D7000 recording strange files

[480sparky]

Didn't notice this until this morning...... my D7000 is recording strange files. When I first set it up a year ago, I programmed it to name the image files starting with D7K. Now I see I have J7[, J7K and NUFs instead of NEFs. And I have one image I haven taken yet, at least according to the date.....10/17/2012.

Any clues, anyone?

 

[analog.universe]

Woah, weird... I also imagine those couple files are not 280MB.

My first guess is corrupted FAT on the card. Have you tried another card? Formatted this one? (low level?)

 

[spacefuzz]

thats kinda weird. I hope someone knows why

 

[Tony S]

Do the files open up in the photo editor?

 

[o hey tyler]

Have you tried different cards? Have you tried formatting that one? Will the .NUF's import to a RAW handler? If they don't import, can you change the extension to .NEF and import them?

Very odd to say the least.

 

[480sparky]

I can't open any of the 'strange' files.

I haven't done anything with the camera or card yet.

My first instinct are to:

1. Reformat the card. Both in the computer and the camera.
2. Update or reinstall the camera's firmware.
3. Check my other cards. (which I just now thought of!)

I just thought I'd post this to get a couple dozen more Second Opinions.

 

[Aloicious]

I'd say some kind of card corruption too. look at the dates the last 2 files were made 2/17/12 3:15pm and 10/17/12 4:15pm, both in the future and with a little too much similarity to be an actual date stamp for my taste....also that J in J7k isn't a "j", its some kind of an extended ascii charactor or something, definitely not something that would by normally used in a file naming profile.

try a different card and see if it continues.

 

[Tony S]

Ummm, you havent' already reformatted the card? You may just be getting bits of files left over from being deleted only. I recommend reformatting a card everytime you are done downloading images to the computer. That's the first thing I do when I put the card back in the camera.

 

[480sparky]

I don't Reformat every time I download. I Delete Files instead. Reason being, I use a long list of file folders. Reformatting deletes all those file folders.

 

[analog.universe]

Ummm, you havent' already reformatted the card? You may just be getting bits of files left over from being deleted only. I recommend reformatting a card everytime you are done downloading images to the computer. That's the first thing I do when I put the card back in the camera.

Just to clarify... those bits of files are still there even if you format. Deleting removes an entry from the file allocation table. Formatting writes a new file allocation table. Low level format writes a new partition table and file allocation table. None of these options actually remove or change the data in the storage area of the card. That's why recovery software works. All the data is still on the card, even after formatting, it's just not indexed.

The errors showing up here though, look to me like corrupted data in the file allocation table. Running a recovery tool may actually get the images back.

The question however, is whether the card is damaged, and can't retain an intact table. Or whether the camera is corrupting the data on the card. Or maybe the data on the card just got corrupted once, and formatting will fix it...

(also, if you're paranoid and want to delete your data for real, there is "scrambling" software, which writes junk data to the entire card to make sure there are no old images.)

 

[480sparky]

Ummm, you havent' already reformatted the card? You may just be getting bits of files left over from being deleted only. I recommend reformatting a card everytime you are done downloading images to the computer. That's the first thing I do when I put the card back in the camera.

Just to clarify... those bits of files are still there even if you format. Deleting removes an entry from the file allocation table. Formatting writes a new file allocation table. Low level format writes a new partition table and file allocation table. None of these options actually remove or change the data in the storage area of the card. That's why recovery software works. All the data is still on the card, even after formatting, it's just not indexed.

The errors showing up here though, look to me like corrupted data in the file allocation table. Running a recovery tool may actually get the images back.

The question however, is whether the card is damaged, and can't retain an intact table. Or whether the camera is corrupting the data on the card. Or maybe the data on the card just got corrupted once, and formatting will fix it...

(also, if you're paranoid and want to delete your data for real, there is "scrambling" software, which writes junk data to the entire card to make sure there are no old images.)

I'm not looking to recover any images. I understand the process. I'm more interested in why I'm getting different filenames and extensions.

 

[analog.universe]

Ummm, you havent' already reformatted the card? You may just be getting bits of files left over from being deleted only. I recommend reformatting a card everytime you are done downloading images to the computer. That's the first thing I do when I put the card back in the camera.

Just to clarify... those bits of files are still there even if you format. Deleting removes an entry from the file allocation table. Formatting writes a new file allocation table. Low level format writes a new partition table and file allocation table. None of these options actually remove or change the data in the storage area of the card. That's why recovery software works. All the data is still on the card, even after formatting, it's just not indexed.

The errors showing up here though, look to me like corrupted data in the file allocation table. Running a recovery tool may actually get the images back.

The question however, is whether the card is damaged, and can't retain an intact table. Or whether the camera is corrupting the data on the card. Or maybe the data on the card just got corrupted once, and formatting will fix it...

(also, if you're paranoid and want to delete your data for real, there is "scrambling" software, which writes junk data to the entire card to make sure there are no old images.)

I'm not looking to recover any images. I understand the process. I'm more interested in why I'm getting different filenames and extensions.

One pattern that stood out to me was the NUF / NEF thing. Each of these 3 character strings takes up 24 bits in an allocation table, and since E and U are exactly 16 letters apart, that means only 1 bit out of 24 needs to flip to make this change. I haven't looked at the rest of them, but I imagine something similar is going on there as well.

If you take new images to a different card, do you still have the problem?

 

[480sparky]

I just checked the Slot 2 card.... no issues. So that means it's not the camera. Whew!

 

[analog.universe]

I don't Reformat every time I download. I Delete Files instead. Reason being, I use a long list of file folders. Reformatting deletes all those file folders.

Ahh... I wouldn't actually recommend this. Solid state storage isn't particularly good at going long periods of time between formats. I once read why this happens but I forget now. Apparently the new high end SSD's have a controller that gets around it.

Anyway. Since you never format, I'm much more inclined to believe that something got corrupted in the FAT somewhere.

If you really need your folder structure... mayhaps build it on your hard drive? completely empty.. Then when you format the card (as often as you can), you can just dump the empty folder tree back on it?

 

[480sparky]

I'm not saying I never Reformat. I just don't Reformat after every download. I Reformat every two weeks or so.

I just prefer to not Reformat because that also deletes all the file folders I've created.


FWIW, some of the odd files (7, actually) won't transfer to my hard drive, yet some did.