# 16GB CF PANIC!



## meinthai (Sep 7, 2011)

Hi

I've just got back from 3 weeks riding with a reindeer herding communicty in north Mongolia during their Autumn migration South before it starts snowing. Before I went I brought 4 Sandisk 16GB 30MB/s CF cards. 

I just plugged the first card into a generic card reader plugged into a current Macbook Pro. Inside the card I could see the folder in which contained all the images. I selected all images (1,900 rougly) and did "apple" "O" to open them. The JPEG's oppened in "preview" and the RAW files started to open in "Photoshop" after a few moments I got a message saying "the device was not ejected properly" after that I can see the folder with the images, but when it is selected it shows as a file with a 0 K file size and the name of the folder had changed to nonsense. No Images! Put the card back into camera and it showed no images.

Clearly the card has been currupted some how, for some reason.

Does any one have any experiece of this?
Are there any software solutions to find the images?
Can the card be sent to Sandisk, or any one else?

Hope some one can give me some advice here.

Thanks.
:'(
Images were taken on Canon 5D Mark I if that matters.


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## PeterJ (Sep 7, 2011)

I'm not a Mac user so can't give you a step by step, but one of the first things I'd do in that situation is work out how to take a raw dump of the CF card to a file. Under Windows there's a program called WinImage that will do it, I think for OSX the equivalent will be the Linux 'dd' command so take a look into that but be careful with the options if you're not a regular command-line user.

That way at least you'll have a copy of all the file structure for safe-keeping and that can be copied to another card so any steps you take in the future won't make things worse. I doubt Sandisk would be that interested in data recovery but there are companies around that do it, but most seem to charge a lot. Anyway try to work out to take a dump of the card and restore it to another card, at least then you can try any suggestions received without worrying about making things worse, and if they do just copy the dump back and try again.


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## neuroanatomist (Sep 7, 2011)

meinthai said:


> I selected all images (1,900 rougly) and did "apple" "O" to open them.
> 
> Clearly the card has been currupted some how, for some reason.
> 
> ...



That's very unfortunate! Too late now, but for the future, remember that when you take your images, there's only one copy on one card. So, the very first thing you should do is copy all the images to your hard drive, then eject the card. Now you have two copies (still not ideal, but better than one). Personally, I copy the images, process them, then they get backed up to two external HDDs in separate locations (and remain on my internal HDD as well). Only then do I format and reuse the CF card. 

I've never had a card corrupted, but on one occasion I wanted to go back to the original version of a file that I had decided to delete when I processed the images (it wasn't a real keeper, and I wanted the deleted file back only to illustrate a point about one of the images which I did keep). It was also a chance to see if I could recover files, should anything go amiss.

I used this method, which involves using the Terminal. 

However, your SanDisk cards should have come with a free download (serial number on a little card in the box) for their RescuePro software. I haven't tried it, but if you're uncomfortable with Terminal, that may be an option.

Good luck!


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## ecka (Sep 7, 2011)

Sorry to hear about your problem. I have 3 simple rules to prevent such a disaster and I never had problems like that.
1. Do not buy any cheap memory cards on eBay or similar sites, ever!
2. Always format your new memory card in camera before using it!
3. Do not edit your photos directly from the memory card!
Just like neuroanatomist said, copy your photos to your hard drive and make a backup.
Now, when it's already too late, it is possible to recover your data. Try using a recovery software. I use Lexar CF memory card and they have a trial version of that software on their website http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-image-rescue-4-software?category=429
I never used it, but I think it could work for you. Good luck!


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## rchrystal (Sep 7, 2011)

Hi,

It maybe possible to get the information off the card, I'm a forensic investigator and it may still exist. I would warn against some of the automatic recovery processes.

When you do data recovery foresically you first do a bit by bit copy of the data and then work on the copy leaving the card untouched theirfore leaving the original unchanged. Some of the auto recovery tools can trash the card.

Richard


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## tomscott (Sep 7, 2011)

It is unfortunate, next time just make sure you dont open 1900 images at once! lol 

http://www.lc-tech.com/rescuepro/

Here is the official SanDisk recovery software I have used it before to good effect. Although its not that powerful you might want to look at something a liitle more powerful like R-studio

http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mac-recovery-software/r-studio-review.html

you might not get all the images back and some may be corrupt, also all your filenames will be wrong which is a pain in the bum, but at least youl get most of the images back.

The way i go about my image back up is:
I have a few drives in my mac pro so makes things easy. 
â€¢ Import them all into iPhoto basically to browse and have a copy. Always have the raw images even the bad ones (redundant storage) iPhoto is a great image library, just not a great editor.
â€¢ Import another set into Lightroom (runs from a separate drive) now two copies
â€¢ Back up lightroom library to an external three copies

Four if you keep the images on your cards.

Hope this helps

Tom Scott


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## PeterJ (Sep 7, 2011)

rchrystal said:


> When you do data recovery foresically you first do a bit by bit copy of the data and then work on the copy leaving the card untouched theirfore leaving the original unchanged. Some of the auto recovery tools can trash the card.


I just wanted to "+1" this - it's very important and I wouldn't go running any automatic recovery tools over the card until you've done this step.


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## Orangutan (Sep 7, 2011)

meinthai said:


> <snip>
> Before I went I brought 4 Sandisk 16GB 30MB/s CF cards.
> 
> <snip>
> ...



You paid good money for a SanDisk: call the company and ask them for advice, I bet they know the "best" way to do it.


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## UncleFester (Sep 7, 2011)

+1 on CardRescue. It's pricey but it works.

http://www.cardrescue.com/

As for the MacBook Pro, I solved that problem with Disk Utility on the Install DVD.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 7, 2011)

I use Lexar Image Rescue Pro 4, and it is wonderful. It has a copy raw data option, which copies all data bit by bit from card to a computer hard drive, so you don't have to worry about losing everything.

You will likely recover most, if not all of your images. Beware, many of the freeware image rescue software programs are trouble with RAW or movie images, get the Lexar or Sandisk software and avoid any possibility of grief.


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## CanineCandidsByL (Sep 7, 2011)

Like others have said, this won't help this time, but for next time...

Before you ever stick the card in the camera, you should place it on your computer, format, fill it up with data (copy whatever you have handy), run checkdisk, copy the data off of the card (and, if so inclined, compare to the original files). Repeat the process at least 2 more times. If you don't get errors, you can then treat the card as good and stick it in your camera. Format the card in your camera (I do this right away so I don't forget).

I also perform one more test. I set the camera to the largest picture size (usually large RAW plus large JPG highest quality). I snap pictures until the card is full. I then put the card in the computer and copy off the files. I quickly scan all the photos to make sure there isn't any corruption. I repeat this process a total of 3 times. At that point, its a "production" card.

And like the others, I'd say use a backup option (laptop or one of the little kits with a hard drive, card reader, and sometimes a screen, all in one).

To get to your specific questions, you can download a recovery app from sandisk. There are 3rd party tools as well. There is also the option of sending to a recovery company who can sometimes do recovery of physically flawed/damaged cards. Google "sandisk recovery" to find them. Unfortunately I can't recomend any of them as I don't have any personal experience with them. You can also do a more generic search for "drive recovery". You will get companies that do hard drive and other recovery. The profesional and expensive ones are generally very good. Unfortunately the one I have used several times in the past has been absorbed by another company so I don't know if they are as good. However you get what you pay for. The cheap places aren't usually around a year or two later, and for a reason.

Good luck!


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## aldvan (Sep 7, 2011)

I'm paranoid about backup copies, for pictures as for other kind of files. A picture or a file means a lot of, very often, unrecoverable work. BTW, many years ago, although I trusted in my multicopies network backup, when my server hd died, I found with huge desperation, that the backups of fifteen years of architectural projects weren't recoverable due to some setting mistake. Trying to recover the files by myself, I worsened the situation. At last I sent the hd to a German company that in three days sent me a perfect set of DVD with all the recovered files. Just one was lost, on 120,000.
I paid something like 1500 US$, but I bet they were the best spent money of all my professional life.
If the pictures you took were very important to you, bite the bullet and go for a professional rescue. I'm sure that, since then, the recovering market offers many cheaper solutions.

P.S.:from that lesson I learned to copy the files and never use compressed backup. Furthermore I have, now, a NAS in RAID5 format that performs automatically and continuosly a backup of all the files I produce, plus a manually activated daily backup on the NAS and another one on an external hd. The most important files are also periodically written on DVDs...


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## Orangutan (Sep 7, 2011)

Aldvan's story brings up a great point: as part of your backup plan, you should practice restoring from your backups at least a few times a year. You should practice restoring individual files, small collections and your entire collection. You should perform an additional test restore any time you make a change to your backup procedure.


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## CanineCandidsByL (Sep 7, 2011)

Aldvan, one more thing to add to your process if you don't do it already...
make a backup that is offsite or in the cloud. While its unlikely that anyone will experience a loss of their home, if it ever happens, you don't want to loose photos either personal or professional. This can be as simple as making a copy to a USB drive and leaving it at work or a friends house, or could be a fully Amazon S3 cloud backup (big $).


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## paulc (Sep 7, 2011)

PeterJ said:


> I'm not a Mac user so can't give you a step by step, but one of the first things I'd do in that situation is work out how to take a raw dump of the CF card to a file. Under Windows there's a program called WinImage that will do it, I think for OSX the equivalent will be the Linux 'dd' command so take a look into that but be careful with the options if you're not a regular command-line user.
> 
> That way at least you'll have a copy of all the file structure for safe-keeping and that can be copied to another card so any steps you take in the future won't make things worse. I doubt Sandisk would be that interested in data recovery but there are companies around that do it, but most seem to charge a lot. Anyway try to work out to take a dump of the card and restore it to another card, at least then you can try any suggestions received without worrying about making things worse, and if they do just copy the dump back and try again.



The Mac equivalent of the dd command is the dd command.

Open up Terminal from /Applications/Utilities
Run df -k and look for the device name of your CF card on the left column. Mine is /dev/disk2s1.
dd will need to hit the raw character version of the device, so add an r to disk when you define it as the in file...
dd if=/dev/rdisk2s1 of=~/Desktop/carddump.img bs=1024k

In-file and out-file, make sure you've got those correct.

edit: almost forgot to mention... you can just mount up that disk image file by double-clicking it. It might not open in the app you expect just because /Applications/Image Capture.app won't have a set preference for that unknown disk, so it will go to the default app... probably Canon's Camera Window assuming you've installed the Canon utilities and whatnot.


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## TBenson (Sep 8, 2011)

SD cards have manual write protection switches. When my card gets full and is removed from the camera I will flip that switch immediately. I too once lost images to a flaky card-reader while downloading files, so these days I want the cards to be read-only before going anywhere near a computer. (This can also prevent the spread of certain computer viruses if you use a card in multiple PCs). 

The original poster uses CF media which do not have write protection switches, but this may be helpful for others reading this thread.


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## unfocused (Sep 8, 2011)

This unfortunate tale prompted a question in my mind.

I always download my files straight from my 7D to the computer. (No card reader). I just ordered a card reader because it was on sale and I thought, well maybe I should have one available and give that a try.

But, now I am wondering: is there any greater risk of corrupting files when switching between the camera and a card reader? Does anyone know, or have some thoughts on this. I've never had a problem with downloading straight from the camera. Am I just being paranoid?


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## UncleFester (Sep 8, 2011)

Not if you're using copy/ paste, it doesn't matter. Someone mentioned this earlier. Copy/ paste leaves the original file on the card afterwards. Programs like Card Utility erases your card - direct from cam or from card reader - after download. That's supposed to be a convenience but apparently it can suck at times. 

Whenever a card utility pops up, I quit it and download by copy/paste. Fool proof.

Double click and preview by hand first always.


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## afrank99 (Sep 8, 2011)

I usually simply Cut&Paste images from my Sandisk 16GB within windows explorer which will MOVE the images (= copy and delete immediately).
I'm doing this since the good old SmartMedia days (mid-90s) and never had ANY problem with this technique.


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## ianhar (Sep 8, 2011)

Had the same problem earlier this year. It turn out that it wa actually the memory card problem. Conclusion buy expensive memory card reader eg lexar memory card reader or just transfer it straight from your camera using a cable


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## awinphoto (Sep 8, 2011)

When I last purchased a lexar card, I was given a free copy of Lexars Image Rescue... You can use any card on it and mac friendly. It's kinda slow and even can recover images after a reformat (even though some may be kinda screwy, but it can work)... 

http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-image-rescue-4-software?category=429

It's worth a try... at this point anything is better than nothing....


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## Hathaway (Sep 8, 2011)

I had a similar experience wedding photos a few years ago. I used the memory card recovery software at cardrecovery.com and it worked in recovering about 90% of the images. A few were corrupted, but I got most of them. 

Good luck, I am sure this is extremely stressful.


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## TexPhoto (Sep 8, 2011)

I use an Application called Photo Rescue. Has worked every time for me.


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## meinthai (Sep 10, 2011)

Hi All

Thanks for the advice both in recovery and backing up systems.

I'm glad to say I took it to my regular camera shop in Bangkok (I'm in thailand) and for about $15 they recovered all the images. a couple were corrupted and they all lost their original file names, but that's a small price to pay. Not sure what software they use, but I got the card back the next day. They said it can happen with cheap card readers if card are ejected improperly. 

I promptly brought the best card reader they had in the shop, a Kingston product.

Thanks again all


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## PeterJ (Sep 10, 2011)

meinthai said:


> I'm glad to say I took it to my regular camera shop in Bangkok (I'm in thailand) and for about $15 they recovered all the images.


A very reasonable price, glad you got it sorted 



unfocused said:


> But, now I am wondering: is there any greater risk of corrupting files when switching between the camera and a card reader? Does anyone know, or have some thoughts on this. I've never had a problem with downloading straight from the camera. Am I just being paranoid?


I work with electronics and my feelings are mixed on this, I'm not sure about CF cards in particular but many connectors I use professionally that look quite robust are only rated for 500 insertion / removals. They're probably using very conservative numbers in their datasheets but still it's not a great number, and CF card pins are tiny, so I'd guess a USB connector is more mechnically robust plus it has a lot less pins to fail.

As for non-mechanical failures your camera could have a bug in the USB stack, hardware or drivers that could cause corruption, but so could a card reader. Personally I download via USB, and if my camera fails can switch to a card reader, but I don't think it's a question with a really clear cut answer and I'm sure plenty of people would argue either way.


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## victolee (Oct 3, 2011)

Well, I think the first and most important thing you should do is STOP taking more photos with the camera and DO NOT write anything back to the CF card. Also a list of good recovery software and guides can be found this site Digital Camera Recovery, Best regards.


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