CF Card life?

[threeracers]

A SanDisk CF card showed less space after I emptied it recently (showing less shots available on the camera) but returned to normal size after I reformatted it. Is this the first sign of possible failure? I have had it a year and being my largest CF card it's the one that tends to remain in the camera. This is the first time it's misbehaved and I just wondered if these things have a life span?

[GetCarter]

I've had one (out of six) go south on me. The first sign was that pic number 44 or 45 would never store (duff segments I guess) - then all of a sudden It was dead.

Not sure if what you are experiencing is similar.

[Bee_Jay]

Not at all - there were probably just some hidden files, or configuration files on there that you didn't know about or couldn't see. Had you put it in a card reader attached to a PC at some point or has it always been in the camera?

As a matter of best practice it is good to reformat a card in camera to clear it off rather than 'delete' the images. For one it is quicker and it can also reduce your chances of corruption due to file system errors.

[threeracers]

Thanks for the speedy responses chaps. I either copy into a Vosonic or straight onto the PC via a combination floppy/CF reader drive in my PC. I usually delete via the PC rather than the camera.

It’s 2GB card and normally it reads 162 shots on RAW+JPEG and after the last time it only read 120. I put it back into the PC and deleted everything but it still read 120. Reformatting in camera gave me 162 again.

I think I will try and reformat rather than delete in future.

Cheers

Mark

[Bee_Jay]

You will probably find that your PC created a 'recycle bin' on your card and put the files in there, effectively reducing the storage available. It has happened to me before.

Format in camera every time is the way to go.