20D ERR 02 with Sandisk Extreme III 1GB

[wcapald]

Just posting this for others benefit. Same issue as with other cameras in the range. New card, formatted in camera, shoot about 100 images, then ERR 02, camera locks up. Switch off, take batteries out, switch back on, all images have gone, and getting CF ERROR. After formatting the card several times, and with fresh batteries, did a burst of 100 images to the card, and same thing happens.

Spoke to Sandisk support in California this morning, and no recognition of the fault. The suggestion is replacement first (in case its a faulty card) and check. If the error repeats itself, then Sandisk have an incompatibilty issue with the write speeds with Extreme III and the 20D.

My colleague was shooting alongside me on Lexar 80x 1GB on 20D with no problems.

Wayne

[Tomasz Dziechciarz]

Wow I had tsimilar problem yesterday.
512 MB KINGSTON + 20 D
I took some wedddpic in church I revieved some if they are OK I filled the whole capacity and then later at home I found " CF card error" why, why,why,why,why !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I gave the card to a special company which is specialised in disc, memeory cards - recovery.

Otherwise I have nothing to give to the couple from church !!!!!!!!!!!

How to avoid such problem .... my collegue had a problem with PRETEC 2 months ago ..

[Buttkicker]

I have 3 of the extreme cards and touch wood... no trouble as yet, however I have had major woes with the camera (20D)

[dhbailey]

I know that the UltraII cards work just fine with the 20D and certainly have a fast enough write speed that I see no need to spend the extra money for the Extreme cards. Particularly since reading of problems such as this one.

It's interesting that your friend had no problems with the Lexar, as that card has documented problems (or am I remembering the card/camera combination wrong for the problem?).

[tim]

I have 4 Ultra II cards, i've filled them all at least once and i've not had a single problem.

Tomasz, let us know if they can help recover your images.

[wcapald]

I'm not sure where to go with these problems being posted, its all very worrying. I spoke with Canon support centre first, and they pointed me at the CF manufacturer. With a company as large and smart as Canon, you think they would at least recognise this problem must be reported on its global database somwhere, and able to give best advice as to what may be the issue. Everyone just sits on the fence.

I'll have to await the replacement Sandisk card.


I shoot weddings, and its scaring the life out of me. The rescue software may get you out of jail, but in this case the images were gone.

[dhbailey]

Have you shot with that card before with no problems, or was this the first time use of that card?

If this was the first time shooting with this card, it will be a hard lesson but an important one to learn: Never use a new piece of equipment on the job until you have tested and retested it where things don't matter. Only use equipment you've tested and are confindent in.

Of course, if you had used the card with no problems and all of a sudden the problems appeared, there's nothing you can do about that. That's why you have others taking pictures as well.

I do hope you get it resolved (I realize your pictures are gone forever) -- please keep us posted.

[Toogy]

I have over 7 GB of Sandisk Ultra II's and have never had a problem (Knock on Wood)

[fortinaa]

I'm glad I caught this thread. I will be travelling to Europe in July and will be picking up some extra memory before then. I had seriously been contemplating the Extreme III cards, mostly for the possibility of faster offloading of the cards. I have been pretty happy with my Ultra II... and maybe I will stick with them.

[robertwgross]

When you have a new CF card, doesn't anybody believe in doing a complete format of the card before real use? Otherwise, you are putting an unknown quantity into your camera for a quick format only.

---Bob Gross---

[Salleke]

Just posting this for others benefit. Same issue as with other cameras in the range. New card, formatted in camera, shoot about 100 images, then ERR 02, camera locks up. Switch off, take batteries out, switch back on, all images have gone, and getting CF ERROR. After formatting the card several times, and with fresh batteries, did a burst of 100 images to the card, and same thing happens.

Spoke to Sandisk support in California this morning, and no recognition of the fault. The suggestion is replacement first (in case its a faulty card) and check. If the error repeats itself, then Sandisk have an incompatibilty issue with the write speeds with Extreme III and the 20D.

My colleague was shooting alongside me on Lexar 80x 1GB on 20D with no problems.

Wayne

I have a Sandisk EXTREME III 2 GB on my 20D and it's working fine.
I have filled the card several time and deleted many pictures on it in camera without any problem.
These cards have a lifetime warranty so ask Sandisk to replace it.
Also i have 3 other Sandisk 1 GB CF standard and they work just fine all the time.

[wcapald]

Hi Bob,
Sandisk CF formating recommendation from support in California:

Formatting a Compact Flash card means putting a layout on the card so that your camera's firmware could recognize and use it. A card needs to be formatted only once; but, you can certainly format your card as many times as you want. Keep in mind that all images, including the protected ones, and information stored on the card will be erased after the card is formatted. You should use your camera to format your card, although your computer also recognizes and formats your Compact Flash card. This is because to ensure proper control and file system compatibility, the camera may add additional information into the card. If for some reason your card was formatted by your computer, you need to reformat it using your camera. To format a CompactFlash card, make sure that it has been inserted into the card chamber. You should not remove the card or battery, or unplug the AC adapter while formatting is in progress. See Inserting and Removing Compact Flash Memory Card for the details.

I've always formatted my microdrives, and other CF cards in camera, and I've been shooting on digital for over 5 years now, including D30, D60, 10D, 20D and I shoot over 25,000 images every year. This is the 1st time I have had an ERR 02, and Sandisk suspect a faulty batch of cards, not the way I format new cards.

Wayne

[robertwgross]

I find it odd that a company would write any public text as full of holes as that, so something must have been lost in the translation.

A CF card has a basic memory capacity, like 512MB, and then it has a formatted capacity of a little less. That change is due to the file structure that eats up some space. If you format the card and see 488MB of capacity, then you will learn to expect that result for the future. If, on the other hand, you format and get only 452MB of capacity, then what does that tell us? It tells us that something has eaten up 36MB of capacity, perhaps due to corruption in the file structure or hard defects. However, if you never do a complete format, you never learn this. Some CF cards are shipped from the factory with stuff written on them, such as file recovery programs. You may or may not want that hogging space on the card.

---Bob Gross---

[WI10DUser]

I have two 2 GB Extreme III CF cards from Sandisk and have shot 5,000+ images between both cards without a single problem. It is not a compatibility issue between the Extreme III cards and the 20D.

[Tim23011407]

I've been using the Sandisk Extreme III 1 GB for about 5 months with the 20D and have had no problems. (about 3,600 shots RAW, jpg, RAW+jpg used) The edge stamp on my card is BB0412RA.

Tim

[wcapald]

Sandisk are sending a new replacement card in the post, its a suspected faulty card, with bad sectors on it. Sandisk issue clean cards, ready formatted, and the Image Rescue software is supplied on a mini-CD disk in the box. ie the card is blank, and ready to be used. I assume the replacement will be fine.

[davehilts]

Wayne,

I experienced this proble too last weekend whilst on holiday in NYC .... had spent 2 days and shot over 150 images on my CF card when suddenly I got the same Err 02 message. In panic I turned the camera off/on and then got the CF Error. Tried many times to turn off/remove card/remove battery but couldn't get the card to work again.

I had a spare card which went in camera and worked OK - but camera still wouldn't see the first card with all my photos!

I worried about this for the last evening and thought I'd lost all my shots of Brrokly Bridge, Empire State, Grand Central, etc.

The good news was when I put the CF card in my PC and prayed the PC could see all my images and I uploaded them fine ASAP!

Maybe your card could be read OK by the PC - even if not by the camera. I had read somewhere there are 2 directory structures on the CF card - one which the camera doesn't use. Maybe like me yours will be OK?


Dave

[Mark_48]

Where bad sectors might be suspected on the card, is this something that could be reliably detected with a WinXP error checking utility that typically would be used on a disk drive?

Mark....

[togger]

Had repeated Err 02 on my 20D with a 2gb Lexar Card. Reformat and firmware update makes no difference. Seems to be at roughly the same point as the card fills. Lost pictures.

No problems with new Sandisk Extreme 2gb.

[SYS]

I had the same error message several times using 20D with a new Kingston 1G with some loss of images. Good thing it happened while just testing the new camera. When I did the firmware update, though, it improved a great deal. Then I noticed that the problem seems to have completely resolved when I stopped deleting the images from my PC but formatting only within the camera. So now when I'm prompted as to whether I'd like the images to be deleted after downloading them onto my PC, I always press NO. Then stick the card into my camera and format it. Since doing this, not a single occurrance of the error 02 message. Perhaps this is the trick needed, or I could just have been lucky. But heck, whatever works!!

[Jon]

Had repeated Err 02 on my 20D with a 2gb Lexar Card. Reformat and firmware update makes no difference. Seems to be at roughly the same point as the card fills. Lost pictures.

No problems with new Sandisk Extreme 2gb.
There were some problems with Lexar cards in the 20D; Lexar was fixing the firmware in them. That it happens at about the same point sounds like a bad card; that's Lexar's to fix.

The recommendation is to format the card, either in camera or in computer, not to just delete files. It's faster, removes trash directories, and leaves the card in a known, unfragmented state (people will tell you unfragmented doesn't matter, but while it may not appreciably affect write speed, it leaves the files contiguous which will be a decided help in pulling them off).

[dpastern]

Interesting thread. I've just purchased a 2gb SanDisk Extreme III card myself, in anticipation of my soon to be arriving 1D, so I'll be testing it on both my D60 and 1D. Very interesting.

Like others, I suspect a physical problem with the flash RAM. If you haven't formatted the card, do so, and use the camera to do it. And, as someone else pointed out, test things before you do an important shoot with them. Would you buy a new camera and never test it and then go out and do a shoot? I think not...the same applies to accessories.

Dave

[uugloaf]

I had the same issue with my 4gb extreame 3 card firtst error 2. reformatted card several times with new batteries. card should hold 440 raw now max raw only 220 raw.

[Jon, The Elder]

In the ancient days of digital 1996 (Kodak 240/1Mb image), many people were running into similar problems. Although these problems are fairly rare today, conventional wisdom developed back then still holds true.

Format your new card IN CAMERA and then shoot a ton of images.

Use a CARD READER to transfer to computer, not cable from cam to PC.

Don't just delete, reformat in camera ONLY.

In general if a card fails, it is going to happen quite soon.
Yes, I have had a card go belly up and it was a sanDisk ultra II 1Gb - the second time I fired up the camera. It was replaced with no question.
I still have a couple of those early 512's and they have been used in several different 'loaner' situations.
But, like anything man-made, failures happen.