40D trashing my 8MB CF Cards?

I'm typing this in SW Florida after taking many great images the past two days on a SanDisk Ultra 8 GB card. Problem! My images this evening seem gone, with an error message about folders and saying no images found. I realize there are many card recovery programs so have hope. No need to cover those options again on this post. But this is my second card in a week, 8GB, that has done this. I sent one back and got this one with same problem. This leads me to believe that my 40D is doing something to the file management on these cards and the cards themselves were not defective. Hate to think that the images I took alongside Alfred, Fabs, Jim, and Blake are gone. When I get home, I'll download the best recovery program I can find but seems my camera can not use these 8 GB cards. Suggestions welcome . .going to have a few beers right now and sulk.

Hi Jeff

moisture and very high humidity can cause problems with the file structure and make the cards appear to the camera to be blank and unformatted. As long as the files are not overwritten you can extract them without too many problems. This has happened to me before but in my case I was 100% at fault as I shot with not 100% totally dry cards. Also I have helped others with the same problem in super high humidity situations.

Sorry I cannot help with the cause or the cure in your case, at least the images are almost certainly rescuable.

Robert

Robert

I just had a friend at work give me a 8GB Sandisk SD card that had all her pictures from her trip to Rwanda last week on it. She hadn't taken a laptop or other back up device so this was it. She'd been deleting on camera from it and suddenly it wasn't recognized. She was using a new Nikon D80. I've tried SanDisk RescuePRO and R-Studio on it and neither see anything past the main directories. RescuePRO just gives up. R-Studio sees lots of bad sectors. This is the first bad drive or card I haven't been able to recover with R-Studio. I'm wondering if 8GB is just a bit too dense to be reliable yet and to be conservative we should be sticking with 4GB cards for now.

If you use R-Studio, the first thing you should do is create an image file. This is a byte-by-byte copy of the card so if the card is failing more with each insertion, you will at least get a view of the card before any more damage occurs. I may have inadvertently allowed more damage occur by trying a few other things first.

http://www.r-undelete.com/File_Undelete_Download.shtml ... you can create an image in demo mode.

Beers and sulking was my only suggestion ;) I'm sure you'll recover the files! It was great meeting you Jeff, and even better shooting with you. Let me know anytime you're hitting the west coast of Florida.

Talk to you soon!

Hi Jeff, Sounds like a moisture problem. I am sure that you will get the pix back. In the meantime, try this but do not tell anyone where you heard it. Please the camera in a pillow case. Stick the business end of a hair dryer into the open end of the pillow case. Turn it on high and make sure that the back end of the hair dryer is not blocked. Leave it on for three minutes. The camera should be hot to the touch. Repeat every day at lunch and after dinner.

That tip from the lovely Ms. Robbins saved my butt in Panama as both of my cameras were crashing cards...

Had you been using the camera in the rain at all?

later and love, artie

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arthur Morris

Hi Jeff, Sounds like a moisture problem. I am sure that you will get the pix back. In the meantime, try this but do not tell anyone where you heard it. Please the camera in a pillow case. Stick the business end of a hair dryer into the open end of the pillow case. Turn it on high and make sure that the back end of the hair dryer is not blocked. Leave it on for three minutes. The camera should be hot to the touch. Repeat every day at lunch and after dinner.

That tip from the lovely Ms. Robbins saved my butt in Panama as both of my cameras were crashing cards...

Had you been using the camera in the rain at all?

later and love, artie

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That sounds scary. Is this with card in the camera?

No. The card is in your pocket...
later and love, artie

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arthur Morris

Hi Jeff, Sounds like a moisture problem. Had you been using the camera in the rain at all?

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Yes, a little bit of rain may have got things wet.

Last night, I recovered my images using ImageRecall 3. Surprisingly, the popular PhotoRescue did not work for recovery. But I'm happy!

Glad you are getting some of them back Jeff Thanks for the PhotoRescue info !!!