Technology let me down AGAIN.

bloodhound31 · #1 12-03-2013, 06:10 PM

Not long ago, my 5DMK II just stopped working. Canon's assessment... replace all PCB's because they don't know what's wrong with it. Cost to me, $1600 for a new camera body. A week before a wedding too!

Today, I flew home from four days in Tasmania, had a blast! Trekked all over Liffey falls, through rain-forrests, into Cradle mountain area's, WOW, what an awesome time and SPECTACULAR landscape photography captured!

I just pulled my CF card out of the camera, plugged it into the card-reader on the PC as usual....

error message -file corrupted - all data lost.

Plugged it back into the camera - error message - this card is not formatted for the camera, would you like to format?

Guess what? I have another wedding to shoot on Saturday....

I hate technology.

gbeal · #2 12-03-2013, 06:16 PM

Possibly why us old timers loved so much the Hasselblads and Leicas Baz.
The worrying thing is that normally bad tidings are grouped in threes.
Gary

PCH (Paul) · #3 12-03-2013, 06:54 PM

Baz

with my old 400D I've found that I can't 'hot swap' CF cards.

Early on, I plugged mine into the PC which was already on and got the same as you.

However, turning the PC off first, inserting the card, then booting - and all was ok.

Could just be that you need to do the same with yours.

Cheers,

bloodhound31 · #4 12-03-2013, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCH

Baz

with my old 400D I've found that I can't 'hot swap' CF cards.

Early on, I plugged mine into the PC which was already on and got the same as you.

However, turning the PC off first, inserting the card, then booting - and all was ok.

Could just be that you need to do the same with yours.

Cheers,

Just running recovery software now mate. If that doesn't work, I'll try that.

Cheers mate!

Baz.

bloodhound31 · #5 12-03-2013, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCH

Baz

with my old 400D I've found that I can't 'hot swap' CF cards.

Early on, I plugged mine into the PC which was already on and got the same as you.

However, turning the PC off first, inserting the card, then booting - and all was ok.

Could just be that you need to do the same with yours.

Cheers,

Quote:

Originally Posted by bloodhound31

Just running recovery software now mate. If that doesn't work, I'll try that.

Cheers mate!

Baz.

Nope... that didn't work either....

LewisM · #6 12-03-2013, 08:17 PM

Barry,

I have had tht issue on and off with the 40D and 5D Mk II - the answer is to PERSIST and eject and reinsert the card mulitple times - but nearly ALWAYS on my 2 cameras they will EVENTUALLY see and read the card (happened a LOT with the older sower cards, but with the platinum or higher cards, no issues usually).

My biggest issue is my PC seeing the card + card dock as a darned hard drive - takes a LOT of fiddling to make it see it only as a card.

Just persist with it, but if all else fails, plug it into another computer and try, or even try the camera USB direct to the computer (I RARELY use that method as that is where most of my errors have been, hence I use an adapter stand-alone to the camera)

PCH (Paul) · #7 13-03-2013, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bloodhound31

Nope... that didn't work either....

Baz,

just to be sure, you'd have to try the way I suggested using a known good card. I'm not suggesting it would somehow make the corrupted card good again. I'm guessing those pics are gone unless you can recover them using software, which i think is what you were trying to do.

Put some test pics on a known good card. Then with PC turned off, insert card, boot PC - is it readable or does it corrupt that card too.

If PC can still read that card, then, just to prove the case, - leave the pc turned on and remove the card and reinsert to see if it once again corrupts it. If it does, the case is proven.

Good luck mate

bloodhound31 · #8 13-03-2013, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCH

Baz,

just to be sure, you'd have to try the way I suggested using a known good card. I'm not suggesting it would somehow make the corrupted card good again. I'm guessing those pics are gone unless you can recover them using software, which i think is what you were trying to do.

Put some test pics on a known good card. Then with PC turned off, insert card, boot PC - is it readable or does it corrupt that card too.

If PC can still read that card, then, just to prove the case, - leave the pc turned on and remove the card and reinsert to see if it once again corrupts it. If it does, the case is proven.

Good luck mate

Thanks for your efforts in helping Paul. Yes, I tried that. My other card is fine and the card reader is fine.

I have now recovered the entire card with software and am ditching the card. I'll pick up another spare today.

Thanks for all the suggestions folks!

Baz.

PCH (Paul) · #9 13-03-2013, 05:27 PM

Hey Baz,

you shouldn't need to ditch it. Just reformat it and it should be as good as new again!

Cheers pal

acropolite (Phil) · #10 14-03-2013, 08:42 AM

Baz, maybe it's a hint that you need a 5D3 with dual card capability. Might be an idea in future to transfer from the camera instead of the reader.

naskies (Dave) · #11 14-03-2013, 09:07 AM

I'm glad you got your images back, Baz!

FAT32 should have died a long, horrible death many years ago... it's such a shame that it's still so heavily used. The problem with it is that there are only two indices (the "file allocation table") stored at the start of the memory card... right next to each other in memory!

This wasn't quite as bad with spinning disks because disk sectors were (at the time) written independently in hardware. However, with flash memory in order to write even just a few bytes (e.g. adding the entry for one extra photo in the file allocation table) the card needs to erase a huge block of memory first. Between this, caching, and the camera/card being powered of at an inopportune moment, the chances of data loss is very high.

Slight tangent: journaled file systems such as NTFS or EXT spread the allocation table across the entire disk, and they also keep a log (journal) of what they're doing, so in case of inopportune power loss the device can just roll-back the changes and no harm done.

For what it's worth, my inner programmer is a little anal retentive when it comes to swapping CF cards... I *always* turn the camera off first, wait 5 seconds after all the lights stop flashing, swap the cards over, wait 5 seconds for the camera to read the card (even though it's "off"), and then power on the card. So far so good...

Octane (Humayun) · #12 14-03-2013, 03:42 PM

Exactly the same as you.

I've had one card die on me in shooting digital for over 10 years now.

H

Quote:

Originally Posted by naskies

For what it's worth, my inner programmer is a little anal retentive when it comes to swapping CF cards... I *always* turn the camera off first, wait 5 seconds after all the lights stop flashing, swap the cards over, wait 5 seconds for the camera to read the card (even though it's "off"), and then power on the card. So far so good...

LewisM · #13 14-03-2013, 04:31 PM

I have had 3 cards die... all at once.... incredible how fast salt water destroys them

(and 2 batteries also - by the time I got home to blast with compressed air, the recharge terminals were HALF their original size - enough trapped salt water to start a anode-cathode cell...)

bloodhound31 · #14 14-03-2013, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by naskies

For what it's worth, my inner programmer is a little anal retentive when it comes to swapping CF cards... I *always* turn the camera off first, wait 5 seconds after all the lights stop flashing, swap the cards over, wait 5 seconds for the camera to read the card (even though it's "off"), and then power on the card. So far so good...

Thanks for the tips and info everyone.

Dave, thanks mate, I'll adopt this. This is my second card to die on me.

Baz.