Compact Flash problem- HELP!

[John Chardine]

I guess I've been lucky but until last week I have never lost images on a Compact Flash. BTW I have the camera set up so that I cannot shoot if there is no CF card inserted. Here's what happened (sorry for long story but I wanted to document everything):

1. Shot images all day to late PM and downloaded successfully to computer using USB reader.
2. Inserted CF card back into Canon 40D as usual and continued shooting through evening.
3. At some point in evening, turned camera on and shutter release was dead, no AF, no IS. Not sure what problem was so reset camera by removing batteries, incl. small pill battery.
4. This seemed to work as the camera allowed me to continue shooting once the batteries were back in and the camera turned on.
5. At several points through the evening I reviewed images as I shot them and showed others what I had taken. This involved pressing the playback button and moving forward and backward through the images.
6. Nothing seemed untoward until I returned home, removed the CF card from the camera, inserted into reader and copied images to computer. Unfortunately, all the images shot at step 2 above or later were not present on the CF card.

I had not deleted the images because ones from earlier in the day were still on the card, but they seemed to have not recorded. What is really puzzling is that I showed people images previously recorded through the evening and yet ultimately they do not appear to be on the card.

Any ideas on what might have happened would be greatly appreciated.

[Dan Brown]

Hi John. When you reached step 2 above, you may have created another folder on the CF card? But, this should be obvious when you explore the card with your computers browser. Anyway that's my 2 cents. Good luck

[William Malacarne]

What kind of camera....If a 1D series it may have placed them on the second card....this happened to me one time.

Bill

[Axel Hildebrandt]

You could try one of those recovery programs and hope they were not overwritten later on.

[Peter Hawrylyshyn]

John -
As per Dan's comment , think you may have created a new folder
What happens when you now put the card back into the camera. If images are still there, you can try and connect camera directly to computer via USB cable and use Cannon software to download images
Good luck