CF card/lost images issue - DPChallenge Forums

01/11/2004 01:53:23 PM · #1

Hi all,
Last night, on the way home from out of town, I stopped and shot 4 or 5 shots of a scene that I saw. This afternoon when I downloaded my images, there was 1 image, and it was the first one I shot. And, yes, the camera was on! Anyone's CF lose images before??? (SanDisk Ultra 512MB CF)

01/11/2004 02:02:22 PM · #2

Not had any experience with pictures being lost...

Have you tried running the disk through a program like PhotoRescue?

There is a trial version on their site. It worked for me when I deleted some files.

There are free versions of other programs that do the same job, can't remember what they are called though...

01/11/2004 02:34:08 PM · #3

Thank you for the link, brownt! I tried it, and while it amazingly recovered over 100 images, it only showed the 1 image of the scene last night. Thanks for your help - BTW, I will probably buy PhotoRescue; I was amazed at the results in spite of it not finding the other images I shot last night!

Can't figure this one out, but is it possible that it had anything to do with the temperature (10 degrees)??

Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 E-mount

01/11/2004 02:47:40 PM · #4

Linda

Have a look at this forum post. A free program is mentioned, not used it though. MIght be worth a try before you buy PhotoRescue.

jmsetzler

Sony Alpha a6000

01/11/2004 02:58:44 PM · #5

I have not suffered any loss on my CF card yet, but i take a few precautions also... I try to remember to format my card before I start shooting. I'm not sure if it helps, but it can't hurt.

01/11/2004 03:07:08 PM · #6

Originally posted by jmsetzler:

I have not suffered any loss on my CF card yet, but i take a few precautions also... I try to remember to format my card before I start shooting. I'm not sure if it helps, but it can't hurt.

Let me be sure that I understand - are you saying that you format your card each time you download the images to your computer, instead of erasing the images?? I have only formatted the card twice, but usually just "erase" the images. Maybe that is the problem.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

01/11/2004 03:10:34 PM · #7

Originally posted by brownt:

Linda

Have a look at this forum post. A free program is mentioned, not used it though. MIght be worth a try before you buy PhotoRescue.

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at that also.

I was also interested to see that Gordon mentioned something about Win2k corrupting his CF, so maybe I'll PM him and see if he can enlighten me about possible problems with that since that is the OS that I use on all my computers.

HRoxas

Canon EOS-5D

01/11/2004 03:38:53 PM · #8

My SM card for Olympus camera went bad and returned it to the store and they replaced it. They told me to format the card every once in a while which I now do with my CF card. I erase the pictures and then I format especially when the card is full.

01/11/2004 03:40:51 PM · #9

I use Win2K mostly, my laptop does have it but rarely gets used for photography stuff.

I do as Setzler does, once I've copied my images off onto the computer I format it in the camera...

Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 E-mount

01/11/2004 03:57:58 PM · #10

Thanks for all the input. I'll be formatting from now on and hope that it solves the problem!

jmsetzler

Sony Alpha a6000

01/11/2004 05:06:20 PM · #11

Originally posted by lhall:

Originally posted by jmsetzler:
I have not suffered any loss on my CF card yet, but i take a few precautions also... I try to remember to format my card before I start shooting. I'm not sure if it helps, but it can't hurt.

Let me be sure that I understand - are you saying that you format your card each time you download the images to your computer, instead of erasing the images?? I have only formatted the card twice, but usually just "erase" the images. Maybe that is the problem.

I do format my card frequently. When I copy the photos from the card to my computer, i use a cut/paste rather than a copy/paste. That automatically takes the photos off the card after the copy is complete. If the paste operation fails, it doesn not remove the images from the card.

Spanish_Grease

Olympus C-4000Z

01/11/2004 05:18:38 PM · #12

I do the same as Setz, and I've never had a problem with my card.

Well that's not totally true, I did have a problem when I used the card usually in my camera for my mp3 player, which prevented any further use of the card with my camera. If their any chance something like that could've happened?

Lee

Yellowpeep

Canon EOS-10D

01/11/2004 05:38:44 PM · #13

Man, I wish I had photorescue five years ago when I took my first trip to NYC. We went everywhere, including the top of the World Trade Center, and I took 50 photos with my Canon Powershot, which was one of the first digital cameras back then (a 16mb card was the biggest you could get!). I got home and something went wrong with the disk and I lost them ALL! This is the single reason that I will never buy a microdrive with tons of space. I spread my photos out over many disks, so if something goes wrong, I've only lost a portion of my photos. Hope you have success with your disk. :)

cbeller

Nikon D300

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 16-85 f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

01/11/2004 05:54:28 PM · #14

Originally posted by lhall:

Believe it or not, the exact same thing happened to me last night, except mine was a SD card. In my camera, I could see one of the images, but I could not get it off the card. I tried recovery tools and that did not work either. I think I will be doing what Setz suggested from now on as well.

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8D

01/11/2004 06:18:08 PM · #15

When transferring images, I use my SanDisk card reader, view the images in PS7 browser, then drag the images into the folders I want them in. Then I erase/delete the images from the card before putting the card back into the camera. I've never copy/pasted (unless that is what "dragging" is!), and I've never cut/pasted. Is this a better method than just dragging the files into folders?

I do not use my CF cards in any other device, so I know that isn't the problem.

As per the problem with the images that I took last night - I could view the one image and transfer it into another file with no problem at all. It's just that the other 3 or 4 shots I took weren't even on the card. PhotoRescue actually was pretty incredible, but those last shots did not show up on the card at all.

I just realized that I haven't taken any shots since last night, so just now took a few of one of the dogs, and no problem - all showed up fine. Maybe this is just one of those fluke things, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.

David Ey

Nikon D80

01/11/2004 06:35:02 PM · #16

I ALWAYS format my cards in my camera after moving the files to pc.
I create a new file on pc and using a card reader, which acts like another drive, I drag and drop to the new file and also burn a backup cd.
Any other operating system might possibly corrupt the card so i don't write to the cf card with anything other than the camera. The only exception is , and you might try this Spanish Greese, is there have been two occasions my camera said the card was not readable,once with a new card and once with an older one. I fixed them by draging the nikon files with pics from pc to the card with the card in the reader. Hope this helps.

Originally posted by Spanish_Grease:

Message edited by author 2004-01-11 18:35:27.

01/14/2004 04:11:17 AM · #17

Finally found the free program that recovers images...

It's called PC inspector Smart Recovery and can be downloaded from here via HTTP or here via FTP.

Note : The HTTP link was playing up...

Message edited by author 2004-01-14 04:14:06.