Losing files on the job - have you had a CF card failure?

Has anyone here actually lost any files on the job? I don't mean having

someone steal your flash cards, or dropping/losing them somewhere, but actually

having memory card failures in which you simply cannot access the files in

camera or using your CF card reader. I have read many posts about people

having problems with their CF cards, but actually wonder how much truth there

is to this. If so, are there any brands that are more reliable?

 

Among you folks who actually have had catastrophic CF failures, how many images

were retrievable? Did you use image-recovery software, send the card to a

professional lab, and did it help? What did tell the Bride/Groom and how did

you handle the situation?

 

Being new to wedding photography, I am trying my best to plan ahead of time and

cover all of my angles. I'm considering options such as using smaller CF cards

that force me to change cards more often (but risk losing them as there will be

more of them), buying an external storage device such as an Epson P-3000/5000,

or even saving up for a 1D MK(x) model that can write to two cards at once.

Speaking of the 1D, I'm curious as to why it writes to 1SD and 1CF rather than

2 CFs. If anyone has an answer to that, I'd be most interested in hearing it.

Hi Jimmy. Been shooting digital for 4 years and have never lost work. I used to back up my cards with my laptop but now I carry the Espon P3000.

I am not a pro. But never have lost data when I was being paid for my work. In my experience when a card fails its before you even take the picture. I always format the cards on my computer after I copy them to my computer and my back up drive(s) and check to see they work (format them on my computer first so not to change the number sequence.) Then i format in my camera before the event. Some times when I put a blank card in it says error and can be corrected by formating it again, but I have had two that never worked again.

 

As to why canon made it a SD and CF I'd like to here too.

Never lost anything on any card - that's everything from the old SmartMemory cards to Compact Flash and SD. All but one of 20 or so cards have been Sandisk cards, and all were bought at reputable establishments (i.e. NOT off of Ebay, where, I understand, most are counterfeit).

 

jZ

I use SanDisk and Lexar cards... I did have a 2GB card fail on me..... I could see the images on the card as I was taking them. When I got home and started the download that one card was unreadable both by the camera, and the built in disc reader on my computer.

 

I panicked for about 2 seconds and then went online and purchased Photo Rescue. All of the images were retrieved. Many of the formals and a few other important shots were on that card.

 

That particular card is now sitting on my desk. I don't dare use it again for anything important.

 

Moral.... it probably doesn't happen often but it does happen....

My guess is to save space, have to CF card slots would take up more room. It's only a guess, but to me, makes the most sense.

I have lost a couple files over the years but nothing more than a couple.

 

I use the flashtrax if/when I backup on site. One button and its done, not to mention it has been bullet proof.

 

I don't use Lexar, I won't use lexar any more either. Too many bad reports one way or another.

 

I use Ridata and Sandisk w/out incident.

 

I use 16gb cards too as I have found once thoroughly tested, a CF card has never failed me. One thing learned is not to fill the cards completely as there is more risk of image loss that way. I rarely change a card at a wedding now, and only remove the card in the office for downloading.

 

Hope that helps.

Lost a few. Cards aren't perfect. I usually repair my own cards, as well as for local photographers, and get almost a 100 percent retrieval rate. Most software will work, but there are situations where I've actually taken apart CF cards. It's scary as heck and unprofessional unless you know how to do it.

 

drivesavers.com is your safest bet, but be prepared to pay $300 and up for a CF card and $2500 for hard drives. If you are a member of PPA I think you may be covered. But call them first. I've only heard stories that they cover one time problems like this.

I use a variety of cards. I had a lexar card that on two different occasions I lost 1 image on the card. They were about 6 months appart from eachother. One was a portrait session, and one was a wedding party image. On both occasions I had other images identical, so I didn't worry about recovery. I haven't used the card since.

 

I bought some Ridata cards on David's recommendation about a year ago. I had one card that I used twice before a wedding, and it worked fine. I used it for the wedding, and it worked. I downloaded my images from that wedding, and as soon as I had my images, it died. I coudn't do anyting with it. I tried putting it in my camera, and I got nothing. It was like there was no card in the camera. I tried my assistants camera, no luck. I got a replacement from ridata. I had trouble with one other ridata card at a wedding. My assistant was using it, and it suddenly said card error. I put the card away immediately. When I got home, I was able to download the images fine, and I have never had trouble with it again. I don't use it for weddings anymore though, only personal stuff.

 

Just last week my friend had a ridata card that she had trouble with. She bought one at the same time as I did. She did a session, and about 30 of the files were missing on the card. She saw them when she captured them, but when she downloaded them, they were missing. There was a skip in the file numbers on the card. We tried to run Rescue Pro, and that saw them, but we couldn't open them after it found them on the card. She ended up downloading a different recovery software on the computer, and it worked.

 

I have heard some other stories that are worse than mine, and they didn't come out so good.

I use mismatched cards from several different brands and have had several card failures where all the files were recoverable with recovery software. I have reused those same cards and never had another issue with any one of them. I trust them as much as any other card in my wallet.

 

I also had two Sandisk failures (genuine Sandisk, not an imitator) where the cards were toast. One was completely dead, and unrecoverable. The other locked up the camera on the 37th frame every time. Never had an off brand card do that to me. So much for anecdotal evidence. :)

I have had issues with my cards and they have always been caused by the USB card reader. If you don't eject the previous card I found the computer stores the FAT table and overwrites the next card you insert ruining it completely. I've had this happen 3 times with client pictures before I figured it out, the images were totally unrecoverable. It hasn't happened with client images in over 2 years, but I was doing some test shots a few weeks ago and it happened again. I wasn't being very careful because the images weren't that important, but the card was corrupted when I tried to access the images.

Hi Jimmy,

 

CF cards will fail. So it pays to buy CF cards from a company that has the best guarantee.

 

I use Lexar. I have around 25 CF cards. I now use 1GB cards for my weddings as I believe if I have an absolute total failure, I will only loose a small number of photos.

 

I made a mistake with one card a numer of years ago, took it out of the card reader without ejecting the card, I had to run data recovery software to pull the photos off.

 

I also had a 2GB card go bad in the middle of the reception. It was so bad that the computer would not recognize that the card is in the card reader. I sent the card to Lexar, receive a new card, and 6 weeks later received a CD with the 130 photos on it, did not loose a photo. And Lexar does this for free.

 

Sandisk is also good but I'm sticking with Lexar, I know they support their product.

CF cards are sooo out of date, I smile every time I hear the "Compact" part of CF. They are prob trying to wean their pro customers onto SD which are (IMHO) the smallest size that is still practical to handle (mini SD and micro SD) are too small.

Great Post - interesting on the eject thing, I usually pull them out of the reader and re-insert the next one - never had trouble - I wonder if vista does this different than XP with the FAT table? I use the lexar Pro and Scandisk never had trouble. It may be that there are only a few manufacturers that make them for different companies. It may be possible that the same place makes cards for multiple companies. I wonder if there is a lifetime of a card measured in shots or formats etc?

Having owned and used many 10's of thuosands of shots of four different digital cameras since year 2000, I have never experieced a CF or SD card failure. I've used all from the lowly 16MB up to 4GB capacities and always use a card reader to extract.

 

Nearly all card failures you read about in PN are due to user error (e.g., formating the card from their PC; removing the card when the camera is still writing to it; turning the camera off too soon after a burst; swapping cards partially shot on one camera into a nother body; deleting files from the card from the PC and then removing the card too soon; ad nauseum...)

A year or two ago, there were a lot of posts about Lexar cards failing in Canon cameras (I use Nikons), and Lexar eventually published card number series that were the culprit, and could be returned for replacement. Since then, I haven't heard anything, so I assume the problem has been solved. The other instances of failure that I've heard have (mostly) been successfully resolved by using various disk rescue software. I personally have never had a card fail, either Lexar or Sandisk.

John

Yikes. Is it okay to swap cards from one D200 to another D200, or is that risky?

Susan,

I format the card every time I stick one in the camera. So if there were issues swapping cards between 2 D200, the formating would take care of it.

I have never had a problem with a genuine SanDisk Ultra or Extreme card, but I have had problems with a Promaster (back then I didn't know Promaster meant POS). The Promaster would fail to read back in cold weather (sometimes I shoot during winter) but would read back OK once chip was warmed up.

 

I now use the Promaster to store MP3's.

 

Regarding ejecting cards/disks: this is always a good idea, particularly if you have external USB drives that you use for backup. You might lose more than just the card someday.

 

Later,

 

Paulsky

"Is it okay to swap cards from one D200 to another D200, or is that risky?"

 

In the middle of a shoot? No. Before a shoot? Of course. No problems. Your primary and secondary/backup cameras should each have a fresh 2GB or 4GB (or higher if you like) card in them. Why would you swap? Just grab the 2nd camera and start shooting.

 

CF cards are cheap; no need to scrimp.

 

I do not recommend "ejecting" CF cards via the OS controls. However, it can't hurt (just a time waster). Copying from a card is a one-way operation (from the card to the PC folder storage). Nothing can go wrong with simply unplugging the card reader once your copy has completed and you've made a backup.

Ken, as a computer professional, let me point out something you may not have thought of.

 

Most operating systems are constantly caching data and file allocation information. If you "pop the card" without using the OS controls in the middle of an I/O operation, you run the risk of confusing the caching system, and possibly screwing up another USB device connected to your computer.

 

Example: I once pulled a USB "memory stick" from a computer, and immediately started having "Delayed Write Failures" to my 500 gig LaCIE drive. I at once realized what I had done, so I immediately rebooted the computer to prevent the LaCIE drive from becoming corrupted.

 

Always eject using the OS. The potential consequences are not worth saving one or two seconds.

 

Later,

 

Paulsky

"Most operating systems are constantly caching data and file allocation information. If you "pop the card" without using the OS controls in the middle of an I/O operation, you run the risk of confusing the caching system, and possibly screwing up another USB device connected to your computer."

 

I know that. It is foolish to pop the card or the card reader during the middle of an I/O operation -- that is user error already discussed above. Since I/O is one-way when you are copying the files from your cards to the PC's filing system you will only mess up the destination -- or are you saying this caching is actually paging to the card's file system itself (I highly doubt that -- cards and similar devices can be mark read only in their entirety).

 

Half my devices are Firewire and the other half USB 2; any implications between the two interface types?

Never format the cards IN THE COMPUTER, always format them in the

camera they are used in if you have more then one.

You would be asking for trouble............and if you did loose files

try to recover them with a program. Most cards come with a recovery

program............

I have never had a problem. Knock on wood. But I do use a Sanho Colorspace card reader. It cost me about $250 but worth every penny for security. I use Extreme IV 2GB cards and once I fill one on a job I automatically copy them to the Sanho which I keep on my belt. Also, although some people might not say it's necessary, I always reformat my cards after every job. Never just delete images.

I question the only operator error issue because I'm pretty darn good with computers and cameras as well. The time when cards failed were due to the actual cards. I totally agree that one can delete, reformat, and erase cards, but cards fail! One client pulled the card out while the camera was still writing to the card. Other than that most of the time the cards have failed. Call Drive Savers for a second opinion - 800 440-1904.