i've got a good one and it's recorded over 20k pictures in the last 5 months (i back up and erase after every 800 or so)...
tonight it is struggling to download the photos i took this afternoon... considering the stupidly annoying day i've had, this is kinda the icing on the cake... i don't think i got anything spectacular today, but still... ANNOYING...
fortunately i do have another card... and really, it's merely an annoyance, not the end of the world... but grrrrrrr...
any suggestions for rescuing the photos that are stuck in there will be more than welcome...
I certainly have!
They do have a limited lifespan, and it sounds like yours is well used, so yeah, time for a new one.
If they ever dont work in your computer there are data retrieval programs to get back lost photos. I did this once with a free download retrieval program. Another time I lost some VERY important photos when I dropped a camera, the card was showing up empty and no data retrieval programs were finding them. As a last attempt I took it to our computer guy and he managed to retrieve them fo $80
It's just like any electronic storage device. They can fail. The higher the quality the longer they are likely to last but in the end they fail. As mentioned you can use data recovery programs in an attempt to get your images back but they too are not always successful.
Good luck!!
@spangiepantz oh noooooo... that must havev been awful... you weren't able to save any of them? my card is still chugging away... up to number 23... sigh...
@loztsoul hmmm... well, its never been like this before... but to answer your question, i am just deleting... i dont reformat each time... something to think about! tx!
I don't know if this helps, but I've heard that reformatting your card is much better than erasing. I've had my cards for 5+ years and never had any problems.
@lesphoto@loztsoul why does reformatting a card with photos on it make me think of the star trek movie where they send the genesis torpedo onto the planet with spock... ok - ill give it a shot... (scuse the lack of apostrophes and proper punctuation... it seems on top of all the other stupid things that have happened today, my keyboard has gone wonky!!!!)
@northy I had a wonderful Lexar card fail on one of my most special pictures (when the Great Blue Heron landed in our backyard!), but I downloaded (and PAID FOR) the data retrieval program that did indeed save all of my pictures on the card. I'm still using the card and keep hoping it holds up. I do format my card every single time I upload the pictures. THe amazing thing to me was that even with formatting the card constantly, there were still almost 1500 files that the data retrieval tool found on the card! Some of the pictures retrieved were from two summers ago. . . amazing, really. . .but I would swear by this card and the retrieval program.
If you can use an USB cable with your camera, you should do that. I've had card readers break down on me too often. They usually end up damaging the card.
These cards have static memory cells, very much like USB memory or the new SDD hard drives. Two issues with such technology are (1) much shorter life span; they only support a more or less given amount of 'writes'; an (2) the 'resistance effect' (I'm not sure what the correct term is in English.); that being memory cells being locked out, and the card getting 'smaller'.
I believe that deleting is OK, but you really should do a full format once in a while. That will, as @loztsoul suggests, get rid of some problems relating to file system corruption.
SanDisk Extreme cards very often come with a link/code for a downloadable utility (Mac & Windows) that can help you when things go wrong.
Above all, it's very, very, very important that you only use the kind of cards your camera and reader were meant for. Using the wrong equipment (f.ex. newer cards with older readers) can damage the cards, as they can have different power requirements.
Yes, better to reformat than just delete files, which scrambles its brains so to speak and then you end up with a lot of defragged data which is more likely to become corrupted. I download my photos to computer daily, but will hold off formatting until it's nearly full, then wipe clean and start fresh. That way I always have my latest data backed up, but save wear & tear of reformatting with every download. (Of course this doesn't apply if I have a big shoot planned, for which case I'd always start with empty cards. But that's a different story).
@northy Hi Northy as mention here there are a few cheap recovery programs available via download that should recover you lost data, RescuePro is the one recomened by Sandisk cost $39.99 US works a treat, was free with my Extreme pro cards.
I would highly suggest buying Sandisk ExtremePro cards as they have the life time warranty and a copy of RescuePro.
As for the life span of SD/Comapct disk cards Sandisk have a write endurance specification of 100,000 writes per sector, reads are limitless it would take years to get to failure, your camrea will fail well before a Sandisk card :)
One more point always format your card in your camera.
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They do have a limited lifespan, and it sounds like yours is well used, so yeah, time for a new one.
If they ever dont work in your computer there are data retrieval programs to get back lost photos. I did this once with a free download retrieval program. Another time I lost some VERY important photos when I dropped a camera, the card was showing up empty and no data retrieval programs were finding them. As a last attempt I took it to our computer guy and he managed to retrieve them fo $80
Good luck!!
tx... puter is chugging away trying to download them... so far in last hour or so it's managed 10 of 56... sigh...
These cards have static memory cells, very much like USB memory or the new SDD hard drives. Two issues with such technology are (1) much shorter life span; they only support a more or less given amount of 'writes'; an (2) the 'resistance effect' (I'm not sure what the correct term is in English.); that being memory cells being locked out, and the card getting 'smaller'.
I believe that deleting is OK, but you really should do a full format once in a while. That will, as @loztsoul suggests, get rid of some problems relating to file system corruption.
SanDisk Extreme cards very often come with a link/code for a downloadable utility (Mac & Windows) that can help you when things go wrong.
Above all, it's very, very, very important that you only use the kind of cards your camera and reader were meant for. Using the wrong equipment (f.ex. newer cards with older readers) can damage the cards, as they can have different power requirements.
http://improvephotography.com/676/9-things-photographers-need-to-know-about-memory-cards/
I would highly suggest buying Sandisk ExtremePro cards as they have the life time warranty and a copy of RescuePro.
As for the life span of SD/Comapct disk cards Sandisk have a write endurance specification of 100,000 writes per sector, reads are limitless it would take years to get to failure, your camrea will fail well before a Sandisk card :)
One more point always format your card in your camera.