HELP NEEDED .. I think my M9 just destroyed my SD card

[brownbagboy]

Ok so here's the quick story:

I only brought one SD card with me on my trip to HK. On the second day, I was just down to 69 shots left in my primary SD card. Knowing that I was going to be bringing my son to Ocean Park the next day, I knew my SD card wasn't going to be enough. I proceeded to the Leica store in Harbor City to get myself a new 8MB card.

While there, the attentive staff sold me an 8MB Extreme SD card. My primary card was 90MB/s. The one he sold me was only 30MB/s. While not ideal, I thought that it should still be ok since it was a Leica store that sold me the SD card.

The next day comes by and I am on fire on my M9. I take pics throughout the day and do my fair share of chimping at some of my favorite shots! I am down to about 60 shots at the end of the day when I decide to take a pic of my wife and son in the subway. Strangely, after taking that shot, the preview of that particular pic does;t come up on the screen. Worse, that pic AND ALL THE OTHER PICS I TOOK THAT DAY are no longer accessible for preview on my M9. I can't even access the main menu.

Strangely, the info menu still works. I checked the info menu on my camera and all of a sudden it says that my SD card no longer has any space left on it!

Nightmare cut short, I arrived back home today and one of the first things I did was to check on my SD card. My computer can't even "see" the card. I tried to put the card in another camera and I get a prompt asking me to insert an SD card. NOT GOOD AT ALL!!!

Has this ever happened to anyone here? What did you do?

Did I just lose all the pictures I took that day? Is there any way for me to recover the data in my SD card? I tried using the SanDisk recovery program but I can't recover anything from my SD card if my computer can't even "see" it! :s Duh!

Please help... it would suck to lose all my memories with my wife and son that day just because of an SD card that I HAPPENED TO BUY AT A GENUINE LEICA STORE! Such bad taste!

 

[lordpain]

Well, firstly, Leica or not, sh!t happens - just stay calm. I dont have an M9, but Ive had the same experiences during assignments with my canon cameras. This is probably just a case of a corrupt memory card, it happens occasionally, and there are ways to fix it if it is not too major.

Here is a link that might be useful to you:

SD Card Data Recovery: How to Recover Files from SD Card

I personally use a software called CardRecovery, but I believe I paid for it so I googled for a freebie. Hope it works for you.

 

[Anxin]

Your SD card is corrupted. Not that uncommon for M9.

While some of the free download photo recovery/rescue programmes might work (if you are very lucky), they won't most of the time! Worse still, if you run thru these recovery program unsuccessfully, it may make subsequent recovery attempt impossible. So be very careful.

My advice is to get this powerful rescue program called Stellar Phoenix (available in windows or Mac version). You can try using it first (link is HERE. The trial program allows you to see your lost photos but only the paid-version lets you recover those lost/corrupted images. It is US$39. I had used it a few times before to save very important family photos with this program. Need to pay, not the fastest, but the most effective.

Good luck.

anxin

 

[magicianhisoka]

I had a card lockup like that before. Try viewing it on a mac.

 

[oracle0711]

Depends which brand of SD card you bought, some of them will come with card recovery software. Sandisk's Rescue pro comes free when you buy authentic card. It works most of the time for as long as the existing sector that contains data has not be overwritten or beyond repair. I doubt it has anything to do with the camera, things just happen as with any electronic products. I got my fair share of experiences when covering commercial assignments. Good thing rescue pro was able to recover those files. Afterwhich, i stick to camera bodies that allow the use of dual card such that I write to both cards simultaneously. If things still go wrong, it really means I am down of luck and I will just head to the nearest 4D outlet ...

 

[brownbagboy]

Hey guys thanks so much for the advice and encouragement! How do I get the computer to save the pics in my corrupted SD card when my computer can't even recognize the SD card when I connect it to the computer using the card reader? The computer can't seem to tell that I already inserted the SD card into the card reader

 

[brownbagboy]

Your SD card is corrupted. Not that uncommon for M9.

While some of the free download photo recovery/rescue programmes might work (if you are very lucky), they won't most of the time! Worse still, if you run thru these recovery program unsuccessfully, it may make subsequent recovery attempt impossible. So be very careful.

My advice is to get this powerful rescue program called Stellar Phoenix (available in windows or Mac version). You can try using it first (link is HERE. The trial program allows you to see your lost photos but only the paid-version lets you recover those lost/corrupted images. It is US$39. I had used it a few times before to save very important family photos with this program. Need to pay, not the fastest, but the most effective.

Good luck.

anxin

Would you know if there's a version of this software available already for Mac's? I'm using a mac :s

 

[Anxin]

Would you know if there's a version of this software available already for Mac's? I'm using a mac :s

You can get a free trial version of the Stellar Phoenix for Mac HERE. Try using it and see if you could see your lost images (and then you can decide what to do ).

Cheers,

 

[brownbagboy]

Thanks A LOT Anxin! Downloading now! I'll let you know how things come along

 

[sequitur]

Borrow someone's Mac to load/read it. The problem is some (or all) of the files may become 0kb. You need to use recovery software to get back whatever you wish.

Anyway, M9's read/write speed is only about 16mb/s so there's no point in getting a 90mb/s card or whatever, because it's the limitations of the camera.

Also, I've learnt to simply not chimp on the M9. I've had cards lock up severely when there's excess reviewing and zooming in and out of the images. Don't review unless necessary, and the problems never came back.

For the record, I was doing the reviewing and zooming in because I was checking for dust after doing sensor cleaning... but oh well. Good that it wasn't an actual occurrence when I was out shooting.

 

[brownbagboy]

Fair point on the chimping! It really does help and I have been more disciplined in comparison to when i first started since I'm really learning to trust my own skill level and the camera more!

I am on a Mac btw ... but no files show up... it appears like there are no files at all in the sd card ... I can't redirect the recovery software either to the sd card since my computer can't even "see" the sd card

 

[Anxin]

While your SD card is not detected by your Mac, your image files are still there (provided you had not formatted nor "write" anything to it.) Just that the disk/file headers (like address) were corrupted. There are ways/tools to detect it but it can be technically complicated (one of them is SystemRescueCD, not Mac-based tho).

There are professional service available to recover lost phots but that aint cheap. Well it all depends on how important are those images to you, I supposed.

 

[brownbagboy]

luckily I did not format or overwrite the card!! Yes they're important !! Can you point me to someone who can do it for me?

 

[Anxin]

luckily I did not format or overwrite the card!! Yes they're important !! Can you point me to someone who can do it for me?

Can google "Data Recovery SG". One of them can be found HERE.

 

[rain5533]

Look like is bought the duplicate product of Sandisk, if you have format before using maybe is quite safe.

This is just depend your luck

 

[CanonG]

If the card is damaged, no consumer software can retrieve the photo. Spoken from someone who had their 4 mth old SD spoiled.

You can try to visit the SLS i think basement, not very sure... There are shops that do data recovery. If they quote $30-$200, chances are you can do it yourself by downloading software to repair it. If they quote above $1000-$3000, the card itself is damaged.

If card is damaged, you should still have warranty for your card. Contact the manufacturers, make big fuss, slam table and see if they can see if they can retrieve the photos for you. lol

I didnt slam table but they managed to do a data recovery on my sd card and issued me a new one.

 

[brownbagboy]

Canon thanks for the advice!! I will do some table slamming!!

 

[zixaw]

As a note, the M9 has a really ancient SD card reader/writer, it is capped at a really really low speed, somewhere in the region of 20MB/s. Anything faster won't work well at best and in worst case scenarios will fail if you have older firmware loaded. Having said that, they did try to fix compatibility issues with a couple of patches but I still find the lower rated SDHC cards actually work at a higher speed than the higher specced SDXC cards.

 

[CanonG]

BTW, even you formated, they can dig up photos from long long time ago. I had photos taken half a year ago retrieved from my SD card.

Make sure you are not the 2nd Edison Chen.

luckily I did not format or overwrite the card!! Yes they're important !! Can you point me to someone who can do it for me?

 

[brownbagboy]

Leica Germany has replied to my email and they will try and recover my photos for me woohoo