# CF card issues



## benmossm (Mar 10, 2008)

Hardware:

16GB Acumen 433x CF Card
Sandisk Card Read
Canon 5D Mark II

I plug in the reader, load up the the card, all the photos (RAW+JPG) look fine. I then copy them to either my internal drive or an external drive by dragging and dropping or using Beyond Compare. When I go to look at the copied files they will randomly show up corrupt. Either when I open the image it's all different colours or distorted, or it just won't open it at all stating its in a different place, corrupt, or too large.

I don't think it's the CF card, since the images appear fine on there and can be read and opened without issue. Any suggestions as to where the problem lies?

Thanks.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

benmossm said:


> Hardware:
> 
> 16GB Acumen 433x CF Card
> Sandisk Card Read
> ...


Appear fine means what? The thumbnails look ok, or you can open the file directly from the card with Photoshop or other editor and they are good?
If the latter, what happens if you Save As.. from Photoshop to the hard drive?


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## benmossm (Mar 10, 2008)

I can open photos from the CF card in Preview and xnview. Haven't tried Photoshop yet or editing them.

I'll try saving them out and see what happens. The problem is that it seems to be random when things copy corrupt. I'll need to test on multiple files. 

The last copy I tried out of about 175 pictures there were around 15 corrupted (RAW+JPG)


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

Try GraphicConverter, You can resave the images and then they won't be corrupt anymore.
Most likely it's a desktop corruption that is causing the problem.

You can't rebuild the desktop on the card.
Except maybe by reformatting the card in your camera.


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## benmossm (Mar 10, 2008)

What do you mean by desktop corruption?


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

benmossm said:


> What do you mean by desktop corruption?


Reformatting the card would get rid of it.
I've had it happen before with some old Kodak cards.


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## benmossm (Mar 10, 2008)

SO.

I've tried exporting some of the files (RAW and JPG) off the CF card and they exported fine.

I went back and found some of the corrupt ones from the last copy I tried and opened them in Photoshop instead; it came up saying "SOFn, DQT, or DHT JPEG marker is missing before a JPEG SOS marker". Ring any bells in peoples minds? This is super frustrating as its just started to happen out of nowhere...


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## julian_photo (May 4, 2006)

It sounds like the card is going bad to me. I never seen this error but i've seen card die out of no place and other weird issues


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Do you erase images or format the card using your computer? Do you just erase some images rather than reformatting the card? If so recover as many images as possible, then reformat the card using the camera.

If you periodically download all the images then re-format the card in the camera, your problem is either a card that is going bad, or a tendency to keep taking pictures when the battery pack is somewhat depleted.


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## benmossm (Mar 10, 2008)

The process is usually shoot the card until its full or the end of the day and dump the whole thing and format in camera.

I'm thinking it's the card now as I've tried a few of my other CF cards with hundreds of photos taken today and there appears to be no issue.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

benmossm said:


> The process is usually shoot the card until its full or the end of the day and dump the whole thing and format in camera.
> 
> I'm thinking it's the card now as I've tried a few of my other CF cards with hundreds of photos taken today and there appears to be no issue.


Sounds like you are not doing anything that would tend to cause corrupt images. Since this is the only card giving you any difficulty I would demand early retirement with no pension.


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## benmossm (Mar 10, 2008)

Agreed! It's a few years old anyway, could probably do with a faster/larger one!


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

I tend to exercise my cards,
I don't let them get up to their full capacity.

It's like filling up a hard drive, Something has to give,
In your case it appears that the camera is compensating and eliminating data to fill the card.

Your camera is probably needing more processing space than you are allowing it when you fill the card.


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## julian_photo (May 4, 2006)

I think its really just the card going bad, it happens. I really don't think filling up the card to full will cause any issues. At least i've never seen it be a problem


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