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Memory card issue


hossegor

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I did a shoot yesterday with about 100 photos. When i came i wanted to transfer the DNG files into my MBP. looking into the folder, to my surprise the card did not have the photos from the shoot on it.

 

It is a standard 16MB SD card, has been formatted with the m240 before.

Has anybody ever experienced something like this ? I could review the pics fine in the Leica. This is the first time something like this happened to me, with any cam. very strange.

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Use a card reader and try to import the files into Lightroom, a copy of which comes with the M-240. Failing that, download a file recovery programme and examine the card's content. It might be possible to recover the files even if they are not visible.

 

Try a new memory card of an approved brand and specification.

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thanks for your feedback. i downloaded a freeware file recovery programme for OS X and i was able to recover all files from the shooting. still wondering what caused this, but i will not use this card in the Leica again.

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Are you quite sure your camera was in standby mode or switched off when you took the SD card out? One of the more frequent causes of lost directories is the removal of the storage medium while it was being written on. That's not to say that it must be the cause of your problem, but it's worth a consideration.

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Typical SD card behaviour... :mad:

 

There may be different causes. If the card is removed without properly turning off the camera and waititing for the "card write" light to turn off, then the filesystem may become corrupt.

The problem may also happen if the camera locks up for any reason, as write operations to the card may not have been completed.

 

Then again, the card itself may have hardware problems. This is why professional cameras have 2 card slots and allow saving images to both cards.

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Are you quite sure your camera was in standby mode or switched off when you took the SD card out? One of the more frequent causes of lost directories is the removal of the storage medium while it was being written on. That's not to say that it must be the cause of your problem, but it's worth a consideration.

 

 

yes the camera was switched off when i removed the card.

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I accidentally formatted a card before downloading the files the other day. As it turns out the recovery software is able to recover all images ever shot on the card, scary! Permanently deleting files is more difficult than recovering them :)

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I accidentally formatted a card before downloading the files the other day. As it turns out the recovery software is able to recover all images ever shot on the card, scary! Permanently deleting files is more difficult than recovering them :)

 

 

You have two options to 'format' a memory card. The quick way just removes the file allocation table, which basically just tells the computer/camera where to find the files on the storage device. The longer way involves writing over the files with zeroes so that they no longer exist. (This is the difference one a Leica between 'format - yes' and 'format - overwrite'). However even after zeroing out a storage device it is still theoretically possible to retrieve (parts of) files, which is why there are government/DoD standards recommending multiple pass overwrite formats for true data destruction.

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I took this approach to deleting the data on my storage device:p

It came from an old PC belonging to my wife - I returned the two ultimate disks to her and suggested she bend them in half as a final measure. She was not amused (for those who have not been through this exercise, they are VERY tough).

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I put the disks in a vice and hit them with a hammer, while wearing goggles. The shards really do coming flying off when the discs bend. I have two to do today from my FreeCom Databank, which failed. As the data was striped between the two hard discs, I was unable to recover it by putting the hard discs in another hard disc bay. Luckily I had double backed up all the image data to another hard disc, after a previous bad experience.

 

I am going to have to go and buy another external 1TB HD today. I am wondering whether to get an SSD one, now the prices are far more reasonable. I have no data as to the failure rate on SSD's as opposed to rotating hard discs. I have bought FreeCom external hard discs for the last few years, on the basis that they seemed well made and claim to use "server grade" hard discs. The ones I have taken out of the DataTank, look like regular Samsung 7200 RPM ones to me. I avoid Western Digital discs as the failure rate on those over the years has been high. In my actual computers, I normally use top of the range Seagate or Hitachi. My internet is not fast enough to use Cloud back up with an upload speed of only around 35 kilobytes/sec.

 

Wilson

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I have no data as to the failure rate on SSD's as opposed to rotating hard discs.

 

SSD drives are resistant to hard mechanical stress, and this is a good enough reason to use them, especially on laptops and office computers.

The only problem with SSD drives is write-wear, but this should have been much improved in newer SSD generations.

 

There are two basic types of SSD drives: MLC and SLC. The SLC are much more expensive, but more resistant to write-wear.

 

In any case, I never had issues with SSD even on production servers (logging several hundreds MB of data to disk every day) on good MLC drives for years.

 

However, a SSD drive can fail, especially if it is an el-cheapo one. Select a reliable brand, and always - always - always implement proper redundancy (RAID and/or backups).

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The prices for SSD were higher than I expected. About £400 or more for a 1TB of a reputable make (SanDisk, OMC etc). This is close to 10X the price for a rotating disc. I might still be cheaper getting a four rotating disc housing with 1.5TB discs and using it with RAID 5.0 or whatever the current fashion is. The problem arises when the housing dies like it did for my DataTank. You are then left with 4 unreadable hard discs.

 

Wilson

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