How often do memory cards get corrupted?

[jbcottrell]

My wife and I are going to Italy on vacation. We have 2 1gig and 2 2gig cards. How often do they get corrupted? Can we dump photos at an internet cafe? I would rather not have to buy an expensive laptop, or Epson photo viewer.

[BrandonSi]

I've never had one get corrupted. Sure you can dump photos at a cafe, assuming they have a DVD/CD burner and you have blank media.. I wouldn't count on them having card readers though, so I would pick up a USB card reader that you can plug into the cafe's PC.. I use this one, and it works great..

http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Portable-Multi-Card-Reader-Microdrive/dp/B000BU0YKA/sr=1-3/qid=1168663345/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-9191608-1594509?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

[jbcottrell]

Thank you Brandon, that looks great. How long does it generally take to download 2 gig worth of images that way?

[mallaig]

I never had a CF card fail on me, but I never buy the cheap stuff either.

Check out the HyperDrive HD80 (http://www.amazon.com/HyperDrive-Memory-Backup-Storage-Verification/dp/B000FJ5VQO). I can't recommend it highly enough. Super fast downloads and takes regular AA batteries of you're on the move. Obviously, how fast depends on the type of memory cards. A 1GB Sandisk Extreme III downloads in a minute or so.

The HyperDrive HD80 is also available with bigger drives and they just released a new model called Space which I can't say anything about.

Hope it helps.

[gjl711]

Well, I had never had a single problem in several years of digital shooting until I got my Canon. I have still not debugged the problem, but have a workaround. I have now had several instances where I loose large chunks of shots, mostly the RAW files but at times the JPEGS as well, on cards that I have filled up and the camera give me the "CF card full" error message. I can review them in camera but when I try to read them off of the card, I get a "The Parameter is Incorrect" error message. This has happened on my Sandisk as well as my Lexar professional card and so far it has happened from three cameras (XT, XTi, 30D) so I do not believe it's the cameras problem, but something happens when downloading the files to the PC. This has now happened if I try to read the card with a card reader or if I download right from the camera. I now keep an eye out and shoot until the card is almost full, then switch cards.

[jbcottrell]

It looks like a couple spare memory cards and one of those card readers is the way to go. What does a reader/writer do as compared to just a reader?

[tkjaer]

Not often. I've never had it happen with CF, only microdrives.

[tiha]

What does a reader/writer do as compared to just a reader?
Writer can also write data to the card. But I think that all readers are actually readers/writers.

[Jon]

I've had 2 go bad on me (Kingston basic 1 GB and SanDisk Ultra II 1 GB) - both fairly new at the time. SanDisk replaced theirs; the Kingston's moved on to less rigorous duties in my PDA. The rest (so far) just keep on going until they're too small for me to bother with any more. This includes the microdrives, BTW.

[Chad McCan]

I've had 2 fail in the last 2 years. 1 Lexar was recoverable, even though Lexar screwed around forever to get me the card back (after UPS lost the original one) and one generic brand which was not recoverable.

An interesting thing was when Lexar recovered the images, they recovered images from 3 or 4 shoots ago, even after I had formatted the card 3 times.

[samnz]

Last week I my Sandisk Extreme III 1GB crash while formatting in camera. Would indicate it was processing, however the 'in-use' indicator would stay on. Dunno what happened there?!!! Too scared to use it anymore.

[scottbergerphoto]

Keep the liquor cabinet locked and use those parental controls on the Cable/Satellite TV box. And also absolutely no pictures of naked people. I find that greatly reduces the chance of CF Cards getting corrupted. :p

[Jon]

Last week I my Sandisk Extreme III 1GB crash while formatting in camera. Would indicate it was processing, however the 'in-use' indicator would stay on. Dunno what happened there?!!! Too scared to use it anymore.
SanDisk will replace it - contact them.

[gjl711]

Dang!!! I hate this thread. It is causing cards to fail. I just had another failure last night on a brand new SanDisk (second time out). I am starting to believe that it is an interaction between Canon software and something on my PC. It reviewed fine in the camera but when I plugged it into the CF reader, only ½ of the pics downloaded before I got the "The Parameter is Incorrect" error message. I was able through a DOS window to get all of the JPEGS and all but 3 of the RAW files. I am convinced that it is this thread causing these errors. Anyone know of a RAW file de-compiler/decoder? I am getting mighty curious as to what is happening. I have a suspicion, but need some proof.

[MDJAK]

I've had one card corrupt in the past five or so years shooting digital, and it was my own fault.

I pulled it out of the reader without ejecting it, went out and shot, came back and the were all question marks. The Rescue Pro software packaged with the Sandisk came to the rescue and restored the card along with many long ago deleted shots.

I now use only Sandisk Extreme III or the newer Extreme IV.

I've also been told the less you do in camera, the better, meaning it's a good idea, if you're worried about corrupting the card (which I'm not at all) that you shouldn't do anything but take pictures, meaning no deleting in camera, etc.

mark

[steveathome]

I have found some reasonably priced card from Crucial
See this thread http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=264632
cheap enough to get 3 for the price of a sandisk

[Jon]

Last time I checked, Crucials were markedly slower than SanDisk Ultras or Extremes though, and over here it isn't until you hit 4 GB that there's much price difference between Crucial and SanDisk blue.

[gjl711]

...I've also been told the less you do in camera, the better, meaning it's a good idea, if you're worried about corrupting the card (which I'm not at all) that you shouldn't do anything but take pictures, meaning no deleting in camera, etc.

mark That’s actually my suspicion. It seems that every time this has happened, I have been doing some field editing, that is deleting shots in camera. It has only started to happen since I started saving RAW+JPEG.

[Savagebasher]

sometimes they just up and explode themselves...

http://www.netman86.com/pics/rndslr/kenko/tn_IMG_5078.JPG

[samnz]

SanDisk will replace it - contact them.

Thanks Jon

[IainB]

I am consistently experiencing the message 'parameter is incorrect', but through the different equipment I use, have realised it is not restricted to one model/brand/camera. I experience this message each time I...

a) download from Transcend 2GB cards (3 of them) via card reader and Windows

b) from Ridata 512MB (3 cards)the same way

c) a and b above when images taken on both 30D and 20D

d) NO images are lost from the cards, but whenever the message pops up I must 'safely remove hardware', (although the light on the reader does not extinguish when I do so- it's as though the pc no longer sees the reader as no folder/files are visible....) and remount the reader before continuing.

e) the 'problem file(s)' can always be transferred successfully on subsequent attempts, but the process takes forever because of d) above.

f) the problem is the same if I download directly from camera(s).

g) the problem has occurred (different message to do with clusters) only once when downloading to portable HD unit, which then will transfer files without problem to PC.

h) It happened that in the most recent shoot I switched to shooting jpegs (normally shoot RAW) and bingo, when it came to transferring these files, from the same card containing RAW files, it was completed without a problem! Interesting....
What do do? (apart from shoot jpegs perhaps?) Advice would be welcome!

[dgcorner]

Iain, have you tried other CF cards that you don't normally use? HAve you tried another card reader?

[IainB]

Cheers John. The Ridata cards I've had for years with no problem. Transcend are 2007 purchases. The problem occurs with either card reader or direct from camera, suggesting there is another cause. I'll try format in reader then format in camera before use. Next step - try another card reader!
Thanks for taking time to study the problem!

[KarlMarsh]

Personally I only trust SanDisk cards and have had others corrupt.

You will have trouble trying to upload at an Internet cafe. Last time I was in Europe none of the USB ports were accessible for the users.

[gjl711]

Personally I only trust SanDisk cards and have had others corrupt.....
I have had a SanDisk card fail actually it was the third party image viewer software i was using (jpegger). When I plugged a full CF card into my machine and launched jpegger, it created a data file on the CF card called (jpeggeri.dat) I'm not sure what is in the data file but I expect that it contains portions of the EXIF data.

Anyway, it seems that jpegger is a bit sloppy and was not able to determine if the disk was full and it ended up over writing a couple of the raw files. Thats when I got the "The Parameter is Incorrect" message. If my card was not full, I did not get the message. I was able to get some of the images off of the card through a DOS window but some images were damaged beyond repair. I have since switched to another viewer and no longer get the error message.

[Riff Raff]

How often do they get corrupted?

I've had one SmartMedia card go bad (they were pretty fragile, overall). Every CompactFlash card I have is still working though.

[sparcd]

Cards can get easily corrupt if you shoot to the end of the card and it doesn't have enough room to store the final photo.

To solve this I always leave 2-3 pictures left free at the end of the card.

[Lord_Malone]

Out of the 7 Sandisk Extreme III cards I have, I haven't had a single issue with any of them. *knock on wood*

Extreme III:

1gb = 2x
2gb = 3x
4gb = 2x