Extremely important CF card ISSUE!!!

Bryant · Apr 3, 2009

I had the chance of a lifetime to go to Cuba for a week and I shot about 5k pictures on my Canon 50d with the sandisk ultra III cards. I have used these cards with no problems before and uploaded them easily. I got back today and went to plug the cf card into my card reader and it started downloading. It wouldn't load pictures and it said that it was going to take days to upload so I hit the eject button on the computer and disconnected it. I then replugged it back in and it instantly gave me an error saying that my device was not readable by my computer........

I put the cf card back into my camera and it gives me an error saying the card is unreadable. I didn't do any reformatting because that would worsen my chance of getting the images back. I then went on to another card and same issue. I ran disk utilities and it still didn't help.

What can I do?!?!?! there is no chance to ever go back there and get the shots I took and I need them for my portfolio that I'm handing out to colleges and cilents.

PLEASE HELP!

Aye-non Oh-non Imus · Apr 3, 2009

Sandisk has a recovery program. If it didn't come with your card, you should be able to download from their site. If that fails, Google... there is something out there for recovery. Try these options before you have a heart attack. Good luck.

2ART · Apr 3, 2009

Very sorry to hear about your trouble Bryant.
That happened to me with a CF also.

JPGs missing 'end of file markers' data in my case.

GIMP was able to load some of them, however - they had strips of
corrupt (multi-colored) pixel data along the bottom, horizontal edge
of the images when I viewed them. I cropped them a tiny bit and
resaved them. Opened OK after that.

Are you using a Mac or a Windows PC?
5K images - so are they JPG's ?

Bryant · Apr 3, 2009

Mac and they were jpegs

Big Mike · Apr 3, 2009

Try the recovery software from Sandisk.

AlexColeman · Apr 3, 2009

That will be your best bet, or if they are essential, a data recovery service might be able to help. I know Data Rescue works well, as well as Recuva for PC, as it is freeware.