Weird 20D Problem: Card or Camera?

[Jeff Mandell]

I took my still pretty new 20D shooting the other day with a new 2GB Sandisk card. Camera set to shoot Raw and high quality JPEG. As I went along shooting, I regularly looked at what the camera had recorded, scrolling back several shots, etc. All looked fine.
Until... I got back to my computer and found it unable to open any of the files. It showed icons for all of them and numbers at the bottom of each, with the same numbering system as any other card, but no pictures. I put the card back in the camera and now couldn't see them there either. A little panic.
I then downloaded and ran an image recovery program which, thank you photo power in the sky, worked, and all of the images were recovered, though it took a while.
Now, my question is: was this a camera flaw or a card flaw? It's the only time this has happened since I got the camera, but I'm about to go on a major shooting trip to Brazil and can't have the thing do this intermittently. If it's the card, no problem, I'll just replace it. If it's the camera, it is. Has anyone else had this happen? Any thoughts?

[Adam Hicks]

That is strange... you weren't shooting RAW?

Have you updated the firmware? The 1.0.4 and later have some fixes that address compact flash card issues. I had some problems with one of my CF cards in the 20D, where it was actually misreporting that it had free shots left (like 96) though the card was actually full when viewing on the PC. The firmware fixed this.

Good luck!
Adam

[Jon, The Elder]

Jeff-

Firmware upgrade will help. Current firmware version for the 20D is 1.10.

I still occasionally get a slow response from my !Gb Lexar 4x cards.

The important thing here is to reformat your card IN CAMERA. Just deleting files off the card from your computer doesn't really 'delete'.
The registery is deleted, but the data from the images is overwritten as you shoot new photos.

In theory it works OK (most of the time). However, the computer uses different system software than your camera.
If the registery gets corrupted - you still have the data from the images but no longer have ID tags for you to read.

Simple answer is to reformat your card every time you put it back in the camera.

[alan sh]

This "registry" that people keep mentioning is misleading.

The camera formats the card to the FAT or FAT32 standard. In theory, any computer can also do this. However, the camera then adds a DCIM and another subdirectory (based on the picture number) which a normal computer will not do.

This myth of corrupted registries is just that - a myth. If you want the ins and outs of the FAT system, look it up (or I can explain it to you if I have to). Yes, files are not deleted, its just the pointers that are removed and the directory information has an extra character added which tells the O/S that the area can be re-used. Thats how undelete programs can get the info back.

Alan

[Jon, The Elder]

Well said Alan. I didn't want to get too involved in the "inner workings".

[Jeff Mandell]

This isn't a reformatting question, as this was a new card. I will check the firmware, though.

[tim]

Did you format it in the camera before you used it?

[Jeff Mandell]

You know, that's a good question. I think so, but I can't be 100% sure. I certainly didn't format it on the computer if that's what you're suggesting. I don't know if it can even be used without formatting it somewhere, so I'm sticking with a qualified "yes".
In any event, I've checked and the firmware is 1.0.4. so I guess the next step is to update that.

[robertwgross]

You know, that's a good question. I think so, but I can't be 100% sure. I certainly didn't format it on the computer if that's what you're suggesting. I don't know if it can even be used without formatting it somewhere, so I'm sticking with a qualified "yes".


Many CF cards come from the vendor with a generic formatting. But then it is necessary for the user to do Canon formatting in the camera prior to use. If you aren't 100% sure, then I would focus on that first before you step off into other problems.

The Canon formatting is a quick format along with DCIM and some other directories placed. Also, within the menu system, the camera will tell you how much CF capacity is used. When you've done a fresh Canon format, it will eat up 8-16 KB of capacity depending on the CF size. If you see some other larger number, then there may be other files existing on the card (e.g. virus files) which are undesirable. In that case, do a complete format in the computer, then return the CF card to the camera and do the Canon format again.

---Bob Gross---

[Jeff Mandell]

Very interesting.
But now that I've learned my firmware is out of date, Is there any downside to updating it? Has anyone found themselves worse off for having done it?

[dhbailey]

I have upgraded twice, first to 1.05 and just recently to 1.1 with no negative affects whatsoever.

[mr.photoguy]

Very interesting.
But now that I've learned my firmware is out of date, Is there any downside to updating it? Has anyone found themselves worse off for having done it?
You can get the latest update and directions on how to install the update on this site.
www.dpreview.com The link for the update should be on the front page with the 20D photo.