CF Card Disaster

We had a 12 hour day with a client on several CF cards.  He said he had a new trick plug that allowed him to download the CF to his iPad.  I gave him my new Lexar 64 GB CF with photos of him in action so I could save burning him a flash drive with the pix. 

The next day on tour he said something was amiss and he was unable to strip the cards.  I tested the cards in question on his cameras, all Nikon, and we got an error message on all the cards in all the cameras.  Fortunately he had a lot of other cards.  He gave me back my Lexar card and I put it in my Canon cameras and the card was not recognized.

Later at home my Lexar card was not recognized by any of my computers, Mac or Windows.  I contacted Lexar and they immediately said they'd replace the card.  Great service!  However, my client has a full day of shooting on his unrecognized cards.  We tried the image rescue route, but we have to get the computer to see the card before we can do anything.

Any ideas to get the cards recognized?  I have never seen this before, and was not aware a card could be nuked by a bad download.  Scary.  No more giving anybody any of my cards.

1) Try a linux machine.
2) Check with Apple and see if they know of the problem (and maybe a solution).

If the ipad added/changed the file system, linux (like Ubuntu or Mint, probably not RedHat) may still be able to recognize it and read it. Linux can read from many different file systems and write to many too.

Roger

When I first started downloading cards to a laptop, I changed the name of the downloaded  folder from the card to something relevant to the location/images. I thought I was only changing the name on the computer folder, but the laptop also changed it on the card, as well. When I put it back in the camera, it was not recognized. When I realized what must have happened, I put it back in the card reader and renamed it to the original name, e.g. 112ND700, and then the camera recognized it again. Then, when I removed the card, I renamed the file on the computer file and all was well.  Probably not the problem, but just putting it out there. You may want to check if your client changed the name of the folder.

Joe

I guess it doesn't help this time, but in future you may want to carry a few low value cards that you can put some test images on first before doing anything new and untested before risking valuable data.

Question - just what specific method or steps followed does 'downloading the CF to his iPad' or 'trick' mean? In other words was there an application used or was copy and paste done? Was a card reader used? Sorry but the description is not specific enough. The way I understand it iPads use IOS 7 while MacBooks use OS X and operating systems don't behave exactly the same way. Bummer about fowled card. Hope some kind of recovery works.

Sorry, I do not have that info. We dropped him off at his hotel that evening after the tour and picked him up the next morning to continue. I was not present when he tried downloading.

He is on another photo tour in Washington at this time, so email is iffy.

The big problem with CF cards and the iPad is that the iPad doesn't source enough power to reliably DL a CF card and it can result in corruption. The setup involves a CF card reader that is connected to the iPad's optional USB connector which is NOT designed to source enough power for CF cards.  Unless that reader has it's own power source, it's going to be a problem and the documentation that comes with this adapter clearly explains that but people don't read instructions.  You can however DL CF cards to an iPad reliably if you connect the camera to the optional USB via the cable that came with the camera adapter and DL the card from the camera as the cameras battery acts as the power source for the card slot in the camera. If the FAT is corrupted, the card may appear to no longer function or register properly in camera or when plugged into a computer.  A professional recovery service can usually get the data back - I've already contacted Steve via PM about this.  As for SD cards, if you DL an SD card using Apple's optional SD card slot to the iPad, this risk does not exist.

Thanks for posting this info, E.J. It is good for the rest of us to know.

Joe

Thanks EJ. That makes sense. My Nikon D7100 and 1 V1 cameras uses SD cards. I take the cards out of the camera and insert them into my MacBook Pro's card slot and then copy and past the files from the SD card to a 1TB LaCie external hard drive. I was thinking about trying to do this my my iPad but wary of this for the reasons you sited. I think I'm still wary.

SD isn't a problem as I noted  But RAW files form a D7100 are pretty big so you would likely fill the iPad real fast.  If you are shooting JPEG then you sould be OK.

Well, i did shoot a soccer game with a CF card on my 1DX for the first half, then i turned off the camera to rest for second half, but when i turned on the camera for the second half i've got that error message telling me it can't recognize the CF card, luckily i had another one so i continued with that another one.

Later at home, i tried this CF card with card reader and not any computers i have could read it [Mac & PC], so i decided to format with my camera, also didn't work, i asked one friend that he may know something, and he told me that this card is dead now, so can i have a hope i can do something to this CF card or i should throw it away?

It may be possible to recover but without having the card in hand, it's hard to tell you any more than that.

Regarding how to download images on a CF card to an iPad, I've had no success using the Apple Lightning to female USB adapter and any card reader I've tested. However, downloads work well when I plug the mini-USB to Male USB cable (one that comes with the camera) directly into the camera.

dbolt wrote:Regarding how to download images on a CF card to an iPad, I've had no success using the Apple Lightning to female USB adapter and any card reader I've tested.  However, downloads work well when I plug the mini-USB to Male USB cable (one that comes with the camera) directly into the camera.

Read my post above, it's not supposed to work without the camera's power.

That's the point. The camera supplies the power.

I have posted about this before.

I had the same problem with a GMonster 32G card. The entire day's shoot was on it and suddenly the camera (1DX) wouldn't recognize it. None of my Mac computers would either, tried disk utility, rescue disk and what not. Basic problem was that the card was not being recognized by anything, so you could not run any piece of software on it. It was as if it was dead.

Hyperdrive's colorspace (older version) came to my rescue. I put the card in it, ran the 'recover images' program and it simply pulled out not only the entire day's shoot but all the older images that were still on the card even though it had been formatted a dozen times (probably the entire card had never been completely rewritten). The images were all saved to a backup directory. I then hooked up the device via USB to my Mac and downloaded all the images retrieved.

I never travel without the Colorspace UDMA2 (newer version). Other than being an excellent backup, quick viewer etc, it is simply priceless for recovering images from cards that you cannot get back any other way. Much cheaper than sending the card to a recovery service.

Hope this helps.

Pradeep

Thanks, EJ, for the warning on the iPad with a card reader. So basically bring the usb wire with the camera and not a card reader.

Thanks, Pradeep, for the tip on the Hyperdrive Colorspace. I never saw one before. Holds one terrabyte!

At this point I am simply following Lexar's offer to replace the corrupted card for free, and kissing off the images. Free is good.

Nice, it sounds i should buy that HyperDrive too, but is the new version working fine for recovering files[images] too???

I have 2 of those storage devices also, but i don't think they have that recover option, i will check out soon.

A card reader with its own power supply or placed on a powered hub I would think should work. They are small enough to carry around in a bag or pack. You'll need AC or maybe use with a car adapter.

ronzie wrote:A card reader with its own power supply or placed on a powered hub I would think should work. They are small enough to carry around in a bag or pack. You'll need AC or maybe use with a car adapter.

I said that in my first post
"Unless that reader has it's own power source..."

But it might just be easier to carry the USB cable for the camera and use the camera as the card reader.