Canon 5D Mark IV erased images without formatting

[Cait]

Hi everyone. I’m a professional wedding photographer and I shoot with the Canon 5D mark IV currently. I recently had an issue with the hot shoe not firing flash for every shot so I sent the body to Canon for repair (ended up being just an intense internal cleaning). When I got the camera back I was frustrated to see how many of my settings had been changed. However I was able to catch most of them. Unfortunately I did discover as I was shooting a major issue. I shot on my cards I always use (cf and sd as backup) and when I took out the cf cards everything was fine. I wanted to recheck a photo a took so I put the same card I’d been shooting on back into the camera and the camera completely erased it. Of course I panicked because this is mid wedding. I stopped shooting on that card and shot on another for awhile - thinking it was a fluke. I happened to do the same thing and take that cf card out and put it back in and it erased the card AGAIN. The card didn’t show images on another camera and didn’t show images on my computer. Thank god for backup sd cards so I would’ve had to use recovery software. I’ve never had this camera do this to me before and I’m not sure if it’s a setting or a new error but I obviously can’t have my cards being formatted without me telling the camera to do so!! Please help if anyone has had this issue or has any ideas! 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Cait
Spelling error

[Mark Keefer]

Hard to say. Maybe a bad CF card. Check camera to be sure no bent cf card pins. I very rarely remove s CF card. I use the USB 3 cable and canon EOS software to download on my laptop. I would try another CF card sfter verifying no bent pins. It is too easy to bend a CF pin. Spec of dirt or lint Plugging up a CF card pin hole and bam, bent pin reinserting into camera. Main reason I rarely remove one. I also do big events like a Wedding with two cameras simultaneously, two different lenses on each camera and the whole event gets shot on two cameras, 4 memory cards. I am not going to be the photographer that blew the wedding photos. Anyway, yes good for you using both cards. It saved your shoot. Anyway, I never had a CF card erase images by themselves. Are you inserting the CF cards with camera turned off? Just wondering. Anyway, maybe just a bad card. 

Edited November 12, 2022 by Mark Keefer

[wgpinc]

Are you sure that Canon doesn't have a feature/setting on the 5D Mk IV that automatically erases a card when it is inserted into the camera. Seems possible to me although I never owned the Mk IV. RTFM I guess and see if they reset that feature when they serviced the camera.

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART174048

[hjoseph7]

On 11/12/2022 at 1:59 AM, Mark Keefer said:

Hard to say. Maybe a bad CF card. Check camera to be sure no bent cf card pins. I very rarely remove s CF card. I use the USB 3 cable and canon EOS software to download on my laptop. I would try another CF card sfter verifying no bent pins. It is too easy to bend a CF pin. Spec of dirt or lint Plugging up a CF card pin hole and bam, bent pin reinserting into camera. Main reason I rarely remove one. I also do big events like a Wedding with two cameras simultaneously, two different lenses on each camera and the whole event gets shot on two cameras, 4 memory cards. I am not going to be the photographer that blew the wedding photos. Anyway, yes good for you using both cards. It saved your shoot. Anyway, I never had a CF card erase images by themselves. Are you inserting the CF cards with camera turned off? Just wondering. Anyway, maybe just a bad card. 

I think he said this happened on 2 different CF cards, so if that's the case it's a camera issue..

[Mark Keefer]

1 hour ago, hjoseph7 said:

I think he said this happened on 2 different CF cards, so if that's the case it's a camera issue..

Well then, that doesn't sound encouraging. Check for bent pins. The camera is still worth spending the money on a repair.