Faulty CF Cards

[ahockenberry]

Hi folks,

I was wondering if anyone has had this issue before...you are out shooting (numerous shots) with a new CF Card and everything is going find until you get an error notification indicating CF Card Error. Despite your best efforts, you cannot get your card to work and eventually you give up and put a diffierent card in.

Problem 1 is that you have theoretically lost your shots.
Problem 2 is that you try to reformat your CF Card and cannot do that either.

Now, in my case, what I lost was not too much, however, if you are a wedding photographer and have shot an entire wedding, reception, etc. and your card malfunctions and you lose all your shots. Perhaps the manufacturer has a way to retrieve images off the card.

Has anyone run into this kind of situation?
Thanks
Ashley

[Jeff JTPhoto]

Ashley, the better cards i.e. Sandisk Extreme come with their own recovery software. So, yes there is software capable of recovering images from a corrupt card. However, I have yet to have an issue with any Pro cards.. I do not delete images from cards, I always format the card to remove the images..

[Bobby]

I agree with Jeff Ashley, I never delete an image in camera. I only format. I read that bits of deleted images build up in the card and eventually can lead to a corrupt card. Don't know if this is gospel but I'm not taking any chances.

[ahockenberry]

Wow, I learn something new every day on this site. Thanks for the information!

[GS31 Productions]

Well, that is some good tid bit of info about formating, not deleting images. Wonder about defraging the card. Would that help, if it is possible?

[Kevin]

I routinely delete in camera and when I download from my card reader to my computer the software deletes the images from the card. Periodically I'll do a format in camera but not every time. I've followed this process for 2 yrs and nearly 100k shots without an issue.

I did have one problem but occurred when I bought a 2nd hand Lexar card after I switched to Canon. It was one of the lot #'s that had compatibility issues with some Canon cameras. I contacted Lexar and verified the serial # was bad and they replaced it f.o.c.

[Bobby]

Formatting is a clean slate, no software can retrieve images after format(I think)

[Ron Lacey]

Well, that is some good tid bit of info about formating, not deleting images. Wonder about defraging the card. Would that help, if it is possible?

If you format defraging is unnecessary since there's no data to get fragmented.

Ron

[Roger]

You can always get data off the cards, even if it is damaged, it just depends on how much you want to pay for it.

Software like this, http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/ , will allow you to recover just about everything you delete or format.

If you have damaged cards , something like the in lab service will allow recovery at a very high price. http://www.ontrack.com/labdr/

the lab service, is geared for hard drives, but I am sure would work for cards.

This is one of the largest known data recovery comps, I am sure there are more.

[retief]

This is a subject of great interest to all of us, if folks would like I can write up an entire document on this, but here is the "short" version.

1. Card Formatting:

There are 2 kinds of "Format", called Quick and Full on your PC. The difference is that the Quick only clears the FAT, File Allocation Table ( like a directory of where the files are) while the Full clears the card. In-Camera format is equivalent to Quick, which is why Rescue programs can work most times after an in-camera format. To make matters slightly more confusing, you can also format FAT (or FAT16) or FAT32, which has to do with the size of your card. Most newer cameras with larger cards want FAT32.

2. Rescue Programs:

Photoresue (http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/), you can read about this at Rob Galbraith, as he stated, best $29 insurance you can buy. I have seen this work when the Sandisk and Lexar recovery programs didn't. Must be Magic :cheer: :cheer: If you run this, don't be surprised if you find some "old and moldy" images, remember that they are still physically there if you have not done a Full format.

3. CF Cards are no different than any other disc drive. They have a controller which is part of the card as well as the memory itself. You can get fragmentation as well as "bad sectors" over time. If you have an issue with a card, it is a good idea to do an error check and repair on your PC. One of the most common causes of problems is some loss of power as a file is being written, or shutting the camera off prior to the buffer being fully written. Nikon tries to solve this by keeping enough power "reserve", but nothing can prevent my Stupid User Tricks shocked;

4. My personal regimen is as follows:
a. Prior to shooting, I format my card in the camera
b. Sometimes I delete some images off the card, mostly I don't, prior to download.
c. Download with "copy". I am paranoid, I don't format the card until I have the images stored twice off the card.
d. Now and again, I do a Full Format on the PC to clear the card.
e. If I have an issue, I have just had a couple after several years, do a full error check and repair via the PC.

You will get all sorts of "must do", the "only ways", yada-yada-yada from the Support folks at Nikon, and I'm sure Canon as well. What I do has come from a couple of years of research, beating my way up the support chain at Nikon as well as Sandisk and the old IBM Microdrive folks. Any combination generally works, but I know of a fair number of "broken" cards that have been sent back which could easily have been salvaged by the methods above.

Ashley, in your case was the "failure to format" just in the camera or on your PC as well?

As to Kevin and "deleting while downloading", you are a braver man than I. I just don't trust Bill Gates or Steve Jobs nearly enough to give them THAT kind of control :biglaugh: :biglaugh: :biglaugh:

[Paul S]

Formatting is a clean slate, no software can retrieve images after format(I think)

Not true. Formatting clears the FAT, but not the data. Recovery software can still retrieve it. (Maybe not the complete filenames, but all the image data.)

Only when the image data is written over is it truly lost. (I once ran a recovery program on a card and found images over six months old, which had survived a couple dozen reformats!)

---

It is a good practice to reformat regularly. I do it every time I copy the data off a card (but only after it's on two separate hard drives). The FAT isn't always cleaned up properly when files are erased, and it grows in time, taking up space that could be used for images. The bigger it gets, the more likely it is to get corrupted, taking the whole card down.

PhotoRescue is the main tool for recovery. You can download for free, and it'll tell you what it will be able to recover, but you have to buy it to actually do the recovering. (I suggest reading E.J. Peiker's article, from Sept. 2004, over at Naturescapes.Net before trying to use PhotoRescue.)

Personally, I use the software that came with my SanDisk Extreme card. (It works on all cards and not just the one it came with.) Not as powerful as PhotoRescue, but it's always worked for the problems I've had. I'll buy PhotoRescue only when I get a problem that the SanDisk software won't solve!

-Paul

[Paul S]

The other comment I have is that I only format my cards in the camera, not on the PC. I suspect in most cases it doesn't matter, but there are some cases I've heard of where the computer format causes problems in the camera.

-Paul

[retief]

The other comment I have is that I only format my cards in the camera, not on the PC. I suspect in most cases it doesn't matter, but there are some cases I've heard of where the computer format causes problems in the camera.

-Paul

Paul, this is usually a case of someone who formats on the PC as FAT32 for an older camera that only deal with FAT16. See my notes in my prior post.

One other advantage of doing this periodically on the PC is that you have the ability to repair sector errors as well via the "Tools" menu of the Format dialog. I only do this if I have a card that exhibits some issues.