Digital Conundrum - CF cards losing images

[hugh_hill]

<p><img src="../photo/14117712" alt="" />A friend of mine who is a firefighter and keen photographer called me today in a bit of a flux, he said that he had a problem but wasn't entirely sure what was causing it,....</p>

<p>He said that he was working at the Nottinghill Carnival over the weekend and while there had used around 6 cards taking some great shots with his old 10D but said that the problem started when he was trying to capture,,, said it managed to go halfway through the first card (all Raw) and that bridge gave him an error something to the extent that he needed to charge his camera? 'Yes!' that's what he told me, and added that he wasn't using the camera to capture but the CF reader and that bridge informed him that it had successfully loaded some of the images to a folder.<br>

When he went to look for the rest of the files on the card there were none (surpise, surprise!) bit when he went to properties and looked at the disk size he noticed that almost a GB was being used up (which was about the same in the amount of photographs missing) he tried n other cards and the same thing.</p>

<p>All in all he has given me 6 cards to look at and to be honest I am utterly stumped, I believe it may be his old 10D on its last legs or maybe his card reader to be honest I am not sure.<br>

He has recently got himself a mint condition Dell precision 690 which has been working perfectly well until this recent faux pas, so he thinks that it could be the culprit,,,on which account I doubt as I got him to shoot a card on his 1Ds MKII and it copied on the same card reader without neither fault nor fail....<br>

Has anyone here experienced this or anything remotely similar and if so would they mind sharing their experiences in the hope that it could help him and others who may face similar experiences.</p>

<p>Regards & Thanks</p>

<p>Hugh Hill</p>

<p>ps If it helps, the CF cards varied from cheap Jessops to San Disk Extreme IV's</p><div></div>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Some more details, here. I can't quite tell if he was using a separate card reader, or if he was thethering the camera to the computer in order to fetch the files. <br /><br />And: when he's done working with the cards, and has sufficiently backed up his data on multiple devices, does he <em>format the cards <strong>in</strong> the camera?</em><br /><br />Corrupted file systems on the card(s) would certainly cause the behavior you're describing. That sort of corruption can happen when the cards are prematurely pulled from the computer (without tell the operating system to cleanly dismount those files systems), or when the device that's connecting them to the computer (say, the camera) does something like run out of power, and cease to communicate with the computer. The file system on the card could be easily messed up in such a situation.<br /><br />You'll want to use a card recovery utility to scan them for the no doubt present, but orphaned files. Do not do anything that would cause the computer to try to generate thumbnails or otherwise write to the cards until you've used such a utility to clean up.</p>

[randallfarhy]

<p>Agree with Matt, this sounds like a use and formatting issue. I have a habit of going through my cards in camera during lulls in the action and deleting unwanted images. I've had glitches arise in the past where the remainder of the images could no longer be read or downloaded. As a result, I now reformat in camera after each download. Seems to have eliminated those issues. </p>

[philip_wilson]

Best practice is to format the card in the camera before use. Did he do this?

[hugh_hill]

<p>Matt,<br>

Thank you for that rapid response I really appreciated it, I didn't reply here as it was very late (You must be state side.)<br>

I concur with you, Randall & Philip (Thanks guy's!) It has to be the cards and treatment of, as I recall he is not that familiar with computers or hardware coming to digital from film fairly late so maybe a lesson or two in this may be the best option to prevent future catastrophes.</p>

<p>Once again thank you all.</p>

<p> </p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>You may be able to recover the images. Using one of the recovery utilities (I use the one by Lexar) can often recover corrpted images (which these undoubtedly are now) by rebuilding them from the data, and writing new headers -- by no means perfect, but it's a chance (and time) I'd take if the images are actually important.<br>

Once recovery is complete, I'd do in-camera formatting if he intends to reuse the cards.</p>

<p> </p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>Stuff happens with CF cards. It can be a bad card, a formatting error, or even issues with other hardware attached to the computer. </p>

<p>The immediate issue is recovering the images. There are a number of recovery applications out there - sorry, but I don't have the name of the one I've used handy at the moment - and they can often recover all or nearly all of the files from a bad card. Some will even let you run a trial version first to determine what files can be recovered, and you then pay for the real app only if you see that it will work for you.</p>

<p>It is a good idea (but not now! wait until the files are recovered!) to reformat the card in the camera after you have successfully transferred images to your computer. I do this every time as my method of clearing the card for the next shoot.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>Stuff happens with CF cards. It can be a bad card, a formatting error, or even issues with other hardware attached to the computer.</p>

<p>The immediate issue is recovering the images. There are a number of recovery applications out there - sorry, but I don't have the name of the one I've used handy at the moment - and they can often recover all or nearly all of the files from a bad card. Some will even let you run a trial version first to determine what files can be recovered, and you then pay for the real app only if you see that it will work for you.</p>

<p>It is a good idea (but not now! wait until the files are recovered!) to reformat the card in the camera after you have successfully transferred images to your computer. I do this every time as my method of clearing the card for the next shoot.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<p>I'm back a moment later. I think this is the software that I have used in the past: http://www.cardrecovery.com/os.asp. I think it was formerly known as PhotoRescue or similar.</p>

[steven_crist]

<p>I'll bet he was using a higher capacity card. When using older cameras like the 10D they typically can't use cards above either 2 or 4 gig. I had the same problem with an older Olympus camera. You can take pictures with the card but the disk will only use the first 2 or 4 gig and the other photos get "lost". Try using smaller cards and I'll bet the problem goes away.</p>

[MathewDH]

<p>I ran into this problem with a 2 gig card on my Canon 300D. It cost me one photo I really wanted. Initially I thought the card was going bad. The other side of the issue was the Camera was failing.</p>

<p>What I found was I had done multiple sessions on the card and only deleting the images. There was a lot of clutter. I did a defrag on the card but still found the same issue. Eventually reformatting the card brought it back to recording properly. I am still suspicious of the camera.</p>

<p>CHEERS...Mathew</p>