Utility to Fix Compact Flash Card

[mel]

This may be hopeless, but I have a compact flash card that somehow got corrupted. The card is formatted to run in my Canon Digital SLR. I have used it for about 2 years to take pictures. I always reformat the card after I download the pics. A few days ago a bunch of photos I shot with the camera could/can not be read after I load the card with a reader into my 2 Macs. I get corrupted file messages on many of the photo icon files.

I tried fixing the card using Apple's Disk Utility tool to no avail. I also ran Disk Warrior. Disk Warrior does not even see the card, while the less than able Disk Utility can.

Anyone know of an Apple OSX utility that can be used to fix a compact flash or any other flash memory card? Or flash drive for that matter. An all in one solution would be nice in case I have problems with a thumb drive or Sony memory stick.

And to enhance the discussion, for Windows users, anything available on your side?

[jkpescador]

Re: Utility to Fix Compact Flash Card

SanDisk comes with a utility CD.

[helen]

Re: Utility to Fix Compact Flash Card

Is the card reader on your Macintosh an external device or something that is mounted on your Macintosh?

Also for the CompactFlash card if you put back to the camera can you see the images on that card?

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Utility to Fix Compact Flash Card

I've had good luck with this Windows utility:

http://www.pcinspector.de/download.a...#file_recovery

[gchun]

Re: Utility to Fix Compact Flash Card

Mel-

If your camera can still recognize the card, can you load your images directly from your camera thru a usb cable? (instead of using the card reader)?

If not, can you find another digital camera w/usb cable to pull off your images?

Or, can you find another flash carder reader to use? Perhaps even on a different computer.

My reasoning: I just had the same problem with a flash recorder (audio). After a lot of fuss, I found out my card reader was bad. I pulled off my files directly from the flash recorder via usb, then bought new flash card reader.

Good luck,
Garry

[adrian]

Re: Utility to Fix Compact Flash Card

I don't know if it can, but we have a program at work that can recover files. It hasn't been used on a flash card, so I don't know if it'll work (and I forgot the name of the software, then I'd google it.)

EDIT: here's a program for windows that can be used to recover files from flash memory.

[mel]

Re: Utility to Fix Compact Flash Card

Guys, thanks for all the suggestions. I posted this message at the other board and Blaine suggested I look at MacUpdate.com. I did a search there under "bad flash memory" which yielded several Mac utility programs and stuff for well, Adobe flash files.

After downloading a few, I found one that worked.

CARD RAIDER.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23522/cardraider

Description:

CardRaider... You have found the easiest and most affordable way to recover lost photos from your digital camera, memory card or thumb drive. CardRaider's familiar Mac OS X interface makes it simple to detect and unerase lost pictures. Instant electronic order fulfillment means that your photos will be recovered within the next five minutes, and our free demo will let you try before you buy. Just one click and watch your photos come back like magic. Find the ones you're looking for and quickly recover to your computer, or send directly to iPhoto.

Anyway, I recovered all of the photos I needed. And then some. The program could even recover photos that I had long ago on purpose deleted from the card too, and thought I had overridden them with newer photos. The card which is a 1 GB Compact Flash card had 253 photos on it at the time of recovery. It can hold about 320 or so pics on it at full 6MP resolution (my camera's maximum pixel size).

The program has a clean wipe function which can fully erase the contents of the card. Haven't tried it but I will before I reuse the card again.

I suspected the corruption occurred somewhere between transfer between the camera and my iBook laptop. I think in my haste to quickly get the photos I needed, I pulled the card out of the iBook and inserted it back into the camera without properly ejecting it from the iBook's desktop.

After I shot the pictures, and after the people left... I discovered the files were corrupted as they could not be seen in the iBook nor the camera (Canon Digital Rebel) which gave me an error code.

I brought the card home and tried to see if it worked in another card reader using my Power Mac G4. It could see some files but not the ones I needed.

I downloaded the Card Raider program, tried it in demo mode which recovered logomarked thumbnail versions of the pictures I wanted. I had to spring for the full version, so I paid them the $20 SW fee online and this allowed me to download the full version, which recovered and allowed me to save the full resolution photos.

Am I happy? Yes.

If you are a Mac OSX user and run into this problem, at this time I highly recommend Card Raider.

I am sure the Windows utilities mentioned in this thread work for users of PCs.