CF card woes

[monkeybort]

hey all, my compact flash card has somehow generated a folder that is locked. it definitely should have pics in there, but it’s showing as ‘no items to view’ and i can’t figure out how to unlock it. is this something i did with my camera somehow while shooting? is my CF card possessed by underpants gnomes?

[veruca]

clearly ‘bort, the gnomes have found the answer which has eluded them all these years; #3 no longer will be ???? but rather sell monkebort’s yummy photos for #4 profit!

seriously though, my google hypothesis is that the card may have failed at some point. have you tried copying the locked file down to your computer and opening it from there? when you have the card in the camera do any images show?

just out of curiosity what kind of card is it? have you checked the manufacturer’s website for an FAQ or called them directly for support?

i have no experience using this service but it may be of use in your time of need: http://compactflashdatarecovery.com/

i hope you get everything back! please say it’s not your vacation photos 😕

[monkeybort]

i haven’t researched it at all, i was hoping that someone would just say ‘oh, it’s the flux capacitor, you just have to tweak the rotary girder’ and that would fix it. 😛

it’s the very last folder from the vacation (only 30-50 shots out of over 1000); night shots of the charles bridge mostly. i think mr. ‘bort has some that are very similar, so it’s not TOO bad if i can’t get them back.

my computer shows the folder as locked, and when i put the card in my camera it gives a ‘cf error’ message. i’m going to see if i can access the menu and see if there is a write protect on there somehow.

it’s a ‘promaster’ card. i would have rather gotten a lexar but it was all this store carried and i had a gift certificate. they guy said they’ve always worked well for him, but what else would a sales guy say?

[mikemikeb]

it’s a ‘promaster’ card. i would have rather gotten a lexar but it was all this store carried and i had a gift certificate. they guy said they’ve always worked well for him, but what else would a sales guy say?

This is why people should never get the cheap stuff when it comes to rewritable media… At least the old one was free so you won’t get hit too much in the pocketbook at the end of the day, when getting a new, proper card or two (you will, right?).

BTW, I have a couple of SanDisks, which have done me fine so far, as far as I know (though the one I’ve mainly used has developed an unnerving rattle over time), but Lexars are even better, from what I hear. Just remember that Lexar puts their software on the card itself, last I checked, so extract the source material from the card into your harddisk (e.g. drag the source files into the C drive) before formatting from the camera. To do this, you’ll nead a CF card reader that creates its own drive letter when connected to the computer (even if a CF card isn’t inserted into the drive). I get the impression that you have one, but if you don’t, then FYI, I own a SanDisk model and it does the job fine.

[monkeybort]

i’ve got two 1 gb lexars and they work great, i just needed some extra room for our trip to europe.

i think my problem came from not formatting the card in the camera before using it. duh.

and ya, i use my card reader to transfer everything to my computer. i actually don’t even know where the computer to camera cord is. 😳

[Elsinore]

Eep! I hope you get the pics back! Congrats on the wedding! Did you have a great time on your honeymoon?

[monkeybort]

Eep! I hope you get the pics back! Congrats on the wedding! Did you have a great time on your honeymoon?

we did! it was awesome. i’ll post a link in the gallery section when i get some stuff online as to AW in the proper place. 😛

[Elsinore]

Awesome! I can’t wait to see them!!

[anneb]

BTW, I have a couple of SanDisks, which have done me fine so far, as far as I know (though the one I’ve mainly used has developed an unnerving rattle over time), but Lexars are even better, from what I hear. .

I’ve actually had to return a SanDisk card, for totally flaking out on me. I was able to recover some of the data by devious unix-hacking means, but wasn’t able to reformat it at all. But, everyone told me, “That’s why you bought the pro card, right?”… and I gave them a call. I had a nice chat with the San Disk rep over the phone, he pointed me to a link to print a shipping label, and I packed it up and took down the road to FedEx. Within a few days, a new one showed up. I kind of admit to being pretty floored by the experience.

The nice thing is, those SANdisk 1GB cards are going for less than $50 US at Costco, now, so I went and got me another overflow card. Never going to consider the “cheap” stuff ever ever again, and have had no further card issues.

[stupido]

Monkeybort,

One thing to try is to use an alternative OS. Linux or DOS or Win98. The point would be to use an OS which does not care about the lock.
Which OS are you using? Additionally there are serveral recover tools available too.

[stupido]

Monkeybort,

OK, you are a MAC user. Find a friend with an older PC (win98) and a card reader. The card should be FAT since that’s what most cameras use. The lock might just be related to the MAC OS. Can the camera be used as a drive with the MAC? If so try that too.

[anneb]

hey all, my compact flash card has somehow generated a folder that is locked. it definitely should have pics in there, but it’s showing as ‘no items to view’ and i can’t figure out how to unlock it. is this something i did with my camera somehow while shooting? is my CF card possessed by underpants gnomes?

Have you found the missing little 1’s and 0’s, yet?

If you are technical or brave, send me a message offline; I can send you what I hacked up for my Mac, (OSX) I use the ‘dd’ command to rip off an entire disk image, and then sic a quick and dirty perl script on it to separate anything it can find that looks like a JPEG. (I haven’t done the mods for finding RAW on there, since I haven’t had it fail when I was shooting RAW. This is, of course, dumb luck.) Since the FAT FS is nothing but a whole bunch of files, in this case, pictures just stacked back to back on the card, you get *everything* on it, even stuff you’ve deleted, so long as you haven’t shot on it again and overwritten. If you have disk corruption, you won’t get everything, but most things this way.

Usually, I hate M$ not having a real file system. When my CF card gets garbled is NOT one of those times.

[zeke]

Usually, I hate M$ not having a real file system.

What, you’re saying NTFS isn’t a real filesystem? *tries to keep a straight face, but breaks up into hysterical laughter*

[monkeybort]

thanks for all the suggestions everyone – i pretty much just said ‘fark it’ and re-formatted. my husband has pretty much identical shots and there weren’t that many on there – i was just hoping for an easy fix like ‘oh hey, there’s a chicken in your flux capacitor, that’s your problem right there!’

and anneb – i am brave, but not technical at all. i think that brave + technoidiot probably = don’t mess with it.

😛

[anneb]

i was just hoping for an easy fix like ‘oh hey, there’s a chicken in your flux capacitor, that’s your problem right there!’

“easy fix”- spoken like someone who has never removed all those chicken feathers from a flux capacitor 😉

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