Have you had and CF card failures?

[FlyingPete]

This is part two of a two part poll on CF reliability, what the rate of failures is.

A failure here is only when the card is unrecoverable, i.e. only good for the bin. If you lost data and a reformat fixed up the card, that doesn't count.

Terminology standards here are CF being the card format/interface. Flash is solid state, Microdrive is the spinning bits version.


Don't forget to vote in the other poll as well!
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=57123

[CyberDyneSystems]

Poll has been eidted to exclude the 2.2GB "Magicstor" drives from the MD poll.

These drives had essentially a 100% failure rate in Canon cameras and were a total waste of time and money,

so please,. don't vote for MD failure if you were among those who tried these things out.

(yep,. I tried one ;) )

[FlyingPete]

Can I edit your poll to exclude the 2.2GB "Magicstor" drives from the MD poll?

these drives had essentially a 100% failure rate in Canon cameras and were a total waste of time and money.

Yes good point, they would colour the results. Edit away...

[Jon]

I'll count it as a total failure; photos disappeared off the card but data recovery let me recover them. Reformatting didn't help - it happened again. Kingston 1 GB CF. It still reads, but is in no way reliable enough for photo use.

[Cadwell]

Three solid state CFs and one not so "Smart Media"... and I don't even wear nylon.... ;)

[kb244]

It would seem that if you asked this same question maybe 3 to 4 years ago, the "yes" on the flash storage would be a bit higher, seems now days long as you stick with a reputable company not something like 128MB for 10$ , shouldnt have any problems, of course thats not to say it wont ever happen, just less likely now days.

[rssfhs]

The cards keep getting bigger and bigger, but I like to play it safe with a couple of smaller ones. That way if one fails, at least I still have photos in the others.

[PhotosGuy]

I like to play it safe with a couple of smaller ones. Me too, & a 512 card fits nicely on a CD.

[IndyJeff]

The cards keep getting bigger and bigger, but I like to play it safe with a couple of smaller ones. That way if one fails, at least I still have photos in the others.

I wish I could remember the guys name at Nashville Speedway that was razzing me for having to change cards during the Infinety Pro Series race on Friday night. The next night for the IRL (main event of the weekend) after the race he was scrambling around trying to find someone with a picture of a certain driver during a pit stop. Seems his 1 gig card would show nothing but, image corrupt, no file found on each and every image.
All his work for the entire pre-race, race and post race activities was gone. That my friends is why I never bought anything larger than a 512 MB card.

[ssim]

Happened to me last weekend. The camera would through an Err 02 which upon looking it up was a CF Card error. It says to reseat the card or reformat it. In both cases I had to remove the battery before the camera was operational. The card in question was a Lexar pro 2GB 80X. If I put any of my other cards in, everything was fine.

I'm not sure what the warranty period is on these but my retailer replaced free of charge.

[rammy]

How far can you drop a CF card and it still functions? I accidently dropped my 512MB PQI card from about 1 foot (0.3m) onto a hardwood floor, as I was pulling it out of the USB port of my laptop. It stopped working from then on. Laptop was fine obviously, as I did not drop that.

1 foot (0.3m) is not that far though? Anyone else dropped a CF card from a lower height and it stopped working? Or dropped from greater height and it continued working?

[Barb42]

I have a small Lexar that corrupted files twice. After the second time, I threw it in the trash. I stick with Sandisk now.

[FlyingPete]

How far can you drop a CF card and it still functions? I accidently dropped my 512MB PQI card from about 1 foot (0.3m) onto a hardwood floor, as I was pulling it out of the USB port of my laptop. It stopped working from then on. Laptop was fine obviously, as I did not drop that.

1 foot (0.3m) is not that far though? Anyone else dropped a CF card from a lower height and it stopped working? Or dropped from greater height and it continued working?

I have had them go a lot further than that with no issues at least a meter (3 feet) to a hard floor, and over four meters (12 feet) to grass (it was really mainly hard dirt, as the grass had been worn away by foot traffic).

[where1]

Well not total failure, I was able to recover the half dozen or so pics on it, but it took over 4 hours. It was the 8mb card that came with my old Kodak camera. It was about 6 years old at the time. I counted it as a failure because I couldn't reformat it, so I tossed it out. Tossing it out means it is of no use to me anymore, as in total failure. :)

[FlyingPete]

Well not total failure, I was able to recover the half dozen or so pics on it, but it took over 4 hours. It was the 8mb card that came with my old Kodak camera. It was about 6 years old at the time. I counted it as a failure because I couldn't reformat it, so I tossed it out. Tossing it out means it is of no use to me anymore, as in total failure. :)

I'll pay that as long as it was a CF card!

[dobova]

When I get new 1DMKII both the Trascend CF 512Mb get burned !!
Strange behaviour.

Ciao

[Skip Souza]

I have had two flash card failures. 1 SD and 1MMC. Both failures were caused by my internal multi card reader (unknown brand). The same reader had no problem with CF cards.
I replaced the multi card reader and have not had a problem since.

[joeseph]

I had a card that intermittantly corrupted files "I-O Data" brand 256M
The shop in Singapore happily replaced it via post.

[suse]

Yes! I have just had this problem. Had a Kingston 512mb which played up.

From day I got several images appearing as half shots. One side visible, the other black.

Then the images starting appearing as wholly black with question mark when viewed in EOS viewer.

I upgraded the firmware on my 20D, and still no joy. In fact, a whole afternoon's shoot came out as black and question marks. Tried Bad copy Pro to rescue images: ntohijg. Took it to digital camera shop: they agreed I had dodgy card.

Its gone back to the seller.

Suse
UK

[Citizensmith]

In 5 years of using a metric assload load of CF cards as well as MMC, SD, xD, and MS I've never had one go bad. Killed 3 cameras, but never had a card go bad.

[joeseph]

Incindentally, before I sent my card back for replacement, I tried various EMF sources to see wether I could cause corruption to images.
For example. tying the CF card to a plug lead on my car and running the engine for 15 minutes had no effect whatsoever...

:-P

[Skip Souza]

In 5 years of using a metric assload load of CF cards as well as MMC, SD, xD, and MS I've never had one go bad. Killed 3 cameras, but never had a card go bad.
For the sake of accuracy. Exactly how many is a metric assload? :confused:

[MazerRakhm]

I just recently had to RMA a Lexar 1gb card. For some reason every time I put it in the camera it would give me an error02 code for bad flash. The card worked perfectly in the PC, I was able to get all of my pics from it, but it would not work in the camera anymore.

Tried formatting it twice in the PC as well as running checks, but no good. Lexar should be sending me a replacement, or at least that’s what the agent who gave me the RMA said.

[S230]

Seems like lots of Bad Lexar's. i had a failure once but was quickly replaced without issue.

[Citizensmith]

For the sake of accuracy. Exactly how many is a metric assload? :confused:

1000 Metric assloads (1kA or 1 kilassload) = 0.67 buttloads or 670 standard assloads, the unit most commonly used in the US.

1 standard assload = 5 whole bunches of

[Skip Souza]

1000 Metric assloads (1kA or 1 kilassload) = 0.67 buttloads or 670 standard assloads, the unit most commonly used in the US.

1 standard assload = 5 whole bunches of

ROFLMAO :lol: :rolleyes: :p :p :rolleyes: :lol:

[Simon Spiers]

I have had a fuji 256 meg card fail to store images on my old Fuji when the buffer got full.
Lost a few images ,but never had a problem with a faster Fiji 128 meg card or my aging 350 microdrive.

[RichardtheSane]

How far can you drop a CF card and it still functions? I accidently dropped my 512MB PQI card from about 1 foot (0.3m) onto a hardwood floor, as I was pulling it out of the USB port of my laptop. It stopped working from then on. Laptop was fine obviously, as I did not drop that.

1 foot (0.3m) is not that far though? Anyone else dropped a CF card from a lower height and it stopped working? Or dropped from greater height and it continued working?

I've dropped on from a *mugh* greater hieght and it carried on going.
It was the canon card that came with my g5 and I did some drop testing. Highest I could go an still reliably find the card was out of a 1st story window. Once I has shaved the scraped plastic off (which stopped it being put in a CF slot) it worked fine.

[FlyingPete]

Hmmm this thread has been resurected from the dead, perhaps I should re-do the stats I got from it?