Problems with SD card. Lost half of my photos.

[anubis404]

I've been having some problems with my SD card. It is a $40 2gb high speed card that I bought with my D40. The salesman at Barclay's Photo conned me into buying it, because he said it will prevent shutter lag. Well, turns out the low speed cards work just as well.

Anyway, I've been having some problems with the card. I went to the Air and Space museum in Washington DC, and brought my D40. I took a lot of shots with the card, and halfway through the day a message popped up on my LCD that said "You need to format the card". So I turned the camera off, and tuned it back on. Same message. I turned the camera off, popped the card out, turned it back on, same message. So I figured I could resolve it on my computer when I processed it. When I put it in the computer, it said "You need to format the card." After that, I got so angry I yelled "I GOT YOUR FORMAT RIGHT HERE!" And snapped the card in half. Well, that last part isn't quite true, but it did upset me that I lost the majority of the day's photos. I've had a very similar problem before, however it didn't say "You need to format the card". It said something else, but I did randomly lost all of my photos. Twice. The first time after the different message was displayed (I forgot the message), I pressed the playback button and all of my photos said "file contains no image data" on all of my shots. After I scrolled through my recent photos, I started seeing a lot of photos that were deleted awhile ago. I thought that was an isolated incident, until today.


Is there something defective about my card? Whats wrong?

 

[REsuperG]

What brand is the card?

 

[Joves]

Spunds like a bad card. You may try the Sandisk recovery utility on it even though it isnt their card. Or better yet go and buy a Sandisk card and, the utility comes with it. That way you have a good card atleast. I never let a salesman talk me into buying anything. I did once when I was young and, regretted it.

 

[peterbj7]

Funnily enough the only flash memory card I've ever had a problem with was a 4gb Sandisk Ultra II CF card, which not only lost everything on it but became unformattable while in the camera - had to junk it. I now use mainly el cheapos (8gb) and have never had a hint of a problem with them. I've never bought a Sandisk since.

 

[anubis404]

I think the brand was ?digital film? I think. Never heard of them before.

 

[dhilberg]

My girlfriend had a similar situation with a cheap off-brand SD card she bought for her Canon point and shoot. She bought two specifically to take on a trip to New York City in April 2007. The salesman recommended the cards.

The card failed about 3/4 the way through the trip, and all her images were gone. The camera displayed messages similar to the OP's. She called me freaking out and I told her to save the bad one and use the other one.

When she got home I tried recovery software called BadCopy Pro on it, and it managed to recover all of them. I don't remember how much it cost, but it wasn't overly expensive. Most importantly, the images were saved. A couple of the photos were mangled though--it looked like someone cropped out a portion of the middle and pieced them back together, but at a couple degrees off kilter.

We never figured out what happened to the card, but she returned both of them and got a Lexar something or other. She hasn't had any issues with it.

For my D80 I have two SanDisk Extreme III SDHC cards. One is 8 GB and the other is 4 GB. I've never had trouble with either. Which reminds me I'm still waiting on my rebate for the 8 GB.