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View Full Version : All the nice people in this world - a CF card thread


EOS Man
20th of April 2008 (Sun), 05:59
Is my card reader still okay? I know my CF card isn't (pictures below)

It all started out in December last year when my son lent his "friend" a CF card because he had apparently forgotten to bring a card for his Rebel XT. Fine, it's true that the guy has been copying my son's interests and trying to become more superior, showing off to everyone. My kid takes up a sport, his "friend" takes it up as well a few weeks later... then when he picked up scrabble and went for competitions, the same guy did the same thing...even trying to turn my son's own friends against him. Same when it came to cameras, after my son first brought the Canon S500 Elph to school, the same guy quickly runs out there a month later, buys an XT and brings it to school; showing off to the teacher in charge of the yearbook how superior his dSLR was compared to a 'puny lowly' point-and-shoot.

So anyway, back to the point, the irresponsible punk returned the CF card THREE MONTHS later in March 2008. I just left the card in my drawer since my 4GB practically lives in my 30D nowadays, never used or touched the card until today...

It so happened that I put the card in my reader today to format it (since I'll be needing more than 4GB for a fashion show next weekend). Then I was just looking at the back of the card, at the now-worn off marker ink on the back (my name and CF card name), when I noticed a subtle dent in the CF card. A dent? It couldn't be, it wasn't like that before - and I never dropped, sat on or abused any of my CF cards before - and I haven't touched the thing for a month.

And guess what? Upon close inspection of the card, I noticed it had been twisted :mad: . Oh yes, very appreciative, a bad deed done as a return to a good deed. Yea, I understand that rivalry exists in this world, but really, do people have to go that far, jumping over the border of being 'ethical' and sabotage others? Imagine if I had inserted that CF card into my camera... and thank God I did not.

I'm wondering now if my card reader (from SanDisk also) is okay? Would the bent CF card have affected it in any way? I checked the card reader, and the pins look fine. I tested it with other CF cards and the reader is okay, reads and writes to them just fine. But is it REALLY okay? Any precautions or other things I should check?

As for that son of a gun, he has since changed schools. He also seems to have stopped photography from the looks of his photo site, using his G7 since January and no pictures from his XT (which leads me to think that he has sold his XT since there's no 'other photographer' aka my son to compete with any more)

Oh well, I assume there goes my 2 GB SanDisk Ultra II CF card (I paid $100 back then) R.I.P. because its bent surface and contacts may kill my camera.

fWord
20th of April 2008 (Sun), 06:26
Wow, that is far out... :eek: When bad things happen to good people, eh? Another way to look at it is this: perhaps your son is so outstanding in every way that his 'friend' has to attempt to emulate him in order to impress others. It's a PITA when these things happen. Just hope it won't happen again.

Does that CF card still work? Even if it does I guess you've decided on the safest thing to do: trash it, or use it to prop up an unstable table.

I'm not sure if the card would have damaged the reader and I'm guessing that it's not possible to find out. Obviously the next safest thing to do would be to get a new reader but Murphy's Law is such that if you take all precautions (even if absurd and over the top), something else is likely to break down instead.

If you still wish to use the CF card then a good idea is to ensure that you only copy images from the card onto the computer and then check each image to ensure they downloaded properly before deleting the images with the CF card back in your camera, using your camera's menu. Do not move images straight from card to computer.

EOS Man
20th of April 2008 (Sun), 09:14
The CF still works, in fact I recovered a bunch of trashy files which seem to have been deliberately put in and then deleted to prevent any of the guys 'real' pictures taken during the period of December-March from being recovered.

No way I'm going to use this one any more, I'm just not taking any chances of the card ruining my camera's CF pins, that would be a disaster. So far the card reader's pins look alright, all still straight and other CF cards are going and transferring in/out without a problem. So is it still safe to use? :confused:

fWord
21st of April 2008 (Mon), 05:46
The CF still works, in fact I recovered a bunch of trashy files which seem to have been deliberately put in and then deleted to prevent any of the guys 'real' pictures taken during the period of December-March from being recovered.

No way I'm going to use this one any more, I'm just not taking any chances of the card ruining my camera's CF pins, that would be a disaster. So far the card reader's pins look alright, all still straight and other CF cards are going and transferring in/out without a problem. So is it still safe to use? :confused:

Like I said, hard to guarantee any of these things. Even if you ditch the current card reader and buy a brand new one, there's no telling if you're actually going to get problems with the new card reader now.

That said I would say that the current card reader is still safe to use.

But wow, what a cunning little bugger that guy was.

Mom27andblessed
21st of April 2008 (Mon), 09:54
Little creep. Maybe he'll get a nasty rash! Or a horrible flea infestation!

Killjoy
23rd of April 2008 (Wed), 00:29
I would venture to guess that your card reader is fine.

I would also toss the card and chalk it up to experience. When I loan out a card, I don't expect to get it back. That's why I keep a couple of my older, smaller cards in my bag. There are a couple of guys at work who now shoot Canon DSLRs as of recently, and they just don't seem as prepared as they want to be.

Col_M
23rd of April 2008 (Wed), 12:29
What a little ****, some people have no respect.

On the subject of copying your son, the lad probably thought that your son was better than him and tried to out do him to boost his ego, at least your son doesn't have to act like an a** to prove himself.