Compact Flash Problem

[RickD]

I purchased a Powershot G2 over a year ago. I also purchased 2 Crucial Technology 256MB Compact Flash Cards. I used both cards and took over 300 pictures last September. This year, I deleted all pictures (didn't format) from one of the 256 MB CF cards and took more pictures on vacation. During the vacation, we viewed some of the pictures and printed off a few using a fax / copy machine with a CF slot. Then, I filled up the rest of the Crucial 256mb CF card with more pictures. Wehn I arrived at home, I went to upload pictures to PC using the camera and only 17 (not 223) pictures are visible. I even bought a CF Reader, and most of the pictures can't be found. The camera says the card is full (so does Windows 98. What can I do to safely recover most of those pictures? I would appreciate any and all help. Thanks in advance!

[PaulSoebekti]

Rick, I had a similar problem where my reader indicates the correct contents of a card but failed to retrieve all of them. Don't know what had caused it, but when I connected the camera to the computer I was able to see and download all of them successfully. Try connecting directly and hope you'll get them all.

Regards,
Paul

[PaulSoebekti]

Clarification. Sorry, forgot to say that I had to reboot my computer and then was able to retrieve them all. I also connected my camera to the power supply, rather than rely on its battery to download.

Regards,
Paul

[RickD]

Paul - Thanks for the advice, but I think I found a solution and my problem. First of all, I think I eitherlet the battery run too low or turned off the camera before a file save was completed. My solution was to download an evaluation copy of Photo Rescue, where you can evaluate your compact flash (which I had attached to my windows 98 pc via CF Reader) and locate all of your lost photos. I found that I in fact had lost 188 pictures from our vacation to Colorado. Now here is the glitch. You can only see these pictures (with the evaluation version of Photo Rescue). Now, you must purchase the Photo Rescuse software for $29 and the recovered photos are now available and can be saved to some other device besides the CF. I also talked to a Technical Support respresentative from the company who manufactured the CF device and they will replace the CF free of charge. Thanks for responding to my problem. I hope this message helps someone else recover their lost pictures. Rick

[Eric Moyer]

Not addressing your issue, but still of value is the fact that most compact flash cards need to be formatted in the G2 before using.

If you take photos before formatting then when you take out the compact flash you lose your photos. Even though everthing looks ok when the compact flash unit is in the camera, an un-formatted compact flash memory goes dead once outside the camera. I guess it's running off memory of the camera until removed.

[pdw63]

Take a look at this thread for a possible solution...

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13467#69166

[RickD]

Thanks for the information about formating the CF card. As it turns out, this story has a happy ending. I purchased a package call Photo Rescue, which analyzed the CF card and found the missing 188 missing pictures from my Colorado vacation. This package costs $29 and you can analyze your CF card and determine whether it will work, before shelling out the hard earned cash. In addition to the Photo Rescue package, you can also use some of the Windows CHKDSK options to help recover the missing *.JPG files. Unfortunately, I spent the $29 before I realaized I could recover the pictures for free. Thanks for everybody's help. Rick