Faulty Memory Card?

[Ray]

Have you ever had the misfortune to find the dreaded message "No Images available" when trying to view your photos on your camera? If so don't panic,... I've done enough of that for both of us.

Yesterday I had taken several shots and checked them on my camera, Yep they were OK, only to get home and find that the photos were inaccessible both via the USB cable and the camera viewer. I took the card out of the camera and inserted it into my card reader, and the computer said that the 2Gb card was 3/4 full but no images were present.

Mr Google to the rescue... and I found a program called ZAR (Zero assumption Recovery) that was alleged to be the duck's guts. I downloaded and installed the software only to find that of course it was only shareware, but I then found that the photo recovery feature is a freebie.

The program is pretty straight forward and where I had doubts, I merely accepted the defaults. It analysed the card and found 515 photos and asked if I wished to recover them. Al but the last seven photos had been previously downloaded, but at this stage it was all or nothing so I agreed and away it went. It took an hour and 23 minutes to recover the images and a graphic filmstrip was displayed giving me access to view the recovered images allowing me to choose those I wished to save. A few mouse clicks later and I had my precious photos on my hard drive.

I think that I will outlay the princely sum of $29.95 and get the access code for this program, after only one use I find it to be everything it was stated to be. Good value for money in my book.

[adminer]

Great tip Ray - thanks     Are you planning to re-format the faulty card and re-use it or just maybe keep it as a spare? I find the Sandisk Extreme III cards are the fastest and pretty reliable. What brand was your card?

Might also be worthwhile considering upgrading the firmware on your camera in case that caused the fault?

[Ray]

The card is unbranded and came with the camera as part of a bonus deal, the regular card only being about 32Mb (About 15 shots) Unfortunately it is my only card at the moment, but I will be rectifying that before very long and relegating this one to an emergency spare. I have reformatted it in the camera this time hoping that the problem may have been bought about by the fact that I had originally formatted it in my 'puta.

The camera is only about 5 weeks old and has taken 603 shots and several minutes of movie clips, all without any problems until now. I have noticed that the camera appears to take a noticeable amount of time transferring data to the card, so I'd say it's a slow card which is to be expected of a giveaway I suppose.

[adminer]

I've never had a problem with Sandisk cards and if you go for the extreme versions (particularly extreme III) you'll really notice the speed difference! PM me if you want me to get you one from my supplier (Leader Computers). Edit - just checked they only stock PQI cards (assuming it's SD. 2Gb 150X $33.00, 8Gb $82.15, 2Gb 60X $17.60, 16Gb $108.90, (all cost price).

[Ray]

Thanks for your kind offer, however while it was still on my mind, immediately I finished here I went and purchased a 2Gb Extreme III on EBay for exactly the same price $33.00 Ex Sydney. . It should arrive next week.

I find that with file sizes of 2MB a 2Gb card is more than adequate. this is demonstrated by the fact that even though I had previously downloaded my photos from the card and backed them up, I still hadn't bothered to delete them from the camera. Just pure laziness I guess.

I backup every day or so, to a 500Gb SATA removable drive, and also keep a "working backup" on a 320Gb External HDD attached to my computer.

Me,... Wadda ya mean, paranoid I had'm out with me tonsils as a little tacker.

[adminer]

Great move Ray. I can't imagine that you'll be disappointed with an Extreme III - they are great and really fast!   

Wow! now that's really safe Data!

[utegirl70]

  Rofling...

[Ray]

Wow! now that's really safe Data!

I learned my lesson very early, back in about 1992. I had a family tree on my computer with 350 entries, my hard drive developed a fault and I had to re enter all of my info on the replacement. As "thick" as I am, I realised that I never again wanted to lose my data so all my files were backed up to floppies. Of course as technology progressed I went on to CD's and then dedicated hard drives.

Hard drives are much more reliable now, and I have had no need of my backups for years, but when the day comes, hopefully I will have no real dramas.  My family tree has 16600+ entries and is absolutely irreplaceable, I would cut my throat if I was ever to lose it. Oh, and I forgot, I also have a back up of it up loaded to the web.

I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who have no backups of their data, and business people are often the worst offenders insofar as their information is often vital for the running of their business as well as the ATO.

[adminer]

I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who have no backups of their data, and business people are often the worst offenders insofar as their information is often vital for the running of their business as well as the ATO.

So True Ray. My wife has around 1200 entries in our family tree so far and it grows daily. It's truly precious information and is backed up to DVD & removable hard drive, although I haven't reloaded the website for a few years now (too busy with other peoples)  She'll be stoked when we get from around 300 entries on the current site to the 1200 we have now, including all the photos, research data & social history that goes with it.

That said - I'm about to do a full system backup to my 320Gb removeable - you tweaked my conscience