OK, I photographed a sweet little girl last night on my trusty Lexar 80 x Pro CF card. This card has always preformed flawlessly. When I tried to import the photos into Lightroom, The files were "Corrupted or an unreadable format". (!)
I don't get it. I got about ten of 150 shots and nothing else. This was not a paid job, but it easily could have been. I have had this particular card for about two years, so my question is, how often do you throw them out and replace them? I have never had any problem like this before and the prospect of this having been a wedding terrifies me! BTW: This is why none of my cards are over 2 GB, I don't want all my eggs in one basket.
Thanks.

Are you sure it's the card, and not the camera? and not LR? I would try image recovery on the card (I use PhotoRescue). I would also reformat the card and read and write to it on both the computer and the camera to see if it's repeatable.

Yup, Did that. I re formatted the card and shot a new batch, loaded them into LR and everything was fine.

Not to make you paranoid, but I'd be more suspicious of the camera than the card....

Did you try recovery software before writing over it? Or is that how you got the 10 images?

I've used CardRecovery in the past with success too...
My card still worked fine after the fact... but I agree with Bill--do some tests on it before you rely on it again.

Gerald

Once a card fails in a major way that requires computer magic to recover we consider it D-E-D (dead) and take it out of the rotation. Since it's a professional endeavor, why risk using equipment that has failed in the past?

+1

So sorry that happened to you. We mark them and they become personal use only cards. Not that I want to lose any of my personal shots, but it's definitely not as big a deal as losing a clients!

Oh yeah, these things are cheap enough that I will certainly ditch that card, and I believe the camera is fine, I am doing some seniors this week and we will see. I will go play with it today to make sure.. Thanks for the advice..

so just to clarify, you're formatting the card IN the camera right? you know never to format a card with the computer....

I just bought two of those cards and actually went to third shoot a wedding w/some friends. They errored but I only formatted them on my MAC and not my camera. I haven't used them since but plan on using them around the house. I will never use them at a wedding. I was actually able to edit them in bridge but not lightroom.

Another thing to make sure you don't do is delete images on the card from the computer -- especially on a Mac. The .Trashes folder will goof up the card...

If it's a Lexar or SanDisk card you can use the program that came with the card (ImageRescue/RescuePro) and wipe the card out the manufacturer-recommended way.

We're new to the mac world and this post makes me nervous. With the PC we always deleted images on the computer and reformatted in camera. I don't have any of the software that came with our cards - totally ditched it (dumb, I know - but we didn't need it back then.)

So tell me this - with a mac and sandisk cards, how are you supposed to delete the images?

Thanks in advance...
Emily

I had an 80X lexar crap out on me during an e-shoot once. Never used it again. Either the lexar and sandisk software also has some kind of testing program that inspects the entire card for errors. Try that. BTW I have no problem using the sandisk software or lexar cards and vice versa.

In-camera is the best way...

Formatting the card in the camera will do it.

To the OP: You are 100% sure you formatted the card in that camera before you started your session?

I know I have had issues with forgetting to format a card with the 5D when I had previously formatted it on a different camera ... aka, different formats = no good. So, now, every time I put in a CF card, I always format it even if it is clean - only takes a few seconds and I am sure the card is good to go. (Just giving other ideas on what could cause it. Our CF cards are going strong, but only 8 months old atm. They are aData and PQI mostly.)

Yes, I know about that one, I ALWAYS format those things in camera.