Help! Corrupted file on CF card... what to do next?

[ashley_williamson]

Hi All...

 

I just bought a new 2 gig CF card and used it on a shoot today. I had played

with it a handful of times before just to test it out and made sure it worked

just fine before I used it on an actual client's photoshoot (and it did check

out perfectly fine). Today I was shooting some portraits (not a wedding, thank

God!) and when I was scrolling though my images after I got home and came across

one "Corrupt File" message when viewing the previews on my camera. All the other

images bring up the preview just fine... just that one image.

 

Now here is my question (as this has never happened before with ANY of my other

CF Cards...) What do I do now? I have not tried to download the images for fear

that it might do something to the card and have all the images become corrupt.

(I wanted to check with you all first and see if you knew anything)

 

Has this happened to anyone before? What did you do? If it says "Corrupt File"

on one images, is there a potential that the whole card is corrupt? If I DO

download them, should I just download all but that one file? Or should I just

try to use the File Recovery program?

 

Help! I'm lost! (and very nervous!) This is my first "digital scare."

 

P.S. I'm shooting with a Canon 20D if that matters.

[philg]

http://www.drivesavers.com can try to recover information from a corrupted card. Reading from the card should be harmless, so I wouldn't hesitate to read whatever you can from the card onto your computer. The particular file might be corrupt because of a problem with the 20D, e.g., the battery got pulled out while it was still writing to the card.

 

This is a fairly common problem with CF cards. My friends who are professionals tend not to use one huge card for an entire project for fear that they will lose everything.

[NK Guy]

I've experienced the problem before on two brands of memory cards and two different

cameras (10D and 5D). The only common factor has been that I've deleted some images in-

camera and kept shooting.

 

I used the Lexar image recovery program and it got nearly all the photos back. Massive relief

there!

[ashley_williamson]

Thanks you all for the quick responses.

 

Do you think I should delete that one image in my camera before trying to download my card to my computer? Or should I just download it and hope for the best.

 

NK, Once you downloaded your card, were all the other pictures on that card corrupt as well, or just that one file? I can live without one picture (which that is what i'm hoping for!) Do you think that if the WHOLE card was corrupt, there would be a "Corrupt file" message on every image?

 

Last question, I promise? Do you have to have a Lexar Brand card to use the recovery program?

 

Thanks you all, I am getting up the courage to just download it and see what happens. I will let you know how it turns out.

[buckry]

In my experience, when you have just one corrupt image and you delete it, the very next one displays as corrupt. If you delete it, then the next one displays as corrupt. This has happened to me twice, and both times I was able to copy all of the images to my hard drive using recovery software. The problem isn't with a specific image, it's with the entire card, possibly the FAT. I would not delete any images, it most likely won't help.

[aaron_lee___minneapolis__m]

DO NOT WRITE OR DELETE ANYTHING TO THE CARD. Any changes you make to the card

will only make it harder to recover later.

 

Download the images to your computer using a dedicated reader and see if you can

actually read the files or not. Most likely it was just a bad write to the card and nothing to

worry about. I had one image go corrupt on my D200 at a wedding while I was shooting,

but it was only 1 image. I'm not worried about it, I probably did something myself.

 

If you cannot read the file once copied to your computer, you'll have to find a CF recovery

software. I don't have experience with those so I can't recommend any specifics.

 

Aaron

[NK Guy]

The paid version of the Lexar application works on any CF card, since they're all just

FAT32 formatted. The free one that came with my Lexar CF card worked only with Lexar

cards, but fortunately I was able to get a free upgrade to the latest version, which was

terrific.

 

Anyway. The basic deal is this:

 

- If you suspect data corruption on your card, stop using it immediately. Any further usage

will overwrite whatever images may still be there, but which are disconnected from the

card's catalogue.

 

- Put the card into a reader, hook it up to your computer, and run a memory card recovery

program. This should retrieve all readable files from the card and transfer them to your

computer's hard drive. It probably doesn't hurt to try more than one file recovery

application, since they all handle things slightly differently.

 

- Once you're satisfied you've got everything you can, put the card back into the camera,

and use the camera's FORMAT command to wipe it completely clean.

[chris_newkumet]

Ashley:

 

What brand/model card is it? Were you shooting in RAW mode?

[ashley_williamson]

Thanks everyone for the awesome help! I was able to save all but 5 of the files without a problem (out of the 150 or so on the card). I haven't tried to run a Recovery Program on the other five yet, but I am very happy that it was only 5 files and not the whole card. All I can say is that card is going back to the store ASAP!

 

Thanks again!

[mercsadies]

Ashley - I'm really interested to find out what brand card you had been using. This happened to me not a week and a half ago. I had a card, that I'd always used ... and all of a sudden I tried to review while on a shoot and my camera told me there was no data! I freaked. I changed cards and continued with the shoot. When I got home and tried to load the damaged card I was able to get all but the handful I had tried to view in-camera.

 

Granted, my card is more than a few days old (can't go back to the store with mine). But I was always told that formatting a card in-camera is much better than letting your computer software do it. Apparently that wasn't enough for this card. I will not be using Kingston brand again.