Personal Experience with failure of a CF card?

I've read several threads from photographers that prefer to use many
smaller CF cards than risk losing, say a wedding, if all the pictures
are in a single card and it fails. That got me to wonder just how
many folk have actually had a CF failure and lost some or all of the
pictures on it.

A couple years ago I lost a few pictures on a CF card while at the
Grand Canyon and I later figured it might have had something to do
with the way the card was erased the previous time. My protocol up to
then was to download the pics from a full card to my Nixvue Digital
album. After download I would "verify" the files were copied correctly
and then I'd erase the card in the Digital Album. I changed the
protocol to include an in-camera format of the CF card and have not
lost another picture since then.

So:

1. Has anyone had an outright failure with a CF card that made it
useless from that point on losing all pictures on it?

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?


Thanks,

Brian

On 12 Nov 2004 02:24:27 GMT, Pierre Vandevennne
wrote:

Brian Stirling wrote in
:

1. Has anyone had an outright failure with a CF card that made it
useless from that point on losing all pictures on it?

That's relatively infrequent in terms of percentage, frequent in terms of
absolute numbers, and fortunately on the decrease. Mechanical failure
(severed contacts) is the most frequent cause, followed by outright failure
of the ATA controller inside the card.

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?

It can be due to a single address line being broken or a memory bank
failing, but more frequently to user errors, firmware bugs, incomplete
writes etc...

Your routine is sound in the sense that it allows the camera firmware to
start with a relatively clean state (the data usually is still there, but
the camera doesn't have to parse the existing fat). It minimize the risks
of fimrware bugs and maximizes the recovery chances should another problem
occur


Pierre
PhotoRescue: www.datarescue.com/photorescue


Thanks for the response Pierre, you do sound as though you know what
you're talking about and I can surmise from your sigline that you work
on this as a business.


Do you have any sense as to what the percentage of CF cards have
failed?


I ask this because I have just ordered a 4GB Lexar 80X CF card in
addition to the 1GB Lexar 40X CF and 512MB Lexar 24X CF cards I
already have. I can get about 110 RAW pictures from my Canon 1D Mark
II onto the 1GB CF card and would prefer not to need to remove the
card from the camera for download to the Digital Album as frequently.
With the 4GB CF card I should get about 440 RAW pictures before
needing to remove to download. If electrical contacts are one of the
major sources of failure then reducing the frequency of card removal
would seem to reduce the likely of that particular failure.


BUT, I do understand the concern that a wedding photographer might
have putting all his eggs (pics) in one basket.


I may add a Canon 1DS Mark II in a few months and I think a 4GB CF
card would provide space for approximately 200 RAW pictures. For file
sizes this large a 1GB CF card would only provide for about 50
pictures and, for me, a 2GB CF card would be a more practical minimum
with this camera.


I guess the balance has to be drawn someplace, but if the failure rate
is as low as I suspect then a larger card would reduce the chance of
missing a shot because you're swapping out a full card and also reduce
the rate of card swapping which should reduce the odds of an
electrical contact problem.

Later,

Brian

From: Brian Stirling

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?

An editor at a magazine who's heavily involved with digital told me that most
CF card fails occur when someone pops the card from the camera while it's still
writing buffered data. I try to not even turn it off until the red light quits
flashing myself ... the Mark II you just got can take 30+ seconds to empty out
10 RAW files, for example and since the camera allows you to take so many shots
so fast (20 RAWs in 2.5 seconds) it's easy to turn it off after a burst unless
you check for the light.

I have just ordered a 4GB Lexar 80X CF card in
addition to the 1GB Lexar 40X CF and 512MB Lexar 24X CF
cards I already have.

The Lexar and Sandisk (Ultra and Extreme) are about as reliable as one can get.
Both come with lifetime replacement warranties and Sandisk will try to recover
any data you might have lost if a card fails (maybe Lexar does this too, not
sure).

We have nine one and two GB cards and the biggest worry I have is losing one
that isn't in the camera ... having one fail during a write isn't that big a
concern to me, so long as I don't pop it from the camera before it has finished
clearing out the write buffer.

Bill

From: Brian Stirling

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?

An editor at a magazine who's heavily involved with digital told me that most
CF card fails occur when someone pops the card from the camera while it's still
writing buffered data. I try to not even turn it off until the red light quits
flashing myself ... the Mark II you just got can take 30+ seconds to empty out
10 RAW files, for example and since the camera allows you to take so many shots
so fast (20 RAWs in 2.5 seconds) it's easy to turn it off after a burst unless
you check for the light.

I have just ordered a 4GB Lexar 80X CF card in
addition to the 1GB Lexar 40X CF and 512MB Lexar 24X CF
cards I already have.

The Lexar and Sandisk (Ultra and Extreme) are about as reliable as one can get.
Both come with lifetime replacement warranties and Sandisk will try to recover
any data you might have lost if a card fails (maybe Lexar does this too, not
sure).

We have nine one and two GB cards and the biggest worry I have is losing one
that isn't in the camera ... having one fail during a write isn't that big a
concern to me, so long as I don't pop it from the camera before it has finished
clearing out the write buffer.

Bill

From: Brian Stirling

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?

An editor at a magazine who's heavily involved with digital told me that most
CF card fails occur when someone pops the card from the camera while it's still
writing buffered data. I try to not even turn it off until the red light quits
flashing myself ... the Mark II you just got can take 30+ seconds to empty out
10 RAW files, for example and since the camera allows you to take so many shots
so fast (20 RAWs in 2.5 seconds) it's easy to turn it off after a burst unless
you check for the light.

I have just ordered a 4GB Lexar 80X CF card in
addition to the 1GB Lexar 40X CF and 512MB Lexar 24X CF
cards I already have.

The Lexar and Sandisk (Ultra and Extreme) are about as reliable as one can get.
Both come with lifetime replacement warranties and Sandisk will try to recover
any data you might have lost if a card fails (maybe Lexar does this too, not
sure).

We have nine one and two GB cards and the biggest worry I have is losing one
that isn't in the camera ... having one fail during a write isn't that big a
concern to me, so long as I don't pop it from the camera before it has finished
clearing out the write buffer.

Bill

On 12 Nov 2004 05:18:38 GMT, dy (Bill Hilton)
wrote:

From: Brian Stirling

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?

An editor at a magazine who's heavily involved with digital told me that most
CF card fails occur when someone pops the card from the camera while it's still
writing buffered data. I try to not even turn it off until the red light quits
flashing myself ... the Mark II you just got can take 30+ seconds to empty out
10 RAW files, for example and since the camera allows you to take so many shots
so fast (20 RAWs in 2.5 seconds) it's easy to turn it off after a burst unless
you check for the light.

I have just ordered a 4GB Lexar 80X CF card in
addition to the 1GB Lexar 40X CF and 512MB Lexar 24X CF
cards I already have.

The Lexar and Sandisk (Ultra and Extreme) are about as reliable as one can get.
Both come with lifetime replacement warranties and Sandisk will try to recover
any data you might have lost if a card fails (maybe Lexar does this too, not
sure).

We have nine one and two GB cards and the biggest worry I have is losing one
that isn't in the camera ... having one fail during a write isn't that big a
concern to me, so long as I don't pop it from the camera before it has finished
clearing out the write buffer.

Bill



Thanks Bill, I do not at the moment do a lot of action oriented work
so speed is not now my major concern. I can image that during a action
sequence you might be tempted to swap the card out before the camera
has finished writing to it, but once again, having a larger capacity
card would make that less likely. In the 2.5 years I've been shooting
with a DSLR (started with a Nikon D100 then moved to a Canon 1D Mark
II) I do not remember ever pulling a card while it was writing. As I
mentioned earlier, the only problem I've ever had occurred after
downloading to my Nixvue Digital Album then erasing before putting the
card back into the camera without formatting it.

I wonder how many shots the average wedding photographer takes during
a wedding? I would guess that you could fire off over a thousand
shots but then you'd have to review, edit and print more pictures than
the time/price could justify. I would guess a more practical limit to
be more like 500 shots. But, whatever the total is using a higher
capacity card would reduce the odds you'd need to swap the card out at
a sensitive moment.

Later,

Brian

"Brian Stirling" wrote in message
...
1. Has anyone had an outright failure with a CF card that made it
useless from that point on losing all pictures on it?
Once. I was putting the CF card into a card reader in a Fuji Digital Photo
Centre. When I got the card close to the machine a big blue spark of static
electricity leapt from the card to the machine. The card was totally
unreadable from then on (not even detected).
Moral of the story, in dry weather, discharge yourself to ground before
putting a card into a reader.

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?


Thanks,

Brian

"Brian Stirling" wrote in message
...
I've read several threads from photographers that prefer to use many
smaller CF cards than risk losing, say a wedding, if all the pictures
are in a single card and it fails. That got me to wonder just how
many folk have actually had a CF failure and lost some or all of the
pictures on it.

A couple years ago I lost a few pictures on a CF card while at the
Grand Canyon and I later figured it might have had something to do
with the way the card was erased the previous time. My protocol up to
then was to download the pics from a full card to my Nixvue Digital
album. After download I would "verify" the files were copied correctly
and then I'd erase the card in the Digital Album. I changed the
protocol to include an in-camera format of the CF card and have not
lost another picture since then.

So:

1. Has anyone had an outright failure with a CF card that made it
useless from that point on losing all pictures on it?

2. Has anyone had "some" of the pictures lost on a CF card and can
you identify a potential cause?


Thanks,

Brian

I've never had a CF fail in camera use. I always take the card out after
shooting, put it in a reader and transfer the photos to the computer. After
verifying that everything is OK, I put the card back in the camera and
format it. That way, everything starts out clean.

I also use two 64mb CF cards for daily backup of some of my critical files,
such as Quicken data. I did have one of these cards fail once. It just
stopped recording data and would hang. Interestingly enough, the card was
only formatted once when I first got it, and then the data was re-written
daily. I don't know if it would have been better if formatted frequently,
but I have since added a format step in the backup process.

DDDD

Brian Stirling wrote:
I've read several threads from photographers that prefer to use many
smaller CF cards than risk losing, say a wedding, if all the pictures
are in a single card and it fails.
[...]

1. Has anyone had an outright failure with a CF card that made it
useless from that point on losing all pictures on it?

Yes. A Lexar 256MB 40X WA CF card; died completely 2nd day I had it:
would hang XP in the card reader, displayed error "CHA" in my D70 (and
couldn't be formatted in the camera), and couldn't be detected (much
less "repaired" or have the images recovered) by their own "rescue"
software when plugged into the Lexar "USB reader" that came with the card.

Was replaced under RMA.

So my biggest card is 512MB, and I don't expect I'm going to go much
larger than 1GB. What's the largest number of photos of one shoot
you're willing to lose?

Tom


----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---

Brian Stirling wrote:
I've read several threads from photographers that prefer to use many
smaller CF cards than risk losing, say a wedding, if all the pictures
are in a single card and it fails.
[...]

1. Has anyone had an outright failure with a CF card that made it
useless from that point on losing all pictures on it?

Yes. A Lexar 256MB 40X WA CF card; died completely 2nd day I had it:
would hang XP in the card reader, displayed error "CHA" in my D70 (and
couldn't be formatted in the camera), and couldn't be detected (much
less "repaired" or have the images recovered) by their own "rescue"
software when plugged into the Lexar "USB reader" that came with the card.

Was replaced under RMA.

So my biggest card is 512MB, and I don't expect I'm going to go much
larger than 1GB. What's the largest number of photos of one shoot
you're willing to lose?

Tom


----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---