SD HC Card Problem

[bmpress]

I am using a 16GB SD HC card in a Canon S95 camera. It has been working until today. The camera shows me the pictures on the card. When I put the card into the USB reader, Windows 7 says it must be formatted before it can be used. Putting the card back into the camera, the pictures are still viewable. So I decided to format the card in-camera. It worked and the card had no more images. Then I put the card into the computer and the error message remained. Then I tried to format the card in the computer. It could not be done.

Finally, I reinserted the card into the camera and it did take new pictures, but as before, they could not be off-loaded onto my PC.

Any idea of what is going on here, Bob?

[Bob Atkins]

My guess is either there's a hardware problem with the card or there's a software issue that isn't being cleared by high level formatting (or even the PC low level formatting).

You could try this formatting utility:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/

If there's some formatting issue that may clear it up. It's specifically designed for SD(HC) cards

[bmpress]

Thanks, Bob. Last time I had a card issue it turned out to be a defective USB reader. Now I understand the usefulness of having two card slots in a camera. It seems that there are several current problems with cards, cameras and readers.
1. Lots of bad, counterfeit cards for sale in the net.
2. Some bad readers that slowly fail and don't import all of the image files.
3. Careless withdrawal of cards before camera is turned fully off.

Barry

[Bob Atkins]

The is certainly an issue with counterfeit cards, especially when buying off eBay from semi-anomymous sellers. I've bought all my cards from reputable vendors like Adorama and I've yet to have a problem related to a counterfeit card. I have had one card fail after a year or so, but it was genuine and replaced by the manufacturer. Cards often go on "special", particularly cards that are no longer "cutting edge" in terms of capacity or speed, so you may not really save any money via eBay anyway.

I've not yet had a reader fail, but I have 3 or 4 of them around so I guess if one did start to give me problems I have others to check it against. Again, name brands can't hurt. I use a Sandisk CF card reader for my CF cards and a Transcend SD(HC) reader for my SD(HC) cards. I also have a "universal" generic card reader that reads just about anything, plus readers built into my PCs. The dedicated Sandisk CF and Transcend SD(HC) readers are by far the fastest and so far 100% reliable.

I'm guilt of pulling cards without the camera being turned off. Never yet had a problem, but I guess it could happen. Even worse would be to pull a card which was still being written to (i.e. if the buffer is still transferring data to the card). Some cameras allow that, others cut the power when the door is opened (though even cutting power during a write could lead to problems).

[bmpress]

Turned out that my card was bad. Thanks for your comments, Bob.