Do Compact Flash Cards really go bad?

[Dennis Peacock]

I bought a new Digital SLR camera about 2 years ago now along with a 512MB Compact Flash Card. I was taking pictures of my 11 year old son tonight while he was turning his <b>Bonkers about Bonkers</b> entry in the Turning Forum all to find out while trying to take the final pic? The camera gave me an error code of 2. Looking it up in the book it states that the card must be reformatted or replaced and all it's contents are lost.!!!!:mad: :mad:

I've got under 1,000 pictures on this camera and this is the 1st time I've ever had a digital camera media of any type flake out on me. Do these things really go BAD!!????

Never taken out in the cold for more than 5 minutes.
Never left in the car during the summer or any time for that matter.
Never exposed to the weather during rain, snow, sleet or even fog.
Always kept in the camera case and extra care has always been taken while handling the CF card.

What Gives?

[Keith Burns]

Dennis I am probably wrong(as I usually am), but I think I'd take it to a computer store or a camera shop and maybe they can retrive the photos.

[Brandon Shew]

[quote=Dennis Peacock] Do these things really go BAD!!????
quote]

I've never really had one go bad, but if something "skips" during the writing process it can throw off the entire write/retrieve functionality of the card. Basically the camera and PC can't make sense of the data on the card because some bit or byte is out of place and it throws the whole thing off. They are basically like a floppy disk of sorts which can get a bad sector from time to time. If you re-format it you should be able to use it again w/ no problem.

This happens on the flash based iPod Nano on occasion after you send enough music files to it during updates. You just have to wipe it out and the reload the music.

[Chris Fite]

Electonic storage devices are always one static discharge away from their original state. Any of these devices can fail. Flash drives and their ilk are quite reliable, but not infallible. The watchword of the digital age is backup.

[Earl Reid]

I had a card go bad within a week, I took the camera in and got a refund, but they wouldn't give a refund on the card. The card maker wouldn't make a refund. The card cost about $70.
Earl:mad:

[Jim Hager]

I had one go bad on me at Christmas time. Before I figured out it was my card I was all over my computer trying to figure out why it would'nt load up my recently taken pics. My daughter and her fiance had been working with pics on the computer and I thought they had changed a setting somewhere. Turns out the flash card was fried, and it gave me the same message when I finally put it back in the camera. :confused: It is toast I guess. I tried reformating but it didn't work.:mad:

I haven't gotten a new one yet, just been using the small one that came with the camera since.

[Ian Abraham]

1 - Before you do anything check out some of the utilities for recovering scrambled cards.
Most likely the index of the card is toast, so the camera / PC cant read it. There are programs you can download that examine the card byte by byte and can usually get most of the files back.
2 - allways make a backup, copy the pictures off the camera and burn them to a CD. Otherwise you are allways 3 button pushes or one power on removal from loosing the lot.

Cheers

Ian

[Ian Abraham]

Try downloading this program and see what it does.

http://www.artplus.hr/adapps/eng/dpr.htm

It might get your pictures back, and it wont make things any worse. :rolleyes:

Cheers

Ian

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Yes they fail, I have two dead smart media cards :(

I was able to get some of the data back off the cards with a program similar to the one that Ian is talking about, sorry, I do not remember the name of it, but there must be several on the market, I bet you can download a trial version.

Give it a try before you give up and reformat.

Cheers!

[Vaughn McMillan]

Dennis, if there are pics on the card you can't live without, then I second the suggestion of trying a recovery program. PM me if you're interested in trying the one that the company I work for makes. (Hopefully, the thousand pics you mentioned are safely stored elsewhere. Considering your profession, I'm sure you've got that aspect handled.)

If you just want to get the card working again, have you tried reformatting it in the camera? Or perhaps simply formatting it on the PC? (I don't know if a plain vanilla FAT16 format would work, but it couldn't hurt to try.)

- Vaughn

[Brian Hale]

Yes, they can go bad but you can develop some habits to make sure it's not your fault.

Most important, keep the card empty. I know sounds counter intuitive but.... When your finished using it and it'll be sitting for a few days or more, remove the pics from the card (I always "copy" and paste, not "cut" and paste) put the card back in the camera and format it. If the card goes bad the camera will let you know at this time.

I suggest using a card reader on the computer instead of the cable that came with the card. This means removing the card from the camera which helps keep the contacts clean.

Don't format the card in the computer, do it in the camera.

I've got several cards in the house (all compact flash) for 5 different cameras and 2 MP3 players and only had 1 bad go card which the manufacturer replaced (it was brand new). If you'll only use one card, buy the best. I prefer Lexar cards.

Brian :)

[Doug Shepard]

I was going to suggest the same thing as Brian before ruling that the card is bad. Use a card reader to make sure the camera isn't the problem. If both the cam and card reader are having problems it's probably a bad card. I've got a Nikon that works just fine with a new card but once you format a card in the cam it will forever report that card as being bad even though it's totally usable. According to the cam I've been taking pics on 'bad cards' for years with no problems.

[Dennis Peacock]

Most important, keep the card empty.
I go this religiously.


I know sounds counter intuitive but.... When your finished using it and it'll be sitting for a few days or more, remove the pics from the card (I always "copy" and paste, not "cut" and paste) put the card back in the camera and format it. If the card goes bad the camera will let you know at this time.
I do this as well.


I suggest using a card reader on the computer instead of the cable that came with the card. This means removing the card from the camera which helps keep the contacts clean.
I do this as well.


Don't format the card in the computer, do it in the camera.
Never formatted the card. Guess I'll adopt this on my next card.
Brian :)[/QUOTE]

[Brian Hale]

If you've given up on getting the images off the card, try formatting it in the camera and see what it does. If it's still corrupt, you may have luck with the computer disk utilities like scan disk and defrag. Either way you'll loose anything on the card.

You may find the card will work fine on the computer but not the camera in which case you can use it for transporting files like you would with a floppy or CD. I have a couple cheap cards just for this purpose.

Another thing to check is to go to the manufacturers website and see if there is a firmware upgrade just in case they fixed the very problem you're having.

Good Luck!

Brian :)

[Dennis Peacock]

Brian,

It will not format in any form of the word. Camera returns error code 2, Canon Digital Rebel SLR and it's not even recognizable to the PC. I'm bidding on a new Lexar 512MB card on Ebay now. ;)

[Peter Stahl]

Brian,

It will not format in any form of the word. Camera returns error code 2, Canon Digital Rebel SLR and it's not even recognizable to the PC. I'm bidding on a new Lexar 512MB card on Ebay now. ;)

Dennis,

I bought a couple disks off ebay (buy now type) and they came with image recovery software. They are from Lexar and they have it free on their web site (http://www.lexar.com/newsroom/download_prod_photos.html#DigitalAcc). I have a Canon G5 and 2 512MB cards and haven't had to use them yet. Don't know if software will help in your case.

[Bill Lewis]

I had a CF card go bad. It was pretty old, about 3 years, and didn't have much memory to begin with. Only held about 60 2Mpix images. It just started showing less and less available images after D/L to computer. I just bought another, bigger card.