Problem reading files from an old SD card in an M9

[Keith]

I use cards like film; I fill them once and then put them aside. They are not my photo archive, but I keep them.

I recently checked all my cards going back to 2000. They all work and all images on all of them were accessible. This is some small data.

Marty

I hope you keep them in a shoebox in the attic! 😀

 

[Richard G]

Thanks Marty. I admire your approach. I’ve only kept and locked my 2014 trip to France. There are other backups…

 

[Peter_S]

My Macbook Pro only reads SD cards when I insert them prior to start-up 🙂

 

[Freakscene]

I hope you keep them in a shoebox in the attic! 😀

They are in a small dcf zip-up bag in a safe place. Sadly I don’t have an attic, and a shoebox would be too big.

Thanks Marty. I admire your approach. I’ve only kept and locked my 2014 trip to France. There are other backups…

At work, where I constantly have to re-use cards, I have had a few fail, usually on the second-to-fifth uses. I simply don’t have the headspace to worry about that for myself, so I just use new ones and then keep them.

 

[Ray Vonn 2023]

Threads such as this are what make RFF such an incredible resource.

I found this has been most instructive, and not only for Leicaphiles. Many thanks for posting!

Somewhere in my desk at home are two old cards from my Nikon D800. With images, supposedly corrupted, still reading but not downloadable.

I will be putting a few of the good suggestions here to the test shortly. Fingers are crossed...

Out of all the photography forums I'm on, I felt this was the place to address the issue. Good luck.

You have the pictures now? If so you might hook the card up to the computer and use disk utility to erase and reformat the card, formating it to FAT32. Then put it in the Leica and format it to the camera system. Once done see if that will let you copy pix to the computer directly.
I haven't had a lick of trouble with any of my many Sandisk cards going back some 20 plus years and several camera but you never know when one might stumble. One of a few flaws with Leica is they don't have a download port. I guess that's to enhance the film like experience.

I do. The card just won't load to a windows or Mac machine and it's just old. I shudder just looking at he card so I think it's for the bin.

Anyone try an external card reader? Sometimes those can fetch files off an SD card that an internal SD Card reader can't...

Didn't work in my case, but I'm sure it will work in other similar scenarios, I was just lucky I had another camera which, although not completely reading the files natively, was still somehow sufficient to enable the transfer of files.

I use cards like film; I fill them once and then put them aside. They are not my photo archive, but I keep them.

I recently checked all my cards going back to 2000. They all work and all images on all of them were accessible. This is some small data.

Marty

Never heard that before, what a good idea, thanks.

My Macbook Pro only reads SD cards when I insert them prior to start-up 🙂

Interesting! Might try that. Thanks.

 

[DownUnder]

I hope you keep them in a shoebox in the attic! 😀

A Hunt and Palmer's biscuit tin. If it was good enough for Henri Cartier-Bresson, it's good enough for us all...

(='Henri Cartier-Bresson A Biography' Pierre Assouline, 2012.)

 

[Dogman]

I always use a card reader. Once I've loaded the files in the computer, I re-format the card in the camera. I've never filled up a card. Most of the time I shoot maybe 3-4 shots and download them. Sometimes I shoot many more but I always format with the camera once downloaded. I figure this frequent formatting keeps my cards healthy and ready to go. I've only had two card failures over time. One was a fake Sandisk. The other was my fault for pulling the card out of the reader before ejecting.

I don't claim this is the best procedure but it has worked for me for a long time.

..............

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I run Windows XP off of a Lexar 64GByte CF card, also Dual-Boot DOS off of it. This is for a custom embedded system. I went through a lot of different CF cards to find one reliable enough to do this. Then I bought 100 of them.

 

[wayben]

I use cards like film; I fill them once and then put them aside. They are not my photo archive, but I keep them.

I do the same for things I really don't want to loose. It's not my only copy, but it is one of them. They are stored in an old cigar box in a closet.
Wayne