My CF Card Keeps Deleting My pictures

[Bitter Jeweler]

Why do you format it every time?
I haven't ever formatted mine. Should I?

how else do you delete your photos? Individually? no way...

CTRL+A, DEL

 

[Hawaii Five-O]

Something people haven't mentioned yet is if your card is deleting pictures, you might be able to get your photos back. Somehow one of my cards got corrupt after my trip to Hawaii last fall, and I thought I lost around 600 photos. I ran it through one of these programs and recovered every single one of them. I can't remember what I paid for the program, but it was worth every penny.

Yeah, those programs do work well, I accidently formated a partition while fiddling around on my hard drive a few months and lost my pictures. I bought the recovery software and got them all back. A tiny few were corrupted though. I paid $40 some dollars for mine.

The recovery software won't work though if you ever do a low level format and write zeros. Luckly Windows and cameras do high level formating.

...and Im really getting annoyed at it.

I would just stop fiddling with it and get a different card.

 

[spudgunr]

This may be a dumb question, but do you realize that formatting itself deletes EVERYTHING on the card right? If you format your computer harddrive there will be NOTHING left on it, not even windows.

No offense intended if you do know this...but it is a possibility many people may not realize when clicking that format option.

 

[KmH]

This may be a dumb question, but do you realize that formatting itself deletes EVERYTHING on the card right? If you format your computer harddrive there will be NOTHING left on it, not even windows.

No offense intended if you do know this...but it is a possibility many people may not realize when clicking that format option.

Uh, sorry, but this is wrong. All the data is still there, just no address table to locate it from.

All a format does is change a couple of flags in the headers. It doesn't actually delete anything, it just changes the defintion as to the availabliity of memory locations.

 

[spudgunr]

This may be a dumb question, but do you realize that formatting itself deletes EVERYTHING on the card right? If you format your computer harddrive there will be NOTHING left on it, not even windows.

No offense intended if you do know this...but it is a possibility many people may not realize when clicking that format option.

Uh, sorry, but this is wrong. All the data is still there, just no address table to locate it from.

All a format does is change a couple of flags in the headers. It doesn't actually delete anything, it just changes the defintion as to the availabliity of memory locations.

While technically correct, this has the practical effect of deleting the files. Format the card and you can't (easily) access what is there. Sure, there are ways to do it, but to the vast majority of people they are now deleted.

 

[KmH]

This may be a dumb question, but do you realize that formatting itself deletes EVERYTHING on the card right? If you format your computer harddrive there will be NOTHING left on it, not even windows.

No offense intended if you do know this...but it is a possibility many people may not realize when clicking that format option.

Uh, sorry, but this is wrong. All the data is still there, just no address table to locate it from.

All a format does is change a couple of flags in the headers. It doesn't actually delete anything, it just changes the defintion as to the availabliity of memory locations.

While technically correct, this has the practical effect of deleting the files. Format the card and you can't (easily) access what is there. Sure, there are ways to do it, but to the vast majority of people they are now deleted.

Or, to quote Arthur C. Clarke: "To the average person, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

 

[manaheim]

You may want to keep in mind the possibility that your CAMERA is deleting the pics.

Either way... simple diagnostic process...

1. Re-seat the card.
2. Reformat the card and see if it does it again.
3. Try a different card and see if it does it again.

I happen to like the Lexar pro series cards. I head SanDisk Extreme are also excellent. I wouldn't buy cheaper cards were I you... not that these things are that expensive, but... just don't buy some $5 CVS special.

 

[Montana]

Get Sandisk Extreme III's. Cheaper than IV's and if the III's are 30 mb/s, they are supposedly UDMA.

 

[EhJsNe]

I got me a sandisk Extreme III and replaced the Kingston. Im only keeping the kingston in case I lose and/ or break the sandisk. (Which I doubt I will...always good to have backup...even if its crummy backup)

WOOT!

 

[Josh66]

I got me a sandisk Extreme III and replaced the Kingston. Im only keeping the kingston in case I lose and/ or break the sandisk. (Which I doubt I will...always good to have backup...even if its crummy backup)

WOOT!

Came with the recovery disc, right? (SanDisc RescuePRO)

...Haven't had to use it yet, but it's supposed to be pretty good.

 

[MBasile]

I got me a sandisk Extreme III and replaced the Kingston. Im only keeping the kingston in case I lose and/ or break the sandisk. (Which I doubt I will...always good to have backup...even if its crummy backup)

WOOT!

Came with the recovery disc, right? (SanDisc RescuePRO)

...Haven't had to use it yet, but it's supposed to be pretty good.

I just got a three pack of SanDisk's, which came with three activation codes for RescuePro. I gave two of the codes to friends but hope they never need to use it.

Adorama still has a SanDisk rebate (well, SanDisk still has a rebate when you buy through Adorama, and possibly other retailers). My 3 pack of 4GB Extreme III cards were $44 after the rebate (down from $104) but I think I already mentioned that.