HELP, SandiskExtremeIII crash and recovery? technical help wanted....

[leicaM8freak]

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Hello all....

Today after a long trial I took my M8 to some official bussines and took about 40 shots as requested by my neighbors...

 

For them a very important happening.

 

I use (genuine) SanDisk Extreme III cards of 1 Gb...

 

I took about 12 shots at an easy pace, and when the crucial moment arrived I took about 12 shots in a quick sequence, I could review them on my screen...

Taking the last shot it occured to me that the counter still was on 15, and the last 9 shots most important shots were not on the card at all.........................................

 

I alway erase and format my cards in camera before use.. which gives in RAW only mode 93 shots on a blank 1 Gb card ( at least in my M8)

 

 

I tried the with the card supplied Rescue programm, and to my big surprise this came up with about 54 files.

Among those TIFF files of shots that I had taken on previous occasions and were deleted, after which the card was formated.

 

also 9 files of today with a file extension .CUR exactly the files that I am missing...(numbers in sequence with the correct RAW files)

 

Anybody any idea if these can be saved, and in which way? the strange thing is these files vary in size between 15 KB and 2.2 Meg

 

 

Other then that does anybody know what has happened here, I changed the card after I noticed the mishap and all did go well....I did not dare to take shots in a too quick sequence anymore..

__________________

[Roderik]

i only use Lexar now cause i had to much trouble with Sandisk.. also same problem as you mention.. sorry to tell but i did not retrieve them at any way

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Copy them in a safe place than copy them again and try to rename them .dng

[LJL]

The .cur seems to get attached to files that are now listed as "corrupted" in some way. As Guy suggested, make a couple of copies of the files and see if you can try renaming one or two to see if they will open. If not, it might be worth trying something like ImageRescue to see if they are recoverable. I really wish I could be of more help.

 

With respect to what caused this....my suspicion goes right back to the battery and its level of charge reading from its internal chip. I had the exact same thing happen to me (shot images that never showed up to download, but had files there), and it was only when the battery was nearing discharge level, yet still showed several bars on the meter. Others may confirm or refute this, but I have experienced it first hand, and it was beyond annoying, to say the least. Fortunately, I was not shooting anything critical as you were, so I did not feel that I lost anything. I did reformat the card after charging the battery (a Ridata Pro 150x 4GB SD card) and it works fine.

 

While there may be some issues with cards, I still think the major problem is related to the battery/power issue. If you have the files on the SD card, you may be able to recover them. I hope you can. Best of luck.

 

LJ

[leicaM8freak]

Hello Guy, thanks for the tip, but it did not work, files not recognised....I am afraid I will have to disappoint some people..

As if I myself am not enough in that state of mind.

 

Is this a card issue, or a camera issue?

 

I thought to be wise to keep it on the save side by using only Leica recommended cards/sizes (very save size wise 1Gb)

[Guest guy_mancuso]

It could be the card. Try some type of image rescue like LJ mentioned. Not to say the battery may have not caused frying the card at that time may have been writing that burst and lost power to do so. That is very possable

[leicaM8freak]

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LJ thanks for your answer and possible cause...

My batterylevel indicator showed 2 bars.

 

If this should really be the problem, how can I in future prevent this?

 

As far as I believe there " should" be enough power in the battery to enable the " speed" of shots.

 

Or is this issue one of the problems that is going to be tackled in 1.10?

[LJL]

LJ thanks for your answer and possible cause...

My batterylevel indicator showed 2 bars.

 

If this should really be the problem, how can I in future prevent this?

 

As far as I believe there " should" be enough power in the battery to enable the " speed" of shots.

 

Or is this issue one of the problems that is going to be tackled in 1.10?

 

Guy had posted a temporary workaround for the battery level recalibration in several other threads. I think that is a very usable solutio until Leica gets this fixed.

 

As to whether that is a "fix" in v1.10.....that seems to be the indication, and Guy has a bit of insight on this also. Let's hope it is.

 

In the meantime, it might be worth running the files through something like ImageRescue, as it may be able to get the images back. I have not used it since an early verison, and it did work. I know they are up to v. 3.0 now, but you may be able to get v. 2.0 from a shareware site or something. Worth the try for sure. The files are there, from what you have said.....just need to get them unscrambled a bit.

 

LJ

[albertknappmd]

this is very distressing indeed... Has anyone seen this happen with a DMR? Any ideas as to what is going on? I have been pretesting every new SD card but so far all is well. I would return the card for $$$ and use another brand:mad:

[egibaud]

have you tried to delete the extension and leave them with no extension. Then try to import them instead of openning them... not sure this work if they are dng. I had similar problems years ago with files that had wrong extension. I would open a blank image in photoshop and import the files ad Photoshop managed itself in solving my problems.

 

Also try to contact Sandisk, I read an article of a guy who had his sandisk SD cards in water for several hours and they would no longer be readable. He sent them to Sandisk who recued all the files. They seem to have tools other than rescue pro that did not work for this guy either.

 

Good luck,

 

Eric

[Eikonphoto]

Guy had posted a temporary workaround for the battery level recalibration in several other threads. I think that is a very usable solutio until Leica gets this fixed.

 

As to whether that is a "fix" in v1.10.....that seems to be the indication, and Guy has a bit of insight on this also. Let's hope it is.

 

In the meantime, it might be worth running the files through something like ImageRescue, as it may be able to get the images back. I have not used it since an early verison, and it did work. I know they are up to v. 3.0 now, but you may be able to get v. 2.0 from a shareware site or something. Worth the try for sure. The files are there, from what you have said.....just need to get them unscrambled a bit.

 

LJ

sorry to hear about your image issue. I would recommend using one of the professional data recovery services. I had this problem with a card full of a wedding a couple of years ago. It was terrifying. This great company out in CA - cannot remember their name - saved the day, (literally) and were very reasonably priced. Please call some companies like that BEFORE trying some of the off the shelf products. Data recovery is not as expensive at it once was, and worth the price. Good luck!

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Yes there is a bug and it will be fixed in the next version. What it is the camera may not be reading the correct battery level due to a firmware bug. The fix is to reset the camera , basically your rebooting the camera from scrtach. Put the battery in than go to the menu selection look for auto off and disable that so the camera stays on. Now leave on overnight at basically let the camera die and than charge battery fully and than this will reset the camera. You simply may have run out of power when it went to write the the files remember your pushing 10 mgs per shot x 6 or so you said so that was 60 mgs to run through the buffer is a lot of power

[LJL]

Yes there is a bug and it will be fixed in the next version. What it is the camera may not be reading the correct battery level due to a firmware bug. The fix is to reset the camera , basically your rebooting the camera from scrtach. Put the battery in than go to the menu selection look for auto off and disable that so the camera stays on. Now leave on overnight at basically let the camera die and than charge battery fully and than this will reset the camera. You simply may have run out of power when it went to write the the files remember your pushing 10 mgs per shot x 6 or so you said so that was 60 mgs to run through the buffer is a lot of power

 

Guy, check your PMs.....just sent you one.

 

LJ

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Got it , thanks

[Shootist]

Are you sure the card is a REAL SanDisk card? There are tons of fake Extreme 3 Sandisk cards going around.

I have never had this happen with my M8, YET, but have had it happen with my Nikon D200. Along with many other people.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Ed is correct there are some fake cards out there , avoid e-bay folks like the plague on this . i got nailed about a year ago myself with a fake

[barjohn]

While this may not help you on your recovery effort, if you shoot both RAW and JPG you have a better chance of recovering at least one. You pay in reduced sotrage capacity for the redundancy but I would think it to be well worth the cost.