Kingston 2GB CF card

Strange things.

I was shooting low priority nature stuff today. Canon 20D with a Kingston Elite Pro 2GB CF card, 50X. The card is about 80 days old, and it has probably seen 1000 image files go by. After each transfer of images through the card reader to the computer, I always reformat the card in the camera.

Anyway, I was shooting along after ten images or so and the camera halted and displayed "CF err". Hmmm. I switched off, removed the card, substituted a Lexar card, switched on, and continued shooting normally.

When I got the Kingston card home to the computer, I dropped it in the card reader, and the computer could not do anything with it, claiming no files and no formatting. Hmmm. BTW, the computer took the Lexar files normally.

So, with the Kingston card in the reader, I fired up some image recovery software. It takes a while to run. Of course, it searches the entire card, so it came up with ten or so new ones and also about a hundred old ones that had been formatted over weeks ago. Even though the new files were RAW (.CR2), they were recovered as TIF. Hmmm.

I renamed the ten new files to be .CR2 and then threw them onto the RAW converter, which took them fine. Then, I tried to get the computer to do a complete format on the Kingston card. It wouldn't touch it. It could not complete the format. Now I am a little worried.

Next, I put the Kingston card back into the camera, and it said No Images. OK. I did a quick format, and all of a sudden it looks normal. I fired off about a dozen test shots, and everything looks normal. Everything transfers normally, and the test images are normal. I put it back to the computer and did a complete format again, then put it back to the camera and did a quick format again. All looks normal.

What do you say I leave this card only for low priority shooting for a while?

Can anybody explain what happened? Cosmic rays, or the wrong phase of the moon? <g>

---Bob Gross---

A similar thing happened to me recently with a Crucial 512Mb CF card, it's one of the oldest i own.

I got a CF Error too, and ran through an almost identical Recovery / Re-format procedure and all seemed fine, until last Sunday at Brands Hatch for the BTCC, when once again it caused a CF Error. Fortunately i only lost half a dozen shots, and the card is now replaced by a 2Gb Integral i-pro 100x Card.


Here's hoping yours continues to work, but i wouldn't trust it for anything important.

Warranty claim perhaps ?

I've got a Kingston (not Elite) that has had similar problems. After the second (I hope it was the second with this one, not once with another one too), I demoted it to overflow storage on my PDA. Check out Kingston's warranty policy - you should be able to get a replacement. But unless/until you fill it a few times (either live or via file copies) successfully, the best I'd give it is low priority subjects.

I am a kingston user - 1GB cards - and so far bloody great.

Something somewhere "skipped a track" (as they say in the mental wards).

Boy! You guys are no fun at all. I was hoping that I could pin it on cosmic rays.

---Bob Gross---

That's close to what I was thinking.

Sun spots, maybe?

The good news would seem to be the lifetime warranty from Kingston...with RAM so-dimm I found them to be extremely responsive to an issue I had.

Area 51. It's always Area 51.

Area 51?

Isn't that where Belmondo's tripods always end up?

---Bob Gross---

They're renaming it the "Belmondo Triangle", I hear.

Ouch. You've cut me to the quick.

No fair! Piling on!

But it's so nice to think of your efforts at supporting our country's aerospace R&D
:{)#

Cosmic rays? Now, come on, Bob. You, of all people, should know that everything has a logical explanation. So, what side of the bed did you get out of that morning when this started happening?

I'm not a big subscriber to the cosmic ray theory. It's a theory.

On the other hand, a friend of mine in the semiconductor industry routinely runs tests on their parts. The tests are up around 12,000 feet elevation so that cosmic rays can be more plentiful.

---Bob Gross---