Digital camera accessories

[alm062]

I have a nikon d70 and a 1g compact flash memory card. Yesterday when I was in the midst of shooting a job it came up asking me to format the card - I thought it was odd, but since I had only begun I did so.  Then towards the end it said it again, except this time I could not access any of the photos at all. I wrote them off as being lost (do not know if there is software recovery programs out there for MACS?) again shot another job last night - no problems .  Again this morning - was out shooting for myself and the same problem - all 200 pics gone.  

I am curious as to what are the signs of a corrupt or "aging" memory card. I've read how and what corrupts a card, but if i'm not doing any of those and i just have this symptom.

I don't know if I need to go out and buy a new card or it's more related to the slot inside the camera?  I have not dropped my camera to warrant this being the case.

Any tips?

Anne

[ShutterbugGail]

Hi there, and welcome to the Q&A Forum!

Sorry to hear about the problems. I think the only way to find out if it's the card or camera is to try a different card in the camera.

How does the problematic card behave when you stick it into a card reader? If acts normally in a reader, I'd suspect the the camera but would call Nikon tech support to make sure.

I don't know that there are any signs of an aging memory card, except ones like you mention. Then, unfortunately, it can be too late.

SanDisk has a very good photo recovery program that works with Macs and PCs. It comes free when you buy their Extreme III memory cards. Funny thing though, it comes on a mini-cd and doesn't fit in Mac CD drives that don't have a tray. My guess is that if a Mac user contact Sandisk, they'd tell them how to get a copy that works. I've inquired about this with SanDisk and will post my findings when I hear from them.

http://www.sandisk.com/products/catalog(1186)-rescuepro.aspx

If you do a search, you may be able to find additional recovery programs for a Mac.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

[alm062]

Hello Gail, and thank you for your welcome. I look fwd to learning more on this site.  SO - I have given my camera to a friend to take in to NIKON for a servcie ( for other reasons) and will also endeavor to have them look at the card situation - we'll see what they say. The first time this happened (2 days earlier) I put my card in  my lexar reader, it came back saying "there are no pics to download" when I  knew I had shot about 50 or so.  This second time around I took it out a few times, put it back in - walked away and counted to ten (equiv. to a restarting a computer I thought) then I put it in again and there were the pictures - this time I just downlaoded as quick as I could - to me something is intermitent - maybe  a loose connection - either way I think the camera needs a good going over.  It's old by today's standards and I'm way in line for  a new one -but if an overhaul isn't too costly ( will get quote first) I'll just repair this one for now - I'll let you know if I find out good information.  thanks again for your repsonse. :-/

[ShutterbugGail]

With the further explanation, it does sound like a card problem. You're wise to have Nikon take a look to make sure.

Compact Flash cards have tiny pins that could possibly bend. My Sandisk CF flash card worked fine in my Nikon 5400 but didn't work in my SandDisk card reader. Go figure.

Please do share your findings as they will help others.

[sreak]

Hi,\

If your memory card will corrupt then it becomes inaccessible or not able to show files or it may possible you may get some error messages. In case of virus infected or corrupted memory card, you should format it. Before that recover your images and files from Stellar phoenix photo recovery software which easily recover files from damaged media. Download it: http://www.photo-recovery-software.com

[alm062]

thank you for this. It's odd though don't you t hink that this "format" issue happened three times (not consecutively) out of the blue and one time there were images and another time there weren't images.