Anybody seen this type of data corruption?

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

This is seriously weird.The last couple of days i've been getting

images from my 300D that are obviously wrong in some ways.At first i

noticed a few shots that had the kind of mixed up thing as shown in

the first image below.After the shock wore off and i'd eliminated

the likely suspects-dodgey flash card and low battery- i accepted

that the camera must have a fault.

<P>Then later i *thought* i noticed that some images had suddenly

got worse while sitting in the computer.

<BR>Tonight i see one image in particular that i KNOW was perfect

before now has a huge red band across it as shown in the second

image below.

 

<P>It still could be a camera fault(?) but is there such a thing as

a virus that could do this?Or something else maybe ?

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

.

[btmuir]

Are you using a card reader or downloading direct from the camera? Try using a different

card reader if you are indeed using one.

[phule]

Ron,

 

I'm sure you've probably mentioned this in other threads but I can't remember what you said... Do you format your cards in-camera and if so, how often?

[beauh44]

Hi Ron, If you're sure that an image that was sitting on your PC's hard disk was OK at one point and not OK later, then that doesn't sound like a camera/CF card issue to me. I would be concerned my hard disk could be failing.

 

I'm not sure if you're using a Mac or a PC but I'd run the equivalent of Scandisk. I think XP did away with Scandisk so you have to run good ol' chkdsk, either from a command prompt or Start>Run>chkdsk (Assuming you're running Windoze XP of course)

 

If chkdsk encounters errors I'd be backing stuff up quick. If you add the "/f" parameter at the end, i.e. chkdsk /f then chkdsk will attempt to "fix" the problems it encounters.

 

I suppose it's possible it's a virus but if you scan with a recent & decent virus scanner and things come up clean, I'd be suspecting disk corruption/failure. Good luck!

[eoghan]

Those pictures look exactly like what happened to my girlfirends old A75 point and shoot. Just before it died completely, at which point every photo was just a black screen.

 

No idea what was wrong, and repairs wouldn't have been worth it as they'd probably have cost more than a new camera.

 

For a 300d it's a little different though, it may or may not be worth the repair cost.

[andre_mcnichols]

On the old A75 it could be the problem reported by Sony with their CCDs made between 2002 and 2004, which means the repairs would be free. The CCD on the A75 is on the list of faulty Sony chips.

 

In Ron's case it could be one of the contacts between the camera and CF card that's dirty. You say you eliminated the possibility of a bad CF card, how many cards did you try? If you use 2 cards from the same batch they could have the same problem, it happened to me before. Good luck finding the problem!

[JeffOwen]

I have had this sort of corruption (some pictures offset) and I traced it to a faulty CF card. It was a cheap 256Mb card that I used in my Canon G2. The fault only appeared when the card was about 3/4 full so it may take some finding.

 

Try a different card.

[jim_b5]

It's very unlikely for this issue to be a computer hardware issue, Ron. File corruption at the hardware level, i.e. the hard drive having bad sectors, usually prevents the file from being opened by the application software because it no longer recognizes the file.

 

If you've eliminated the flash card, reader, cables, etc, I would start looking at the software you are using to open the files. There may be known issues with the software, available updates or incompatibilities with your operating system. You may also want to take the same picture on different media and store it in different fashions i.e. usb key, hard drive, cdrw. If you use the same image software to open the files and have the same image corruption, then it's almost certainly your application software or operating system.

[KenPapai]

I agree -- the odds of it being a hard drive problem are slim and none. This is either a camera circuitry failure or a CF issue.

 

I assume by now thugh you are using a card reader to transfer your images. Do these occur when you shoot RAW? It's not a virus.

[waltz]

The problem could really be anywhere in the chain: CF Card, camera, cables, USB port, motherboard, hub, hard drive, etc. If you're absolutely sure an image on the computer was good one day and bad the next, that would seem to narrow it down. Running ChkDsk will tell you if the drive is indeed bad. If that turns out not to be the problem, however, I would recommend eliminating as much as possible, doing the simple stuff first: use a USB port that's directly on the motherboard, use a card reader instead of the camera, use a different card, etc.

 

I had identical corruption, and it turned out to be the front USB ports on my computer: I had purchased a thingy that slips into an empty drive bay and plugs into the motherboard. Since I elimnated that piece, I haven't had any corruption.

[akajohndoe]

I looks to be to be a buffering error during open or an incorrectly closed file.

 

If the images are this way in-camera, AND it occurs on MULTIPLE memory cards, it is likely the camera. If only on one card, the card. If the images are OK in camera but corrupted immediately after being taken off-camera it is probably the software used to offload them. If they are OK on the PC, then corrupted later, it is likely some viewing or editing software.

[akajohndoe]

BTW, I can recreate the sort of corruption shown in the second image easily by using certain freeware PC-based imaging utilities that rotate the image when opened.

[akajohndoe]

And I used to have something that added options to Windows File Explorer to right-click and select different rotation options on the file (without having the file open) that would often cause corruption similar to the second image. Needless to say, I deinstalled that!

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

Thanks greatly for all the ideas guys.I'll try them out

<BR>One thing i've found since yesterday is that i can take pics without a lens on the camera and get weird looking banded files-where they usually are blank or have an even tone distribution

<P>I'm guessing it's not looking too good -perhaps a serious camera repair needed?

<P>In any case i'll immediately back up the important images since my last backup just to be sure.

[jason_vieitas]

Hmm, ya that looks familiar. I had a couple come in with photo's from Vegas, they had that kind of red band, and a few other tone changes. Evedently what that was from was the sensor it was loose by just a bit and sometime it would jar out of place, or so I was told when they went to repair it (they came back and told me). I don't know if that's true or not. Just my 2 bits.

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

Just did more testing with the camera.When shooting without a card the images show without any problems.

<BR>I then did a series of random shots with (what should be) the best card.Still no issues

<P>I then downloaded them with the card reader.They looked perfect when opened in windows but suddenly showed massive corruption when checked again five minutes later.

<BR>I then downloaded the exact same files using the steam powered 'USB cord straight to the camera' method.So far they are perfect and refuse to degrade ,so i may have found the problem.

<P>Oddly i now see that some images shot about a month ago are now starting to break up too,where they showed no issues before.

<BR>So there still may also be a hard disk problem -or perhaps those older files are effected by the (likely) dud card reader and are now starting to show faults(?).I'm also having problems with the antivirus refusing to run (including a second freshly downloaded version)which is why i asked about viruses in my first post.Maybe that is also caused by a hard disk problem?

<P>In any case i'm just gratefull that the expensive camera seems to be ok...hopefully

[akajohndoe]

If you have the capability to bring some fresh images into a different PC, you might want to try it. Just to cover that base as well.

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

Damn spoke too soon didn't i....:(:(

<BR>Still getting corruption

<P>I'll visit my brother sometime where i can use his cards,reader ,cords and computer.

<P>Thanks very much for the help everyone

[akajohndoe]

Well, the possibilities are one or more of the following: Camera; Card; USB card Reader/Cable; PC Hardware; PC Software.

 

Just to be clear: These are .jpg files on the camera and on the PC? And what are you using to open them with on the PC?

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

That's right DN ,jpeg's only so far.I'll experiment with RAW sometime.

<BR>I'm getting corrupted files even downloading straight from the camera so that would have to rule out the card reader.

<P>On the computer i've opened them with a variety of programs-PS elements,windows standard picture and fax viewer,irfanview and others.

<P>I'll try opening the files in elements immediately as they are downloaded (when they still look ok) then saving them as PSD's or TIFF's

[akajohndoe]

I would not concentrate on a systemic software failure like a .jpg-based virus at this time, but perhaps come back to it later if nothing else makes sense.

 

For now, concentrating on my original thought, being a buffer problem, is the USB on the PC USB 1 or USB 2? And the card readers, same question.

 

And under the Windows Event Viewer, System log primarily, but also look at the Application log. Anything related in either of those?