Help with a dud sd memory card

[Miss Pitstop]

Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone could offer some help with a dodgy sd memory card. I've been happily snapping away capturing those precious kodak moments but when I come to transfer the files to my computer it seems to freeze at the same point each time, and then tell me it cannot read from the card. I've tried doing it via various programs and via explorer but with no luck. I cannot delete the corrupt picture from my camera as it freezes and says "system error" whenever you try to view it.

Are there any techies out there with any suggestions to help me access the pictures? I'll be binning the card, but I would really like to get the photos off first.

Thanks in advance

Sarah

[leightonjames]

Use your USB cable, connect the camera to the computer with the dud card inside it and access them through that.

Hope that helps

Leighton

[Miss Pitstop]

That doesn't work either! It just freezes both the camera and the computer!

Thanks anyway though. I just wondered if there was some sneaky way of getting around it.

[S6PNJ]

try these people....... datarescue. If their retrieval program can't help, they have a free utility called cardwipe which will test and might help to recover your card. When my USB pen drive 'lost' capacity, I wiped it with this program and it was back to full capacity.

[AlfaFoxtrot]

Have you tried accessing the card on a different computer? And a seperate question, is the camera happy to take shots and save them to the card, and are you able to view them on the camera? If so that would indicate the card is happy enough reading and writing?

[Miss Pitstop]

Thanks guys.

I've tried it on the OH's laptop and no joy, and the camera is happy take photos and view them generally, but it freezes when you want to view a particular file, which makes me think there is a bad bit or sector of whatever it is you call it, as every media I try seems to hang on the same photo.

I'll give the data thingy a try though.

Thanks a lot for all your help - much appreciated

Sarah

[C&C]

Is there any way to just select the photos AFTER the dodgy one to then download to your PC? We had a similar issue on the OH's compact and if I recall correctly we were able to download all the photos bar the dodgy one by first selecting all the pics before the dodgy one and downloading, then selecting all after the dodgy one and downloading.

After getting the pics off the card, reformatting the card in the camera seemed to solve the problem and the card has been fine ever since. After downloading pics from any memory card I now always reformat the card in the camera before taking further photos...

[Miss Pitstop]

[quote=C&C]Is there any way to just select the photos AFTER the dodgy one to then download to your PC? We had a similar issue on the OH's compact and if I recall correctly we were able to download all the photos bar the dodgy one by first selecting all the pics before the dodgy one and downloading, then selecting all after the dodgy one and downloading.

quote]

Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but I can see all the photos but when I select them it slows everything right down which is very annoying! It looks like it's trying to copy them but them says "cannot copy source data" or something like that. After that the computer just pretends the drive doesn't exist, or just freezes altogether.

Cheers though!

[CO2000]

Can you try downloading a few at a time ?

[Miss Pitstop]

CO2000 said:

Can you try downloading a few at a time ?

Nope, even that doesn't work. I'm not expert but I think the technical term for it is "bugg£r£d"!

Problem is that is has some photos of my best friends newborn baby on it which she desperately wants, amongst other photos. I think I'll invest in the recovery software, then hurl the memory card out if it works - I've tried everything else suggested but no luck.

Cheers all.

[MartinP]

If you buy a San Disk Extreme III memory card, it comes with RescuePro. I've used that software to recover pictures from a corrupted card and it did a very good job.

Probably cheaper than buying some software and a new card seperately.

[S6PNJ]

Miss Pitstop said:

I think I'll invest in the recovery software

You do know you can download the software for free, run it on the card and it will show you what is recoverable. You can then decide if anything is worth recovering and pay for the software which 'releases' the images so you can save them. At least this way you can see what is recoverable before parting with your hard earned...

[Platinum]

Could it be the security switch on the card in the locked position?

[toohuge]

Platinum said:

Could it be the security switch on the card in the locked position?

i don't think so otherwise the camera would not be able to record pictures onto it in the first place.

[Miss Pitstop]

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone with your suggestions and advice but a huge thank you to fellow PH'er and TVR bod, Simon Grimshaw who very kindly sent me a recovery disk which has enabled me to get all my photos back.

Interestingly, when I tried to recover the whole disk, it said it couldn't do it, but if I recovered each file individually (all 100+ of them - yawn!) it worked a treat.

Thank you all, especially Simon. Another fine example of how helpful you lovely PH'ers can be

Sarah
(By the way, memory card is now in the bin!)

[Ed_P]

And is it true that if you Format the card each time, rather than deleting all the images, this reduces the likelihood of card problems? (Sorry if this had discussed previously).

[CVP]

Ed_P said:

And is it true that if you Format the card each time, rather than deleting all the images, this reduces the likelihood of card problems? (Sorry if this had discussed previously).

This was the advice I received when I moved to digital. I have followed it by formatting the card in camera after transferring images off and have never yet had a card go bad on me.

Chris