NOT see them. The same thing is true of an Android phone. Format the MicroSD card in a flavor of ext and it will not see it. Those native Linux formats are disabled at the user interface level. If you'll look at the screenshot you sent of FTK Imager, note that the format or file system is exFAT.

As an aside, if you have an Android phone on which you can spawn a Linux command line shell, at the level you can insert a MicroSD formatted in ext # and it will read and write to it. But at a user level, forget it.

They do it, I figure, to reduce support calls. Imagine the calls they'd get if they formatted their stuff in ext # and users started plugging the devices into Windows machines. The phones would be ringing off the hook. So they only allow the cross-platform formats, i.e. exFAT and FAT32, FAT16, etc.

 

[karlblessing]

Future Reference : If you start up your drone without an SD card installed, it will attempt to switch over to internal memory due to no SD card being present. You can then go to the 'album' in DJI fly and select those internal images and import them to gallery on the phone. They will of course be the jpeg copy if that's mainly what you want.

But now that you have the files off the internal, next time you boot up DJI Fly, go into camera settings and format the intel memory from within DJI Fly. Then try plugging the drone into your Windows 10 computer. If it still says that the internal storage needs to be formatted (and if it's not talking about the SD slot that is missing a card), then there may be a some issues with your windows 10 installation especially if you did not update it to the media creator edition a couple years back thru windows update.

 

[FelixW]

Thanks again for all the awesome insights guys. I did format the internal memory via the camera tab in the Fly app and now the drones internal directory structure is seen by my computer. So nice when tech. works as advertised! LOL.
Thanks again to all : ))

 

[BobaFut]

Sir, looks like I owe you a coffee : ) ftk-imager-version-4-7-1 worked like a charm! I have attached a screen grab of the software doing it's thing if anyones interested and one of the images you helped save..... you can decide if you think it was worth it......

****, that was definitely a shot worth making the effort to save!

 

[MS Coast]

That is asking to format, it is seeing the physical drive, just not the logical drive with a drive letter assigned to it. That said, the internal memory would appear to be corrupted. Before I'd try DJI or any recovery tools, I'd try a few things. One, with the drone on and attached via USB, I'd reboot the Windows machine and see if it can mount it during the boot process. If that doesn't work, I'd try a different USB port and reboot again. If this persists, you may attach it to a Mac if you know someone with one. If it fails to mount during reboot, then I'd download this free tool.https://accessdata.com/product-download/ftk-imager-version-4-7-1 You'll have to give them your email address, but it's a free tool worth having. Open the tool and go to File > Add Evidence Item and choose physical drive. I can't tell you which drive number is will be, but you'll be able to identify it by its size, which I believe is 8 GB. Once it mounts, you can drill down under partition, and then FAT32 or exfat, likely the latter, and then root. Under root, you should see your folder and files. You can right click on any folder or file and copy them out to your local computer. Once you recover your data, you can format the drive. Personally, I let the drone do the formatting as it knows best what it wants.

Thanks, @sbunting. I have no issues now, but I've downloaded a copy of ftk imager and I'm sure it's going to be a good solution to a problem that will occur with a computer some time in the future.