SD Card Trouble?

[Chriss]

My SD card has been acting up lately and it's starting to become quite frustrating. I have a SanDisk Ultra 8GB card, and its worked fine since I got it (a few months ago?). But now, the card says it can only hold 30mb worth of memory. When I get the info for it on my computer, it says the capacity is still 8GB, but the memory available is down to 29.8MB. There is absolutely nothing in the card at all, its just being... annoying. So now I can only fit five photos on it. My question is, has this happened before and why does it? I'm assuming that its just because I dropped it or something? Yes, I could just get a new one, I'm just wondering why this happened.
Thanks!

 

[mikehaugen]

If your computer (I assume card reader of some type) still says 8gb available (well really probably more like 7.5, right?) but your camera is only recognizing 30mb, I might assume that there is a problem with your camera. Did you try formatting it with your camera?

 

[dxqcanada]

Have you tried formatting the card ?
If you are using Windows 7 ... disable ReadyBoost.

 

[Chriss]

Well the computer says that the capacity of the card is still 8GB, just that the memory available is 30MB. And no, I haven't tried formatting the card. Would that help?

 

[Chriss]

Ah, formatted it and its fixed. Thank you!

 

[dxqcanada]

There were probably a large number of files that are marked as Hidden.

By default Windows will not display Hidden system type files.

 

[PASM]

You could try PhotoRec to investigate the status of the card. It's GPL (free).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoRec

 

[inaka]

I format the card in-camera before each shoot.
I'm guessing that usually helps to solve things.

 

[thomas30]

It seems that it is infected with virus. The virus program is occupying some memory. Thats why you seeing some spaces short. Format it in Dos prompt. I am sure you will be able to see full memory. Now, whenever use you card on Internet environment, scan with a good anti virus.

 

[gsgary]

Try resetting the counter in your camera, i was shooting a horse show and downloaded photos onto my laptop then formatted card in camera and could only take about 20 shots, i reset counter and i was off again