Err CF - No Image

[InskiP]

It's happened again. I'm SO bummed, I lost pictures. My CF card says No Image and Err CF. There were pictures there before, I saw them w/ my own eyes. The card was originally formatted in the camera, but I didn't reformat or anything. Actually, this happened once before w/ the same card, but since I'm new to digital, I thought it was a freak thing I might of accidently done. This card also froze up my camera once when I was formatting it-it got stuck on format busy, so I took out the battery.
I wonder if I have a bad card??? I have two cards and only one has been giving me these problems? Anyone know what the deal is? Are my pics gone forever? I don't suppose you can get me out of this one can you...ha ha...BTW I have a 20D and SanDisk Ultra II 1GB CF.

Like I said, this happened before and someone mentioned putting the card in the reader, do a scandisk and complete format to see if there's a problem w/ the card. I'm not sure how to do this BTW I have a Mac. Some else was talking about FAT and FAT32. I'm new to digital, so I'm not sure what this means. There's a stickey about disappearing images but it's in regards to Lexar CF's which I don't have. I do use a Lexar card reader though???

Donna :cry:

[Jon]

Sounds like a bad card. SanDisk has a lifetime warranty on the Ultra IIs. Tell them about it, including the purchase date and card edge number. They'll send you a link for a downloadable FedEx return label if it's covered. I've got one waiting for me to find the time to get to the FedEx drop point in hours.

[AjP]

I have 20D and Sandisk Ultra II, no prob at all. might be defected card

[eminaddiesmom]

i had the exact same thing happen with my card in my Rebel. i took it back to the store and they replaced the card free. voila, no more problems. get ridda that card fast before you lose something important!


Erika

[Mark_48]

This past weekend at a wedding I was shooting with a 20D and Sandisk Ultra II 512 I lost about some images. Link below the thread I had on it. Evidently they may not have writtento the card.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=77570

You mentioned "Err CF". Was that on the camera and did it prevent you from taking pictures? I had no indication of the lost images until I downloaded to the PC with a card reader. After some effort to recover anything that might possibly be on it, I put it in the camera and was able to add images to it. Intermittently bad is worse than total failure as I don't know if it will happen again. I may see if Sandisk will exchange it.

[wcapald]

I've just had the same error. Sandisk Extreme III, Lost over 120 images, gone forever. When I called Sandisk they said it is more than likely a bad CF card with sector errors. Fine I got a replacement, which now works fine, but why the hell are manufacturers not ensuring stringent quality control checks at the manufacturing stage. It sucks...

[InskiP]

I had NO problems taking the pictures(No CF Errors). One minute there's pictures in my camera the next there's not. B&H WILL replace the card, so I'm happy about that. I'm looking into recovery right now.

Here's something else I noticed. When I use the card reader, one CF shows up as No Name on my desktop, and the other shows up as EOS_DIGITAL. The No Name one WORKS the EOS_DIGITAL doesn't...strange??? Actually, the NO NAME one was never formatted, it's the first card I used and I didn't know that I needed to format a new card. The other one was formatted in the camera and doesn't work. So, I wonder if I format the first card in the camera will I have the same problem???

People cannot afford to have their pictures disappear like this...

>:( :mad:

[Steiny]

I had this same problem with this same card. The only difference was I was using a Canon 10D vs the 20D. Here is what I did. First I formatted the card. I had some trouble even reading the card in two card readers, but the 3rd card reader that I tried the card came up blank. I then formatted the card. Once the card was formatted, I could then read it in the other card readers that would not read it before. Again, it showed blank.

I then paid for and downloaded the Sandisk Rescue utility. It cost me $40. The Sandisk Rescue utility was able to recover the files. I was very happy. I have since sent the card into Sandisk for replacement but I have not been able to out the new card.

Sandisk indicated that there might be some compatability issues between the card and the camera and or the card and the card readers. They were trying to insinuate blame with my equipment.
I personally think the card had a problem, but I am not 100% certain.

I noticed that you said you are on a Mac. I do not know if the Sandisk software is written for the Mac. I will make this offer to you, provided you are in the USA. If you want to send me your card, I will try the same approach I did with my card. If I am successful, I will burn your pictures to CD and mail you the card back along with the CD. You would have to be willing to pay for shipping both ways.

I would give no assurance to getting your pictures. You have to be at a point where you are willing to accept that you will lose the pictures because this may not work. It worked for me and I was happy. They were important pictures, but not crucial like say a wedding or for business. I had resolved myself that I would not get the pictures.

Anyway, I make that offer to you. Let me know if you are interested in giving it a try. Oh, two more things. If you approach this on your own, make sure you do not put anything on the card after formatting it. My understanding is that after format of a card, if you write something on like putting it in the camera and taking more pictures, you will not be able to retrieve some data. I would also say that I have no intention of charging you anything for this if you decide to use me. I know how I felt when it happened to me and I wish someone had made the same offer to me.

Steiny



It's happened again. I'm SO bummed, I lost pictures. My CF card says No Image and Err CF. There were pictures there before, I saw them w/ my own eyes. The card was originally formatted in the camera, but I didn't reformat or anything. Actually, this happened once before w/ the same card, but since I'm new to digital, I thought it was a freak thing I might of accidently done. This card also froze up my camera once when I was formatting it-it got stuck on format busy, so I took out the battery.
I wonder if I have a bad card??? I have two cards and only one has been giving me these problems? Anyone know what the deal is? Are my pics gone forever? I don't suppose you can get me out of this one can you...ha ha...BTW I have a 20D and SanDisk Ultra II 1GB CF.

Like I said, this happened before and someone mentioned putting the card in the reader, do a scandisk and complete format to see if there's a problem w/ the card. I'm not sure how to do this BTW I have a Mac. Some else was talking about FAT and FAT32. I'm new to digital, so I'm not sure what this means. There's a stickey about disappearing images but it's in regards to Lexar CF's which I don't have. I do use a Lexar card reader though???

Donna :cry:

[photoshooter]

i had the same thing happen but i came here and read you need a program called digital image recovery it works great and found all 200 pics and the card has worked right ever since i reformatted it AFTER I GOT THE PICS OFF IT

[InskiP]

Steiny,

I was gone for a while... Thanks for the offer. Right now I'm trying to recover my pics. So far, I've used MediaRecover w/ no luck. Actaully, it says that it recovered 48 of my pics but when I go to view one of the pics, nada...The program then inexplicably quits on me. B&H Photo has offered to replace the card for me, but first I want to try and recover my pics.

Like I said before, I have two identical cards, one was formatted in the camera, the other I didn't format but used right out of the package. The one I formatted in the camera is the one giving me the problems...strange. One thing I DO know is that I did remove the card from the reader without ejecting first which may be the problem???

Thanks again and I'll let you know how it goes...

[Mark_48]

Here's a recovery program to give a try. It's a freebie.

http://www.download.com/3000-2242_4-10261986.html?tag=sd

[InskiP]

Mark,

I have a Mac. It doesn't look like they have a Mac verson..bummer...

[Marshall]

Mark,

I have a Mac. It doesn't look like they have a Mac verson..bummer...

So have I, anyone out there know of a freeby recovery program to suit ?

[InskiP]

UPDATE. I GOT MY PICTURES BACK!!!

I"ve spent the past couple of days researching recovery programs. After trying out the various demos, I found that PhotoRecovery by LC Technology worked best for me. FYI here's the rundown.

PhotoRecovery(LC Tech)-Recovered my images perfectly and was very fast (4min).

RescuePro-also by LC Technology recovered images but some were pixelated(12 min).

MediaRecover-took a LONG time and showed that it recovered 48 images but couldn't
display them.

PhotoRescue-recovered the images but there were black and various colored lines through them.

ImageRescue-I didn't try because there was no download, just CD, and I'm in a hurry.

I know that many of you had great success w/ all the softwares listed above.
But, for whatever reason, it my case, PhotoRecovery worked best for me.
Thanks for all the help and referrals. Now I'm getting ready to format my other card and, GOOD GOD, I hope it's not a problem w/ the camera itself...wish me luck...

[tengelke128]

the same thing happened to my camera... i'm still trying to figure out what to do to get the pictures off... any advice? i don't have an external card reader... so i really don't know my options.

please help.

- tarah

[tengelke128]

do you need an external card reader?
because i don't have one...
and can't afford one.

any other options?

[Jon]

External readers run anywhere from $10 on up. You need one! Check the "big box" stores for best prices.

[mikehea28]

i had bought 5 of the same cards and was shoting raw with them on my trip to pa and in the camera as i was shoting i would check them to see how they were , but when i got home i had a error and it was showing not even one photo on the card so i took it as a loss and tryed agone but could not even get the camera to see the card so i got in touch with sandisk and toold them thepromble they told me to just send them the card and they would replace it for me so i would say just give them a call

[dmedia]

I had the same problems with the 300D and a 256MB card. I was able to duplicate the problem shooting in RAW mode and on the last shot if there no room on the card, some, not all of the images were 'lost'. Well, not really lost, I just used rescue disk and got all but one or two back.

Also also notied on the card reader, the ones you simple just plug in and insert the card. The new readers have a button to push once you have inserted the card. Perhaps that is the problem.

Have always been nervous about using these cards having lot my images the first time around. Not good if one shoots professionally.

[Jon]

Also also notied on the card reader, the ones you simple just plug in and insert the card. The new readers have a button to push once you have inserted the card. Perhaps that is the problem.

Have always been nervous about using these cards having lot my images the first time around. Not good if one shoots professionally.
If you're referring to SanDisk's new CFreaders, the button's to kick off their software for automatic transfer. If you just insert the card, you can use it normally in the reader.

Out of 9 Ultra IIs, 3-4 SanDisk Blues, 3-4 Kingstons, 4 IBM/Hitachi MDs and several other brands, I've had precisely 2 cards choke on me. File recovery software got the lost images both times. SanDisk replaced the Ultra II no problem. The Kingston had been around a bit, so I just transferred it to my PDA where it's not as critical.

[babybenk]

Help!! I'm confused!! I have done several shoots this week and went to download on computer and had prob with my cf card reader. looked like the little metal fingers might have been bent?? I put the cf card back in my camera and no image error came up. Have I lost all my images?? I am fairly new to digital myself. this is the one and only 16gb cf card I have ever had. I didn't even know they went bad.

[joeseph]

sounds like its only a problem cardreader. When the CF is back in the camera, does it display the pictures okay?