SD card serious problem!

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M4streetshooter

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So I did this cool wedding yesterday and last evening. I have a Sansdisk 2 gig Ultra 2 card that shows the images in the camera but will not load into the computer. The last image reads error and can't be deleated or viewed etc. I used 3 different readers on 2 different Mac's to no avail. Theres about 95 images on the card.....any ideas on what to do......

neither computer will see the card....so I can't even use Image Rescue.....

any help greatly appreciated......

yes the card was formatted before use in the camera.......

don
 
I have had success with a program called photorescue on my mac:
http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/

I can't remember if I had problems with the sd card not showing at first. You might try a restart of the computer with the sd card in the reader and the reader connected to the usb port. That sometimes works with drives not showing.

As for formatting, my practice is to do a full format in the r-d1 when I first use a card, and then quick formats afterwards.
 
As for never formatting a card in the camera - I do this all the time said:
Well, did that already...and I always format in the camera...and have seperate cards for each camera...never had a problem....this is the only Sansdick....I have and it's in the trash tonight.....Lexars never gave me a problem....later...don
Click to expand...
 
I would have said never format any card with your computer personally, always do it in your camera.
Anyway, as you're with a Mac, try to read your SD card with OS 9 ('classic') it did work once or twice for me.
 
I can't help you with a Mac. However it should be readable on a PC as well. I have had SD cards get corrupted for different reasons. Once because someone put alkaline batteries in a digital designed for rechargables. They died during an image transfer and corrupted the card. Several times because the card has been filled too full. No doubt changing tides and phases of the moon make a difference too.

On a PC try a card reader and Zero Assumption Software which can be found on Snapfiles under http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html and will work. The PC Inspector recovery my help also. Zero Assumption may report the wrong size on your drive, requiring some search, but when you get it, it will find stuff you didn't even know was still there.

Good luck.
 
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Many good suggestions, thanks everyone. I have at this point given up....4 computers, 5 readers every combination and still no result....

I just bought a new Lexar 2 gig 133x Pro Card...works fine just like my other ones......

my client is not aware of the problem....

what one never had, one never misses......

Sandisk....stick it up yours........

anyway, The eppy worked flawlessly.....even in the dark with a 383 on top...great images......later everyone....don
 
My experience with cards, CF, not SD, is NEVER put the files in the trash on a Mac. Delete the images in camera then format if you want. Never an issue for me and this is heavy, heavy useage in, at times, extreme conditions. I use Sandisk Ultra and Extreme cards and have no probs with their cards, same with the few Lexar I have. Get the professional series cards if you want reliability.

If you've tried Image Rescue and Photo Rescue to no avail, it might be interesting to take it to a recovery service to see what they can do. Look for one that has low fees for estimates. Could be handy down the road but hopefully you won't need to use them.
 
Don, I had almost the exact same experience as you, except it was a 2Gb Sandisk Ultra Plus (with flip-out USB connector) in an R-D1s. The Epson could "see" the files on the card, and write to it, but they would not download. An SD card reader into the PC solved the problem. It may not be a lost cause yet so don't give up.
 
I knew I shoulda taken computer courses (Basic) in high school way back when. My head hurt reading the top of that list. I'll have someone translate that into english.
 
That's why I use Mac's....intuitive........it's a dead issue....there is no resolution,well none that I or a few friends can get....so...it's really a strong reality check........

maybe digital isn't so different from film afterall....I just did a job and lost the film.....
 
Do you have another camera (or access to one) that takes SD cards? Will they display on it's LCD (usually they will be recognised even if not properly displayed)? If so you and this is a camera with a direct computer connection you may be able to download from that.
 
I know this won't help you M4 but I wonder if cameras with built in wifi capabilities would have been the workaround ?

Be interesting to hear what happened whichever way it turns out.
 
The current Mac OS is unix-based. If you know the major and minor device numbers for your reader (or can find them), you may be able to mount the raw device and read the card. The command list above should help you mount and list the contents. I would recommend not mounting the 'cooked' device as that is what the OS uses when it tries to read the card. Have a look in your /dev folder. I am not a Mac user since the IIfx.

I'm with NikonWebMaster. If the camera can see the files, they are there. I won't get into whether you should or should not format an SD card or where one should should one choose to.
 
If the SD card mounts on the desktop in the card reader attached to the Mac, but you just can't see the image files on it, try this:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19622

This has worked miracles on occasion. However, it will only rescue jpg's, not RAW files.

I have bought many "blank" cards and cards that came with cameras on eBay, or at flea markets, etc, and out of curiosity, have used this program to examine the "erased" files.

Shall we say I have sometimes found some quite interesting images.
 
I got a version of SanDisk's RescuePRO with a CF Extreme III card that works on Mac OS X. Shouldn't that have been included with your card as well?
 
All good idea's but the issue is that the card can't be read by the reader or desktop. I sent it to 2 recovery firms and no good result. I didn't expect any result anyway, I have enough experience to know when to let things go....

so maybe I'll sell my R-D1s to the client and they can view the images on the screen....hmmmmm not a bad idea....later all....thanks for the concern....don
 
rsl said:
1. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER TRY TO DO SOMETHING LIKE A WEDDING WITH JUST ONE CAMERA. When you do a wedding with a single camera you're performing without a net. You need the net! You can't go back and re-shoot a wedding, or a parade, or anything that comes in a single performance.

2. ALWAYS FORMAT THE CARD IN THE CAMERA after you've made at least two copies of the card's contents. The card's file structure is FAT. If you keep erasing and re-using the card without formatting it gradually becomes more and more scrambled. I don'tknow where the ideas in the quote above came from, but they're absolutely wrong. That's why Nikon professional DSLRs have a format command you can access by pressing two buttons on the body of the camera. It's really rare for someone who uses one of these camera to delete frames they've shot. They just press the two buttons and re-format. That cleans up the card for the next job and sets the FAT (file allocation table) back to square one.

3. One thing you might try is to put the card in a card reader attached to a friend's PC and run chkdsk.exe on it. Run it without the "/F"ix option first to see if it picks up errors. If it does, run it again with the "/F" option. I once was able to recover the contents of a corrupted card that way.

4. Finally, there's SanDisk's own "RescuePRO" software that comes with some of their more expensive cards. Yes, it's only for Windows, but if you can locate a copy of that and a friend with a PC, it might solve your problem.
Click to expand...

I've been a photographer for over 45 years. I always use at least 2 cameras for any event. Things happen and this was one of those things....

it wasn't a format issue.....it wasn't a computer Mac/Pc issue did all that stuff...it was just a freak, maybe accident...but whatever....I'm past it long ago....it'll happen again probably...**** happens....get on with it....thanks...don
 
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